8. Hudson
Hudson
The phone rang and for one second, I didn’t move but watched Mary squirm from telling the truth. A truth she couldn’t take back.
Her body was still soft with exhaustion, tucked between Lincoln and me on the bed. Our clothes were tangled in the sheets. Her hair lay in dark waves over Lincoln’s chest. The scent of her heat had faded from feral to warm, violet tucked under blackberry, whiskey and rain.
Damien’s name had lit the phone again. I knew because only he was assigned that tune.
Mary pulled the sheet higher. “Is that business?”
“No,” I said.
Lincoln’s gaze met mine over the top of her head.
The phone stopped, then started again.
Damien rarely called me twice unless something was wrong or he wanted money and pretended he wanted to talk to me was the way to get it.
I reached for the phone.
Mary’s fingers tightened in the sheet.
“You don’t have to stay quiet,” I told her.
“I wasn’t planning a musical number. I’m still recovering and my throat is tender. But if you want privacy, I’ll leave.”
“This is your room.”
That silenced her.
Not for long, probably. Mary seemed opposed to silence, but the words landed. Her eyes softened in a way she tried to hide by looking down at the sheet.
I answered before the call could drop again. “Damien.”
“Dad?”
His voice was wrong. He sounded frightened.
I sat up straighter. Lincoln did the same. “What happened?”
“I can’t find her.”
My attention narrowed at once. “Find who?”
“My girlfriend.”
The sheet stopped moving under Mary’s fingers.
“When did you last see her?” I asked.
“A couple of days ago. On campus. We had a fight.”
“Two days,” I repeated.
“I thought she was ignoring me. I thought she’d cool off and answer my calls.”
Mary’s throat moved.
I kept my voice even. “How bad was the fight?”
“It was just a fight, and she overreacted.”
“Damien. What did you do?”
He sighed. “I said something stupid.”
“That narrows nothing.” I turned and looked at Lincoln and shook my head.
“Have you called her?” I asked.
“Yes. She’s not answering. I think she blocked me.”
Lincoln blew out a breath. “Have you checked her dorm?”
“Yes, have you checked her dorm?” I repeated to make sure he heard.
“Her roommate hasn’t seen her. But I think she is lying.”
“Why would she lie to you?”
Damien hesitated for a moment. “Because she is angry with me.”
“Why? Did you cheat on her?” I asked.
Damien said nothing, which told me too much.
“Damien. Answer me.”
“She’s an omega, Dad, and I fucked up. She went to the clinic by herself, but I don’t know which one and she’s alone. And you just keep asking what I did.”
Mary’s scent shifted as the violet folded inward and the rain sharpened.
“Call all the clinics,” I said. “Then call campus security. And if you think she’s in danger, call the police and tell them she’s missing.”
“I don’t know if they’ll take me seriously.”
I pushed my hands through my hair. “They’ll take a missing omega seriously if you tell them she’s going into heat.”
“She was acting strange,” Damien said. “Flushed. Angry. I asked if she was going into heat, and she lost it.”
Mary’s eyes opened.
Lincoln inhaled slowly.
“Why did she lose it?” I asked.
“Because we were fighting.”
“About?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
Damien made a frustrated sound. “She saw me talking to someone.”
Mary gave a tiny, humorless laugh.
“Talking,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
“Was that all?”
“Dad.”
“Was that all?”
Another silence.
My son had always hated being cornered by direct questions. As a child, he had tried charm first, indignation second, injury third. It had worked often enough with his mother that he’d mistaken it for genius. It had rarely worked with me.
“Nothing happened,” he said.
Mary’s gaze lifted to mine.
“What’s your girlfriend’s name?” I asked, staring at her.
Mary’s mouth tightened. She stopped breathing.
“What?” Damien asked.
“Her name.”
“Why?”
“Because if you want me to help you find her, I need to know who I’m looking for.”
Mary’s lips parted.
For the first time since she’d knocked on our door, she looked young in a way that had nothing to do with age.
“What’s she called?” I asked.
Mary’s expression changed. Not fear now, but recognition of the cliff edge.
Damien exhaled hard. “Marli.”
Mary closed her eyes for one beat.
I did too.
“Thank God for that,” I whispered.
Mary’s fingers dug into the sheet and her face went as white as the fabric. Lincoln’s gaze cut to mine.
“Call every clinic,” I said. “And if she contacts you, don’t shout at her. Don’t accuse her. Don’t make her manage your feelings while she’s trying to manage her heat.”
Damien swore under his breath. “Fine.”
“And Damien?”
“What?”
“If the fight was your fault, say so when you find her.”
“You don’t even know what happened.”
“I know you well enough.”
He said nothing.
For a moment, I heard him breathing through a phone held somewhere in Boston. My son. Our son. The boy Lincoln had taught to tape a hockey stick at the kitchen counter.
“Call me when you know she’s safe,” I said.
“Yeah.”
The call ended.
No one spoke as I set the phone face down on the bedside table.
Mary was already moving. She pushed the sheet back, or tried to. Lincoln caught the edge before she could get tangled.
“Don’t,” he said.
Her face snapped toward him. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t run while your legs are shaking.”
