by Odessa Lynne
The dining table was in a central location in the house and pillows were piled high in the rooms flanking it, and no matter which direction he looked, there were either large windows or wide open doorways that made him feel as if the whole world could look inside and watch him doing whatever it was he was supposed to be doing.
The wolves appeared to like their open spaces, but Mason had a feeling Five might not be so comfortable here. This little house, cozy as it was, had no reminders of the lives the wolves must have lived on their ships.
He’d been sitting there for nearly an hour, waiting. The sound of his thumbs against the table’s top was a dull thud in the silent space. His heart was pounding louder than that in his ears, and his right knee hadn’t stopped jittering for more than a few minutes.
His attempt to contact Five hadn’t gone as he’d hoped and he couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d seen during the attempt and speculating over what it might mean.
Six had answered the communication, and the image quality had been so crisp and clear that Mason had felt like he could reach through the screen and touch him. But that was after Alan had brought in Ian and a wolf, who’d led Mason to a building where he’d been allowed to use a communication station of obvious alien design.
Ian had placed the call, and there Six had appeared, right in front of Mason, in a nearly three-dimensional image that jumped right out from the screen. The weirdest part had been the fact that he was almost certain the smell in the room had changed. Just a subtle difference, but noticeable, because the musky scent had made him think of sex.
The smell had distracted him for several seconds as his brain made the connection with the view.
A wall and a door showed behind Six, and Mason recognized the doorframe as a match for the one in Five’s bedroom in the house Mason had left just over a week ago to set off on a mission with Five and the others.
Seeing that door had tightened Mason’s stomach and then chest.
“I want to talk to Five.”
Six had said, “I’ll let Alpha know you’re well. He’ll want to see you.”
The communication had ended before Mason could actually ask any questions.
He really regretted his tone with Six, but it was far too late for that now.
Immediately after the call, Ian and the wolf had accompanied Mason to where he was now. The wolf had stayed outside, but Ian had come in to wait for a message.
Mason had taken a seat. Ian hadn’t.
“I need to stretch my legs,” Ian had said after Mason gave him a look. “It’s heat season.”
As if that explained everything.
Mason thought it might.
The silence stretched too long, and Mason finally broke it by asking, “Did you smell that—in that room?”
“It’s the technology.”
“So it was real? I wasn’t imagining it?”
Ian shrugged. “Probably not. Smell is like body language to them. They build it into their communications wherever they can. It’s pretty fascinating, to be honest. You have to be within the zone to pick it up and it can be really subtle, sometimes we can’t smell it even knowing it’s there.”
Ian went into more detail, but Mason hadn’t cared. He’d stared at his hands clenched on the table in front of him and listened with only half an ear, his thoughts tied up by other things.
Then the message Ian had been waiting on came, and Mason forced himself to pay closer attention.
“Five’s on his way,” Ian said, already tucking his phone away. “Make yourself at home. It’ll be another hour, but Matthew’s planning to come by, as long as he can get permission and an escort.”
“Permission?” Mason asked.
“Rules,” Ian said, managing to look like he was smiling with his eyes. “There are lots of rules right now that we follow, so no one gets hurt. Just stay inside and you shouldn’t get into trouble.”
Mason nodded, and Ian left after that, neither one of them having said a word about the past.
Matthew showed up not more than fifteen minutes later.
Mason got up and hugged his cousin, slapping him hard on the back, before letting out a grunt and wince when Matthew did the same to Mason and clipped his shoulder.
“Sorry!” Matthew said, pulling away and giving Mason a wide-eyed look. But Mason waved his apology off and sat, and Matthew sat too. They talked for a while, Mason telling Matthew how Gillie and Brecken and his mom had been doing lately, Matthew asking lots of questions about a few of the stories Marcus had been filling his head with for the last week while Mason was sleeping off his injuries.
“He’s been lying his head off,” Mason said. “His hands were shaking like a leaf when he tried to get that bullet out. I’d have been better off doing it myself.”
Matthew laughed, then rubbed his hand down his mouth. “He said you were the only reason he got out alive.”
“That’s bullshit. He didn’t need me for anything back there. Moral support maybe. He’s a goddamned miracle worker.”
“You’re not moral support, asshole. You two—”
“Are better than one. I know.” Mason rubbed his finger against the smooth wood of the table. “He doesn’t need me. He probably never did. And now…”
“He’s got Hawk.”
Mason wasn’t able to hold back a hard laugh. “Hawk?”
The corner of Matthew’s mouth quirked up. “Ash says it’s a strong name. More than one wolf tried to lay claim to it.”
“Hawk. I’m going to rub that in Marcus’s face every time I see him. What a name.”
Matthew laughed again. “I wouldn’t be an asshole about it. You’re mated to a wolf who calls himself Five and has a pack full of wolves who decided to follow the leader.”
Mason was quiet for a second. “Fuck.”
It was nice to sit with family and not have anything to argue about. And Five had been right. Matthew was alive and he was safe. He was, in fact, in great health and he smiled and laughed more than Mason had seen him do in years.
