10. Lincoln
Lincoln
Four weeks after Mary walked out of our hotel room, I still smelled violet in places it had no right to be.
I could’ve blamed the detergent, or I could’ve told myself scent lingered in fabric and memory because brains were stupid things.
But this wasn’t any of that.
I smelled violet in the London office while I was signing documents.
Then it happened in the car when rain hit the windscreen.
Then at three in the morning, waking me from my dream.
But the first time I smelled violet was in that Boston bar, I’d not stopped smelling it since.
It was her, Mary, and now it was me…and Hudson.
We smelled like her.
I stood by the office window and watched the streets of London as I smelled her. Silver light slid over the glass buildings opposite. Traffic moved below.
Our office was all clean lines and dark wood. Hudson liked it because it made people trust us. I liked it because the coffee machine was good.
I strolled to Hudson’s office. He sat at his desk with three contracts open in front of him.
“We should be in Boston,” I said.
His eyes lifted and he closed the contract. “You said she’s too young.”
“I said many things that I’ve changed my mind on. She’s Damien’s ex. She’s a student. She’s young, but why can’t I forget her?”
“Lincoln.” Hudson leaned back in his chair. He looked tired in a way few people would notice. His hair was still neat, his suit still pressed, but there were now faint shadows under his eyes. “You also said that age is just a number.”
I laughed before I could stop myself. “It is when the age is similar. But nineteen years.”
Hudson corrected me, “Eighteen. I’m thirty-nine.”
I laughed. “And you’re still clinging to the wreckage.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
I sighed as I pulled out a chair. “I’m forty, Hud. Forty. I’ve got injuries older than her.”
“That’s not relevant.”
“It feels bloody relevant when I think about her waking up one day and realizing she’s tied herself to two men who remember dial-up internet.”
One side of his mouth lifted despite everything. “The good old days.”
“Now you’re making me feel old,” I said.
He stood and came around the desk, one hand in his pocket. Controlled, of course. Hudson could look controlled in a building collapse. “Do you think she’ll never age?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Do you think she’s foolish?”
“No.”
“Then don’t make her choice for her before she’s even been allowed to make one. I think we should go to Boston as planned.” The words hit where he meant them to.
Mary had chosen us in heat. That was the argument I reached for whenever I wanted to be honorable and miserable at the same time. She’d chosen us in her pain. Yes, her body was not making too much sense, but she still came to our room on her own legs.
She said yes when we asked, and yes again when we asked harder, and afterward she laughed in our bed making the universe tilt.
“She won’t want someone in his forties forever,” I said.
Hudson’s voice came quietly behind me. “We’re talking about forever?”
I turned. “Aren’t you?”
He held my gaze. There was no amusement now. Just the truth sitting between us, patient and dangerous.
“Did you smell her?” I asked.
His scent changed. “Of course.”
“Then don’t ask stupid questions.”
He looked away first.
That scared me more than if he’d argued.
I stood and crossed to the low cabinet where I poured water because it was too early for whiskey and because Hudson would judge me with his eyebrows. “She had four scents.”
“It turns out that so do we. Her violet opened our secret scent.”
“That’s my point. She never spoke about it. Did she know but chose not to acknowledge it because we’re the ones who are too old for her?”
“I’ve thought about that.”
“Matching one note is common. Lots of packs have alphas who don’t share scents but have one that matches their omega. Then, some would say two matching scents are serious. But three matching notes is what gets people whispering about fate like they’ve read too many old omega myths. But four?”
Hudson rubbed his thumb along the edge of the desk. “Four is almost impossible.”
“Almost.”
“And the violet,” he said.
My hand tightened around the glass.
The violet again. The one note neither of us could explain away.
“That’s never happened before,” I said. “I’ve never smelled violet on me. Never smelled it on you. Never smelled it on an omega.”
“It wasn’t perfume.”
“I know it wasn’t perfume.”
“You said perfume at first.”
“I lied to myself. I’m allowed to have hobbies.”
His mouth softened into a smile.
I took a sip of the water and barely tasted it. “What is it?”
“I’ve heard people call it the hidden scent of a match.”
“People?”
“Older pack doctors. Omegas who believe in the old terms. Fated mates.”
The words should’ve sounded ridiculous in a glass office above London traffic.
They didn’t. They sounded like a door opening somewhere neither of us had meant to go.
“Fated mates,” I repeated.
Hudson said,. “That’s a bit dramatic.”
“So is smelling a woman four weeks after we leave the country.”
He came to stand beside me. For a while, we watched rain gather on the window, distort the city, and run down in thin silver lines.
