by Odessa Lynne
It was the strangest thing, how he recognized the roar that followed without even looking. He tried to roll over, but something pulled at his head and he was tangled in a sheet and just the sound that came out of his own throat scared him into stopping.
Mason blinked the haze out of his vision and tried to make sense of what was going on around him but the noise and light were too much, and all he saw was a bunch of wolves and a man he didn’t recognize.
The man loomed over him and blocked his view. The man had soft lines around his eyes, and a half smile that disappeared as he turned and threw out his arm to stop a wolf from staggering backward into him.
Mason felt the world under him jostle and he realized he was in a bed, in a room.
Then he heard Five’s voice roar out, “He’s mine!” just before another crash sounded across the room.
He tried again to push himself up, but the man moved quickly to shove Mason flat.
Another roar from Five, and then—
The man turned his head away. “That’s the third time today! Find out what Trey wants done with him, but keep him out!”
A few seconds later the man’s attention came back to Mason. He smiled. “That mate of yours is a pain in my ass. Sorry about this.”
And then Mason’s eyelids drooped and the commotion around him became nothing but white noise that faded under the sound of his own breath.
Chapter 34
He woke again later and found that same man standing near him.
“Just Alan,” the man said. “Don’t try to call me doc, because doc’s already taken. He gets a little testy about it when there’s a mix up.”
No last name. All Mason got in reply to that question was a laugh and a smile that creased lines into Alan’s face.
At one point, Ian came by to see how he was doing, and then he went off alone with Marcus. When Marcus returned, he told Mason that Cecily and those of her followers who hadn’t died or escaped were in custody and would be transferred to the States as soon as a safe transfer could be arranged.
Mason listened, but he couldn’t really focus on what Marcus was saying. His head ached and his body didn’t want to respond to his thoughts and he realized at one point that he was drifting toward sleep again, even as Marcus tried to explain that Jordan was already walking and Gray and Francis had been locked up.
Which made no sense at all.
“You cracked your head open on the stairs,” Alan said at one point. “It was a bloody mess. You’re alive because the biotech inside you kept you alive but none of us really knows how. Hey, you with me?”
Mason fell asleep before he could reply.
“You could have brain damage,” Alan said sometime later. “It’s important you understand that it’s still a possibility, even with the gift.”
The gift was alien biotechnology. At least he understood that. But of course it made sense, he realized later, when he opened his eyes to pale sunlight and a ceiling of wood beams.
He frowned.
“You’re getting better,” Alan said. “Even if you don’t think you are.”
“I definitely think I am. I feel…” He stared up at the ceiling, trying to catalogue how he felt. He flexed his toes. “I feel good.”
“Now that’s a change.”
Mason fixed his gaze on Alan. “What do you mean?”
“Give me a minute. I’m going to get your brother.”
Mason grabbed at Alan’s arm as he turned away. His reflexes seemed perfectly normal. That was good, right? He was sure he’d been on the verge of dying. Or at the least he’d been very, very sick.
Alan pulled his arm free but stopped trying to leave. “I’m going to need to do some tests, but I’m starting to feel like we might be talking best case scenario here. Your brother is going to be thrilled.”
Mason nodded. “Where’s Five?”
Alan rubbed his chin while taking a quick look over his shoulder toward the door. “I’m going to get Marcus for you, okay?”
Mason fumbled his way into a sitting position, and the quilt covering him tangled around his lap. He was naked beneath it. He hauled the quilt to mid-chest and frowned again. “I thought…”
“Yeah?”
“This isn’t a hospital.”
Alan let out a gentle huff of breath. “As good as. Just not one of ours.”
Mason glanced around. He was in a room, not all that different from the one the wolves had held him in three years ago. Bed, dresser, low table, but there were other things too, like another table of medical tools and tech, a metal tray that reflected the light glowing warmly from the ceiling, a bench pushed up against a wall with a colorful pillow at one end that looked like it had been used recently.
“Marcus?”
“He’s been here a time or two.” But the way Alan said it, a quiet laugh underlying the words, told Mason the truth.
Marcus had been sleeping on the bench.
“If he worried Momma over this, I’m going to kick his ass.”
“Don’t know if he did or not, you’ll have to hash that out with him. But he’s been worried sick over you.”
Mason rubbed his hand through his hair, only to wince when his fingers hit stubble nearer the back of his head. “Damn.”
Alan gave him a wide smile. “It won’t be hard to even it up.”
“I liked my hair, goddammit.”
“What about that brain?”
Mason slumped back on the bed.
Sometime between Alan leaving to go get Marcus and the two of them returning, Mason fell asleep again.
But that was okay, because it felt like a normal sleep, and his dreams were of Five and a smile and a flash of teeth, and when he woke up, the warmth in his chest had come back as a quiet pulse of something he couldn’t explain and yet understood as if it were supposed to be a part of him.
Of course, the fact that he also had an erection he had to hide when he heard someone at the door wasn’t so great, but at least it proved he was alive.
Chapter 35
The first thing Marcus did was accuse Mason of falling asleep on purpose. Turned out Mason had slept nearly three hours before Alan finally allowed Marcus back into the room.