Of course, Matthew wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been happy for a long time. None of them had been. Matthew had lost his mother to the first heat season, the same as Mason and Marcus had lost their father in the year after. Joining the renegades had seemed like the only way to honor their deaths—and stop the aliens responsible from doing it again. And he’d let Brendan drag Matthew into it, at nineteen years old.
He’d been such a goddamned fool.
But Matthew was doing okay. He was happy. And somehow, between the last time Mason had seen him and that moment, Matthew had found himself a mate—a wolf named Ash.
Mason hadn’t fucked up Matthew’s life, despite everything, and at that realization, something inside him loosened just a little.
But none of that had stopped Mason’s thoughts from wandering back to that door. He’d been almost grateful when Matthew had told him it was time for him to go. He’d left, and Mason had gone back to staring at his hands against the dark wood of the table and thinking about that fucking door.
What did it mean? Why was Six answering communications in Five’s bedroom? Why had his forehead and cheeks looked flushed and his hair damp at the temples? Why had his teeth flashed in just that way when Mason had stared too long, suspicion probably written in every line of his face?
Why had Six answered Mason’s gruff request to speak to Five so abruptly and then shut off communications?
Mason realized he was digging his thumbnails into the table and stopped. Unfortunately not before he’d left two ugly little marks behind. He stared at those marks. They were the only things that marred the dark wood.
“Goddammit,” he muttered.
He’d just put his hand over the marks in an effort to hide from his own guilt when the door behind him opened, making him jump.
He turned, then rose, his movement pushing the chair across the hardwood with a loud screak.
Five stood in front of the door he’d already closed, watching
Mason. He took in a deep, slow breath. He exhaled just as slowly, while his eyes burned with an incandescent heat. “I’ve missed your scent.”
“Why did you leave me there alone?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Mason regretted them. Of all the questions he could have asked—of all the answers he damn well deserved—that one was the one that gave the most away.
He could have asked about Five’s pack. There was still so much he didn’t know about the final confrontation with Cecily and her people. He still didn’t know if he’d been hearing things when he heard that Gray and Francis had been locked up. He didn’t know if Lake and Rain and Cord were okay.
He thought they were—he felt something shimmer inside every time he thought of them, even though he couldn’t understand the feeling.
He could have demanded to know if Five had been fucking Six—or anyone else—while he waited for Mason to recover. Even thinking about it made him feel a little spark of jealousy he had no right to feel.
Five’s eyes flickered. He pushed away from the door and walked toward Mason, his every step a reminder of the alpha predator he was.
“My former alpha needed my assistance. I couldn’t resist his call. But the situation was unknown and dangerous and I could not take you with me.”
“So you just left me there—thinking—” Mason exhaled roughly, dragging his hand through his hair. He’d done it enough times already to know his hair was probably sticking up in all the wrong ways, but he couldn’t stop the need to be doing something—anything—to dispel the frustration that wanted to eat its way out of him.
Five said, “I tried to communicate my intention to come back to you.”
Mason didn’t mean to laugh but the strangled sound came out before he could stop it. “Communication not one of your strengths, is it?”
Five’s hot gaze continued to bore into him. “Apparently not.”
Guilt pulsed in the air between them. It was the weirdest sensation Mason had ever felt. He shuffled one foot and let his gaze drop to the floor.
Five wasn’t wearing shoes. Mason hadn’t even noticed it earlier, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the dark material of Five’s alien toenails and the long toes curled against the hardwood. Strange how similar to human toes they were in some respects. A light dusting of hair, sharply defined bones at the joints. Mason wanted to touch them, and he didn’t understand why. He wanted to trace the bones and feel the smooth skin and fine hair under his palm.
He cleared his throat and made himself look up—to meet Five’s fierce gaze.
“That was the worst possible moment for you to do something that goddamned—” Stupid, he wanted to say, but that wasn’t the right word. He couldn’t find the right one.
He rubbed his mouth and looked through his lashes at Five. “You still don’t trust me. I get it. You shouldn’t, I told you that myself, but—”
Mason stopped speaking as Five grasped the back of Mason’s neck, his hold firm but gentle.
“I would have never mated you if I hadn’t realized already I could trust you, Mason Waters.”
Mated. That strange inflection was back. He knew Five wasn’t talking about fucking or mates in the way of something casual and impermanent.
“You mated me,” he said. “In the woods—that’s what was different.”
Five’s gaze burned even hotter than before. “Yes.”
“You made me your mate for life without me having a clue that that’s what was going on.”
“You chose the time and place of our mating. You knew the moment had come.”
“I did what?”
“You expressed your regret for your past actions and sought forgiveness through submission. You were ready to mate.”
“That’s—” Pretty damn close to the truth. Mason felt his shoulders slump as he thought back to those moments and couldn’t come up with anything to negate Five’s claim.
“Hell,” he muttered.
He stared at Five’s lips and then couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away. Had Six been kissing them? Had the others done the same? How many of his wolves had Five fucked? Did Mason care?
He thought he did. That was the scariest thing he’d learned since his call with Six.