“Are we that bothered that she’s twenty-one?” I asked.
Hudson exhaled slowly. “Yes.”
“Are we bothered enough to stay away?” I asked.
He didn’t answer quickly and that frightened me. I didn’t care for the pause either.
“What if she thinks we’re too old?” I said.
“Then we’ll accept it.”
“Will we?”
“We’ll have to.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
A muscle moved in his cheek. “No. I don’t know if I’ll accept it gracefully. I’ll accept it because she gets to choose, but I don’t know if there’ll be anything graceful about it.”
The honesty settled between us, heavy and clean.
I leaned my shoulder against the glass. “So should we go to Boston?”
“We already have the conference follow-up.”
“That’s not what I asked either.”
His gaze slid to mine. “Damien,” he said.
One word, and there was our son. Our difficult, frightened, selfish, wounded son.
“We need to see him,” Hudson said.
I closed my eyes. “We need to tell him.”
The violet came back.
One week later, we were in Boston. We were later than we told Mary we’d be there, but we were there.
As much as I wanted to find Mary first, we went to Damien because Hudson was right.
Being a father meant dealing with the difficult things even when every alpha instinct in your body wanted to run after the omega who’d been haunting your sleep.
Damien’s fraternity house sat on a street lined with half-bare trees and cars parked badly. It was a brown brick building with a peeling front step, the lingering smell of beer and bleach, and the scent of young men who preferred to spend money on beer rather than deodorant.
“I hate what we’re about to do,” Hudson said as he stared ahead.
“Being a father.”
“Being the man who shouldn’t want his son’s ex.”
I smiled and opened the car door.
Then I smelled her. It wasn’t strong, unlike the hotel room. Not the heat-sweet and overwhelming scent of those nights. Now it was just a thread of blackberry, rain, and the faintest smell of violet in the cold air.
I turned so fast in the direction of the scent. Across the road, a female stepped off the curb with her head down and her dark wavy hair loose around her face. She wore a long coat, one hand tucked around the strap of her bag, and she moved like someone trying not to be seen.
My whole body moved toward her.
“Lincoln,” Hudson said.
“That’s her.”
Hudson stared at the figure as she turned a corner. “It is. Follow her.”
“What about Damien?” We rushed to the corner.
“We have to tell her we’re here. She thought we’d be last week. And then we’ll see Damien and tell him everything.”
“There she is.” I pointed but the traffic slid between us. A delivery van blocked the crossing for three seconds too long. By the time it passed, she was on the opposite sidewalk, disappearing around another corner beside a coffee shop with steamed windows.
I crossed the moment it cleared. Hudson followed. But she was gone. Even her scent got fainter under the city smell.
I stood there looking around and breathing too hard for a man who’d spent years pretending he didn’t believe in fate. “She was here,” I said.
Hudson’s face had gone pale beneath his control. “Why was she heading to Damien’s house?”
Neither of us spoke for a beat. Then Hudson looked back toward the direction of the fraternity house. “Did she see us?”
“Did she run?” I said.
“Let’s find out.”
Damien opened his bedroom door wearing sweatpants, a university hoodie, and the surprised expression. “Dad,” he said, looking at Hudson first, then me. “I thought you were coming later.”
“We were nearby,” Hudson said, stepping into the room and immediately wanting to open every window.
The room was a mess. Hockey gear leaned against the wall. Textbooks lay open on the desk. Protein powder sat beside a half-empty coffee cup. A poster hung slightly crooked above the bed. And on the chair by the wardrobe was a navy scarf.
Mary’s scent rose from it, rain, blackberry, a hint of whiskey, and faded but unmistakable violet.
Hudson saw me look at it, and Damien followed my gaze too late.
“That’s not mine,” he said.
“No,” I said.
His face colored. “She left it.”
“Marli?” Hudson asked.
Damien’s teeth came together. “Yeah.”
The name landed because Marli was Mary, and Mary was ours.
Hudson’s expression didn’t change, but his scent went cold enough that Damien shifted his weight.
“Tell us about her,” Hudson said.
“Why?”
“Because you were frantic five weeks ago when you couldn’t find her.”
Damien looked away. “She’s fine.”
“Is she?”
“I saw her around campus.”
“Did you speak to her?” I asked.
His mouth twisted. “She doesn’t want to speak to me.”
“I wonder why.”
Hudson glanced at me. But I didn’t apologize.
Damien’s face hardened. “You don’t know what happened.”
“You told us she found you with someone else,” Hudson said. He then sat on the edge of the desk because he knew standing over Damien would make the boy defensive.