Alan had brought clothes. Both men left to stand outside the room so Mason could have a few minutes of privacy.
While he was dressing, he took another look around. The room he’d been convalescing in was more rectangular than square, and the door was on a short wall, while the long wall was taken up by several wide windows. The morning sun shone through the windows and fell across the bed in a pattern that matched the thick metalwork covering the glass.
There was a bathroom attached, small but complete, and Mason made quick use of it. Then he propped himself up against the headboard and wiggled his toes and wondered if anyone thought he was actually well enough to try to escape.
He actually felt like he might be. But he wasn’t a prisoner as far as he knew and escape wasn’t on his mind. It was also unlikely the bars were meant to keep anyone in, considering their location on the inside of the glass and the hinges to one side.
He was wearing loose pants that were a little long, but not a bad fit otherwise, and a t-shirt that matched the dark gray of the pants and was made of the most comfortable fabric he’d ever worn.
He closed his eyes to relax for a minute, but it was only a few seconds later before Alan and Marcus came back in, with Alan clutching a few tools in one hand and a rolled up EP display in the other.
Over the next ten minutes, Alan explained the exact nature of Mason’s head injury. He was thorough, showing Mason pictures of his fractured skull and using terms Mason had never heard before while Mason sat on the bed and took it all in.
It all came down to one thing: the wolves and their advanced medical technology had saved Mason’s life.
He felt damn good for somebody who’d had a piece of bone stuck in his gray matter only a week ago.
When Alan finished that explanation, there was
only one thing Mason wanted to know.
“Where’s Five?” He glanced over Marcus’s shoulder toward the door for the umpteenth time. “I keep expecting him to show up, but nobody’s said a thing about him. Why isn’t he here?”
Alan stepped back and crossed his arms, looking toward Marcus. “You can tell him.”
Marcus muttered under his breath. Mason didn’t quite catch what was said but he saw it in the way Marcus’s mouth moved. A curse.
Mason frowned, looking toward the door again then back to Alan and Marcus. “He’s not coming.”
That feeling in his chest seemed to agree with him.
“Son of a bitch. He’s not coming.” Mason scooted to the edge of the bed and started to put his legs over the side.
Alan stepped up quickly and dropped a heavy hand onto Mason’s shoulder. “You need to stay put until I do some tests this morning.”
“That bastard knows he shouldn’t have abandoned me in the woods with that sociopath. He didn’t give me the first goddamned hint of any kind of plan. Just up and left, like I was nothing.”
Alan said, “He tried—”
“The hell he did.”
“You don’t—”
“He knows I’m pissed off and he doesn’t want to face me.”
Marcus said, “He knows you’re pissed off?”
“You’re not listening,” Alan said.
“The fuck if he even had a plan. I have no idea.”
“Listen,” Alan said, his calm tone slipping away under an edge of frustration. “He isn’t here because he was having too much trouble controlling his instincts while I was trying to take care of you, and it wasn’t safe. You needed me more than you needed him at the time. Trey ordered him to leave. And when the first alpha gives an order—”
“It’s the bond thing. He knows I know how guilty he feels. Well, he ought to feel guilty. That woman turned out to be—”
“Okay, that’s enough!” Alan’s demand cut through Mason’s rant with the sharpness of a blade. “I don’t know what bond thing you’re talking about but your mate wanted to be here, he tried everything to convince Trey to let him stay, but it was just too risky right now. Too many distractions, too much shit going on with a couple of the other packs, and too many humans here in the den who probably shouldn’t be here. He sent him out on a mission and told him to stay the fuck away until he was called back.”
Mason was sure he looked as disbelieving as he felt when he said, “The leader of the wolves actually said ‘stay the fuck away’?”
“Not exactly like that, no, but—”
“Alright. I get the point.” Mason rubbed between his eyebrows. “I’m sorry. I’m just pissed off right now. But I’m sorry. I should’ve been listening.”
“Fucking unbelievable,” Marcus said. “You actually know how to apologize. Wait until I tell Momma.”
Mason raised his head. Then he raised his middle finger.
Marcus returned the gesture.
“For fuck’s sake,” Alan said. He dragged his hands through his hair and looked as if he were about to start pulling at it.
Marcus grinned. “Now you know why Momma sent us outside every morning and told us not to come home until supper.”
Mason added, “And sometimes even then she sent us back out.”
“We’re probably the reason she had to take that treatment for thinning hair.”
“What the hell, Marcus? You know how sensitive she is about that. You don’t bring that shit up in front of strangers.”
Marcus waved toward Alan. “He’s a doctor!”
Alan looked at that moment like he’d rather be anywhere in the world other than stuck in a small room with Marcus and Mason.
Mason scrubbed his hands over his face and refused to be baited into another argument. “Okay, okay.”
“So what did you mean about a bond thing?” Marcus asked.
Mason looked up again. “You know, that bond thing with the pack.” He patted his chest. “That stuff you feel.”
“Uhm… sure?” Marcus looked furtively toward Alan.
Alan responded with a subtle shake of his head, but Mason picked up on it anyway.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Alan said.