“My legs are none of your business.”
“They were very much my business when they were wrapped around my neck.”
Color flashed across her face. “That’s not helpful.”
“It wasn’t meant to be helpful. It was meant to slow you down.”
“I don’t want to be slowed down.”
“I know.”
His voice stayed warm, and that was why she didn’t break against it.
I moved off the bed and picked up the robe from the floor, then held it out. “Mary.”
She looked at the robe. Then at me. “My name is Marli. Or at least, that’s what Damien knows me as.”
The age lie sounded easier now. “No,” I said gently. “It isn’t.”
Her eyes glittered. “It was another lie for you, this time it was the one I gave your son.”
Lincoln sat up behind her, sheet low over his hips, one hand still open near her but not touching. “Mary, we need the truth.”
“I’m trying to give it to you.” Her laugh was small and sharp. “Yet you seem to be collecting it efficiently without me.”
“Did you know who we were?” Lincoln asked.
She looked from me to Lincoln, horror spreading across her face. “No. He said his fathers were in England, not Boston.”
“We live in London,” I said. “We came to Boston for work. But we used to live here for a while.”
Her eyes lowered to the floor. “I can’t do this.”
“What a mess,” Lincoln said, and the words came out rougher than mine would have.
Mary flinched.
He softened immediately. “No, love. Not you. Not us. The situation is a mess.”
She shook her head.
I hated Damien then. Unfairly, perhaps. He hadn’t made us open the door, or made Mary cross the hallway, or made scent answer scent in a room neither Lincoln nor I had wanted to leave. But she was here because he’d been careless with her first. And now she was looking at herself like a crime.
“Listen to me,” I said.
Her laugh came back, brittle but lovely. “Listening got me into my ex-boyfriend’s dads bed.”
Lincoln huffed once, barely a laugh.
“I didn’t know who you were, I promise.” Mary’s mouth trembled before she controlled it. Which was good because she was still fighting.
I held the robe open but didn’t approach her. “It makes sense because Damien never mentioned a girlfriend.”
“I’m not surprised. He tried to keep me a secret from everyone.” Her words sounded so sad now.
“And you didn’t know who we were. You were in heat, in pain, and you came to us by choice. We asked. You answered. We’d do it again.”
Her eyes filled, which she almost poked out her eyes trying to stop. “I’m twenty-one,” she said.
Lincoln answered, “We know.”
“I’m a student who lied to you a lot. I’d understand if you didn’t believe me.”
“We do.”
Her chin lifted. “You don’t have to sound so calm about it.”
Lincoln made a low sound. “We don’t want to scare you.”
Mary’s gaze darted to him, then back to me. “I can’t believe you’re his fathers.”
She closed her eyes as her shoulders shook. My heart hurt because she looked like she might shatter from the simple effort of holding herself upright.
I draped the robe around her shoulders, careful not to touch more than necessary. She grabbed the edges and pulled it closed.
“I need to go,” she said.
The beginning of the end, then.
Not the end of wanting her. But reality had found us, and it had my son’s voice. She wasn’t telling us it was over. She was walking away.
“You need to eat first,” I said.
Mary stared at me. “Are you insane?”
“Possibly. But you still need to eat.”
“I’ve just discovered I slept with my ex-boyfriend’s fathers.” She swallowed. “Oh God. Maeve will kill me.”
Lincoln winced. “When you say it like that.”
“How else would you like me to say it? I had a robust interpersonal misunderstanding with the senior branch of my boyfriend’s family?”
I nearly smiled. I would have if she called him her ex again.
Lincoln reached for the water bottle and held it out. “Drink.”
“Is it holy water because I need a priest, a lawyer, a time machine, and possibly a new country to hide in?”
“Bottled water first,” I said.
“You two are unbearable.”
“Yes,” Lincoln said.
Her hand shook when she took the bottle and drank while I sat on the edge of the bed, leaving space between us.
“It’s a family trait, apparently.” The words landed, but regret flashed over her face immediately. “I didn’t mean...”
“You did.”
She looked down.
I made my voice softer. “It doesn’t make it untrue.”
Lincoln set the plate aside. “Damien has work to do.”
“So do I,” Mary said.
“Aye,” he said.
She curled her fingers around the robe. “I can’t stay here.”
I wanted to say yes, you can. I wanted to say this is already your room, your bed, your nest, your place between us. I wanted her too much. But I gave her the only thing safer than wanting. I gave her a choice.
“Then we’ll take you back to your room,” I said.
“I can do this alone.” Her gaze shot to mine. Her eyes were now bright and wounded, and my own heart moved toward her with the quiet certainty of a door closing behind me.
The old wound had been the worst thing that ever happened to this pack. It had just been replaced.
She swallowed. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
“No,” I said. “We need to speak to Damien, but we need your number.”
She stared at me. Then the corner of her mouth moved, weak but real. “I’ll send you a text with it.”
Lincoln smiled as Mary looked between us, wrapped in the robe, sitting in a nest she’d denied building.
Then my phone buzzed again with Damien’s name on the screen.
Mary’s smile vanished.
I turned the phone face down.