He cared too goddamned much what Five might have been doing.
Chapter 38
Five leaned in, dragging his nose up the side of Mason’s neck. “Your scent sets fire to my senses even now. I’ve spent too much time imagining you beneath me again to have the control I need around you.”
The prick of claws tickled Mason’s skin and made him shiver; the drawl of Five’s voice tightened his groin.
“You’re my mate, and I’ve missed you and worried for you. I’ve also longed for you and needed you, and now we’re together again. It’s hard to think of anything other than you and your intoxicating scent.”
Mason found it difficult to take his next breath. He wasn’t sure exactly what the emotion was that made his stomach flip or his body suddenly come alive, but it felt a whole hell of a lot like sexual interest.
But no, there was no point denying it. It was sexual interest. His body remembered how Five could make it feel. He remembered.
He wanted to feel that way again. And again.
And again.
No end in sight.
If it wasn’t about sex before, it sure the hell is now.
That goddamned voice in his head was back, and more smug than ever.
You’re so fucking gone for this wolf you’d lick his ass if he wanted you too, wouldn’t you?
There was no point fighting the truth. Whatever had happened to him, whether it was all in his head or if some physical change had come over him to go along with the bond he’d felt forming between him and Five and Five’s pack, Mason knew only one thing: it wasn’t something he would undo.
Move forward, his father had always told him and Marcus. You can’t undo the past and you can’t hold back the future. So you just keep moving forward, because the only thing you have any control over is the present. Make the most of it, boys.
Destiny, fate, whatever anyone called it, those weren’t things Mason believed in. He believed in coincidence and the random nature of the universe. And yet… he could remember the row of fives on the side of his dad’s last drone. His own goddamned private number for his phone contained five fives. He’d picked the number himself at thirteen and somehow managed to hang on to it in all the turbulent years since. He’d been born at five fifty-five a.m. and he knew that because he’d wanted to know who came first, him or Marcus? Turned out he’d come into the world four minutes too damn late to be firstborn.
It was coincidence, and Mason knew it, but he couldn’t escape how it made him feel.
Like he was looking at the future and his next thought could determine the fate of his world.
It seemed fitting that the only thing he could think about was how Five’s mouth would feel against his.
“I want to kiss you,” Mason said. He wanted to wipe away the memories Five might have made with someone else.
Five raised his head, his hands clamped hard around Mason’s upper arms. Mason felt the faintest twinge of pain in his shoulder but it wasn’t even enough to pull a wince out of him.
Five noticed. He released Mason and stepped back.
Mason watched him, then rubbed his hand over his face, trying to bring sense back into his brain. “So that’s not happening, then.”
“You don’t have to shield me from your true feelings. I deserve your anger and your disappointment.”
“Shield you from my—what the hell are you talking about?”
The guilt was back, a wash of it so strong goose bumps rose on Mason’s arms.
“I’ve made choices that put you in danger. I’m your alpha and your mate and I’m responsible for the injuries that almost killed you. You’re human, and fragile, and you needed my protection, and I have a deep regret for assuming you would be safer without me than with me. I wa
s wrong. I can’t accept your submission as your alpha and mate until I ask for and earn your forgiveness for my lack of care. You deserve no less.”
“All I wanted was a kiss.”
“You deserve to know why I made the choice I made.”
“Yeah, I do, but—”
“If I had told you we needed to leave, you might have argued with me. You might have wanted to come with us. With our mating so fresh in my mind, I knew my own weakness. I would not have been able to leave you behind. If I had told you to stay behind and wait for me, would you have trusted me to return—or would you have tried to follow me?”
Mason breathed softly through his nose. He didn’t have to answer; Five knew.
The reflections in Five’s eyes seemed to darken. “My assumption was that I would return quickly. But my mission was complicated by the discovery of a human trying to leave the area. His scent was unusually strong. Gray and Francis fought. Rain gave chase. I had to intervene. Jordan became lost in his heat cycle and was drawn away by a scent I realized too late belonged to the humans with the rogue wolves. By the time we were able to transmit my former alpha’s communications and return for you and the female…”
Five sighed, a quiet, gentle sound of resignation. “I had faith that you were strong and resilient and could hold your own with your own people if the female was more than she appeared—I did not account for the rogues returning to the area. It’s a mistake I’ve spent every moment since regretting.”
At some point, Mason had started rubbing his left thumb and fingers together, over and over. He stopped the motion. His face was warm, mostly because he’d always found it hard to accept compliments, and those words Five had said—they had sounded a hell of a lot like compliments to him.
He cleared the tightness from his throat. “Sounds like all hell broke loose.”
“It was a difficult journey, made more so by several unexpected complications.”
“Can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same in your situation. I don’t know. But… I’m not a fucking kid. I know shit happens. We make choices we shouldn’t sometimes. I thought that was pretty clear after everything that’s happened to put us here. You should have told me you were leaving and risked a goddamned argument. But you did what you did—and it’s done. There’s nothing to forgive. I wanted to understand. Now I do.”