And at the same time, Marcus said, “No idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know anything about a bond thing.” But he looked curious, his eyes bright and his forehead furrowed.
“Never mind,” Mason said.
“No, tell me,” Marcus said. “I want to know.”
Mason thought about how he would explain it and couldn’t come up with a good place to start. He glanced at Alan, whose gaze had gone sharp on Mason.
Mason put his hand on his chest. “It’s just this tight feeling I get, that’s all.”
“I should check your heart again,” Alan said, “just in case I missed something.”
Mason fought back a scowl. “I feel fine. Except for maybe a headache.” He hesitated, and noticed that Alan was watching him a little too closely. “And, yeah, my shoulder is a little stiff.”
Which wasn’t quite true, because what was really happening was that every time he moved his right arm a little too quickly a shock of pain darted all the way from his shoulder to his fingertips. Just because the pain faded almost immediately afterward didn’t mean he was eager to feel it in the first place.
“Anything else?”
“Not really.”
“Good. We’ll do plenty of tests over the next few days. We’ll figure out what’s going on.”
“Could the alien technology be messing with his heart, making him think there’s something else going on?”
Mason pinched his lips tight for a solid ten seconds before saying, “There’s nothing wrong with my heart. This isn’t my heart. It’s some kind of pack bond. I can feel some of the emotions coming off those wolves of Five’s—they were in my goddamned head. Trust me, I know what I felt. Five didn’t act like it was any big deal, definitely not out of the ordinary.”
“I’ll need to talk to some people about this,” Alan said. “No one’s told me anything about this kind of feeling before.”
But Mason was still watching Marcus, because Mason had seen that look on Marcus’s face plenty of times.
“Goddammit, Marcus, you don’t believe me.” Mason dropped back against the headboard, covering his eyes with his left arm so he wasn’t looking up at either Marcus or Alan.
“I believe you,” Marcus said. “You say there’s a bond, there’s a goddamned bond. I told you I believe you.”
“You’re such a fucking liar.”
A hard punch landed right on the bony part of Mason’s ankle.
“Ow!” He jerked his leg out of Marcus’s reach. “You fucking shitbrain.”
Alan put his hand up. “Hey! Guys…”
“I’m not a liar, dipshit. It’s just I’ve never felt anything like what you described. It’s hard to take in without evidence.”
“You’ve never ignored that feeling you get when you think I’m in trouble. This is the last thing you should need evidence for.”
“That’s different.”
“It’s not that different.”
“Of course it is. We’re brothers. Twins. We share the same goddamned DNA. Those experiments in the twenties—”
Mason scoffed. “They were stupid. You’re the one who told me they didn’t use a valid control. They didn’t prove anything.”
“Maybe I was wrong.”
“Goddamn,” Mason said. He looked over at Alan. “You sure I didn’t die? Because I’m feeling a little like I might be dead now.”
“You fucking idiot,” Marcus said, but without any real heat. “Shut up.”
“Not a chance,” Mason said. “This might be as close to heaven as I ever get.”
Alan wisely kept whatever thoughts were going through his head at that moment to himself.
Marcus smacked at Mason’s leg again, and this time Mason was able to catch Marcus by
the wrist. The pull in his back made him grunt. Maybe he wasn’t ready to start roughhousing with Marcus just yet.
Marcus tried to pull free, but Mason could tell he was holding back, as if he wasn’t sure just how stubborn Mason was going to be about it.
Mason held on. “Just admit it’s the same damn thing. If you can believe you get a feeling whenever I’m in trouble and that it’s real, you can believe there might be some kind of bond developing between me and Five and his pack.”
“I told you I believe you.”
“And in the next breath you told me you need evidence!”
“It would help, that’s all. But I believe you about the bond, whatever it is. If you say it’s real, it’s real. But you definitely need to let Alan here check out your heart. Just in case.”
“It’s not my fucking heart! It’s Five, wallowing in a shit load of guilt over something he shouldn’t have done, and he fucking knows it. Your problem is you just don’t want to admit there could be some kind of psychic thing going on here that you don’t understand.”
“Guys,” Alan tried to interrupt, “I seriously doubt there’s anything psychic about—”
Marcus had that stubborn look—the same one he got when he knew he was right and no one else did. “Believing in the thing between us just isn’t the same as believing in whatever this bond thing is you’re talking about, that’s all I’m saying. I’m not calling you a liar.”
The pointed look that followed seemed to be meant as a reminder to Mason that Mason had, in fact, called Marcus a liar.
Mason let out an aggravated growl and finally released Marcus’s wrist. “Now I’m feeling sorry for Five for having to put up with that shit from me. It’s annoying.” He eased back on the bed, paying for his sudden movements earlier with a few sharp twinges of pain, most of them in his right shoulder. “Just go back to your wolf and leave me alone.”
Marcus grinned, unrepentant, and slapped the side of Mason’s foot. “I’ll just come back later.”
“You do that. Go get some rest. I’m too pissed off right now for company.” Then, glaring at his bare toes, Mason muttered, “That goddamned son of a bitch.”