I stayed by the chair with Mary’s scarf behind me, because I didn’t trust myself not to pick it up.
Damien shoved a hand through his hair. “I messed up.”
“How?” Hudson asked.
“I was talking to someone.”
“You said. The cheerleader?” I asked.
His eyes snapped to mine. “Nothing happened,” he said.
“You keep using that sentence,” Hudson said. “But if that was true, she would’ve forgiven you.”
Damien flinched, and a hard, uncharitable part of me was glad. Then guilt hit me, because he was still my son.
“I didn’t sleep with her,” Damien said. “We kissed, but mainly it was just flirting. Maybe. Marli saw lipstick on my mouth and lost it.”
“She was in pre-heat,” Hudson said. “Of course she lost it. Her body was betraying her and then her boyfriend did too.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
Damien’s throat moved. “I thought she was being dramatic.”
I looked at the ceiling.
Hudson didn’t move. “And then?” he asked.
“Then I said we weren’t exclusive.”
I turned back to him slowly.
Damien’s bravado flickered. “I lied.”
“Because you were angry with her?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Because that was a hell of a thing to say to an omega going into heat.”
“For fuck’s sake, I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do?”
“Lincoln,” Hudson said quietly.
Damien sat on the bed, shoulders hunched. He looked younger, all his jock swagger gone soft at the edges.
“She dumped me,” he said. “And refuses to take me back. I told her to come and get her things.”
“Good,” I said before I could stop myself. “She’s no longer yours.”
Hudson’s eyes closed briefly.
Damien stared. “What?”
I dragged a hand through my hair. “That came out wrong.”
“No,” Hudson said. “It didn’t.”
Damien looked at him, wounded now. “What’s going on?”
Hudson’s voice stayed controlled. “You cheated on her.”
“I didn’t sleep with anyone. She was in her heat and I know she had an alpha, maybe more. She cheated and I’m prepared to take her back, why can’t she forgive a kiss?”
“You’re hiding behind a technicality. I’m sure she wanted you with her.”
“Maybe I can’t be with an omega. Maybe I can’t accept that side of her.” Damien went red, and I almost felt sorry for him.
“She won’t forgive me,” he said, voice softer now.
“It’s for the best,” I said.
His eyes cut to mine. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
The old wound. The old demand. Choose me, because she didn’t.
Hudson stood. “Being your father doesn’t mean excusing you.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“No,” Hudson said. “It isn’t. Being an alpha doesn’t give you rights, and if you think it does—“
“Lincoln,” Hudson warned.
I couldn’t stay in that room much longer.
“We’ll have dinner tomorrow,” Hudson said. “When we’re all calmer.”
Damien’s head lifted. “You’re leaving already?”
“For now.”
“You just got here.”
“And we’ve heard enough for one conversation.”
He looked from Hudson to me. “Is this because you’re disappointed?”
“Yes, and as usual it’s someone else’s fault. You never take responsibility for your actions.”
Hudson gave me another look so I softened my voice because I did love him, even when I wanted to shake him until sense fell out. “We love you. We’re disappointed too. Both can be true.”
Damien swallowed and for a moment, I saw the boy again.
“Yeah,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”
We left him there with the room, the mess, and the scarf neither of us had touched.
Outside, the cold hit my face hard enough to clear some of the scent from my head.
Hudson walked to the car without speaking. I followed him because if I didn’t, I would turn down every street in Boston until I found her.
He stopped beside the driver’s door.
“Say it,” he said.
“We need to find her. Did she say she was in the dorms or a house share?”
His jaw tightened. “I’m not sure what she said. And she never texted her number.”
“I’m thinking our son hurt her, and she wanted to stay away from us too. But she’s our scent-match and that’s not part of the plan. But why did she walk past his fraternity house, and did she see us or change her mind about something?”
“That’s a lot of thinking.”
I smiled. “What I know for sure is if we leave Boston without knowing she’s safe, I’ll lose my bloody mind.”
Hudson stared across the roof of the car. “Me too.”
“And I’m scared,” I said, quieter now, “that finding her might hurt him.”
“Yes.”
“He’ll see it as betrayal.”
“Probably.”
“He’ll think we’re choosing her.”
Hudson’s eyes came to mine.
That was the shape of it. Find her and hurt our son, or don’t find her and abandon our mate.
I wanted the world to be kinder than that.
“She gets a choice,” Hudson said.
“Yes, we don’t chase her into a corner.” My chest loosened for the first time all day. “But we need to find our mate.”
Hudson didn’t correct the word.