For the first time in eighteen hours, I could breathe again.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
AVA
I woke slowly, like swimming up through honey. Everything was warm. That was the first thing I noticed, warmth surrounding me from every direction, seeping into my bones, chasing away a cold I could still feel in my bones. The second thing I noticed was the weight. Heavy, solid, pressing against me from all sides.
Arms. Bodies. The scent of cedar and pine and old books and something wild and green.
My Alphas. The bond purred in my chest, a deep, satisfied vibration that seemed to resonate through my entire body.Safe, it whispered.Home. Alphas are here. Pack is here. Everything is okay.
Everything wasn't okay. I knew that, even through the haze of warmth and contentment. Something had happened. Something I couldn't quite remember, couldn't quite piece together through the fog in my head. I tried to move, to shift, and four sets of hands tightened on me immediately.
"She's waking up." Leo's voice, rough and raw, like he'd been crying or screaming or both. I felt his fingers in my hair,stroking through the tangles with a gentleness that contradicted the tension I could feel thrumming through his body.
"Ava." Mason's voice, close to my ear, his breath warm against my temple. His arm was wrapped around my waist, his hand splayed across my stomach, holding me against his chest like he was afraid I'd disappear if he let go. "Ava, can you hear me?"
I tried to speak, but my throat was dry, scratchy, like I'd swallowed sandpaper. All that came out was a croak, barely audible even to my own ears.
"Water." Ethan's voice, crisp and clinical, but with an undercurrent of something I couldn't identify. I heard movement, felt a shift in the bodies around me, and then a straw was pressed to my lips. "Small sips. Don't rush."
I obeyed, letting the cool water trickle down my throat, soothing the rawness. When I'd had enough, I turned my head away, and the straw disappeared.
"How long?" I managed, my voice still hoarse, still weak, but at least audible now. I forced my eyes open, blinking against the dim light of the nest room, trying to focus on the faces hovering above me.
"Two days," Caleb said, and I felt his hand tighten around mine, his grip almost painful in its intensity. His pale eyes were red-rimmed, bloodshot, like he hadn't slept the entire time I'd been out. Dark circles carved bruises beneath them, and his jaw was shadowed with stubble he usually kept meticulously trimmed. "Two days, Ava. You were out for two days."
Two days. The words didn't make sense at first, bouncing around inside my skull like marbles in a jar. Two days since... since what? Then it came back. Not all at once, but in fragments, in flashes that cut through the fog like lightning.
The snow. The cold. Running until my lungs burned and my feet went numb. The bond screaming in my chest, tearing at my ribs, trying to drag me back.
Falling. Not getting up. The sky going gray above me. Voices. Headlights. Caleb's roar of my name. Then... warmth. The nest. Darkness and light cycling in patterns I couldn't follow. And somewhere in the middle of it all, a memory that made my breath catch in my throat.
Mason. Between my legs. Inside me. Tears streaming down his face as he moved, his expression twisted with guilt and desperation and something that looked like grief. I remember asking him not to leave and him promising not to. I closed my eyes, trying to process, trying to make sense of the tangle of emotions churning in my chest. The bond purred contentedly, completely at odds with the confusion and uncertainty swirling through my mind.
"Ava." Mason's voice again, careful and controlled, but I could hear the cracks beneath the surface, the fractures in his composure that he was barely holding together. His hand shifted on my stomach, his thumb brushing across my skin in small, repetitive circles. "Do you remember what happened?"
I nodded slowly, the movement making my head swim. "I ran," I said, the words coming out flat, distant, like I was describing something that had happened to someone else. "I ran, and I almost died."
"You almost died twice," Ethan corrected, his voice sharp, with an edge that cut through the room. He was sitting at the edge of the nest, close enough to touch but not quite touching, his gray eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made me want to look away. His glasses were slightly askew, his usually immaculate hair mussed and tangled, and there was a tension in his shoulders that I'd never seen before. "The hypothermianearly killed you. And the bond sickness nearly killed you faster."
Bond sickness. I remembered now, the nausea, the dizziness, my heart racing wrong in my chest. The feeling of something vital being ripped away, of my body turning against itself in its desperate need to get back to them.
"Your body was shutting down," Ethan continued, his voice tight with barely controlled emotion, each word clipped and precise like he was reading from a medical textbook. "Not just from the cold — from separation. Another hour without Alpha contact and your heart could have stopped. Your cortisol levels were through the roof, your organs were starting to fail, your—" He stopped, his jaw clenching, his hands fisting in his lap. "You were dying, Ava. From the inside out."
The memory flashed again, Mason's face above me, twisted with guilt and grief. His tears falling onto my cheeks. The stretch of him inside me, the feeling of his knot swelling.
"Mason," I said quietly, and I felt him tense behind me, his whole body going rigid against mine. "I remember... I remember you..."
The silence that followed was suffocating. I felt Leo's hand tighten on my shoulder, felt Caleb press closer against my back, felt Ethan's gaze sharpen with something that looked like protective fury.
"The bond sickness wasn't responding to skin contact," Mason said finally, his voice carefully flat, carefully controlled, but I could hear the tremor beneath it, the guilt that threatened to crack him open. "We tried everything. Scent saturation, constant touch, the nest, nothing was working. Your heart kept skipping. You wouldn't wake up. And then Dr. Mercer came, and he said..." He stopped, his breath catching, his arm tightening around me almost painfully. "He said there was only one thingthat would work. One way to convince your biology that you hadn't been abandoned."
"So you did it," I said, and my voice came out steadier than I expected, calmer than I felt. "You... you knotted me. While I was unconscious."
"Yes." The word was barely a whisper, ragged and broken, torn from somewhere deep in his chest. "I did. You couldn't consent, and I did it anyway. Because the alternative was watching you die." His hand came up to cover his face, his shoulders shaking with emotion he was fighting to contain. "I'll never forgive myself for it, Ava. Never. But I couldn't— I couldn't just let you?—"
"Mason." I reached up, my hand trembling with weakness, and pulled his hand away from his face. His eyes were wet, red-rimmed, full of a guilt so profound it made my chest ache. "Mason, look at me." He did, reluctantly, his jaw clenched tight, bracing himself for the anger and betrayal he clearly expected to see.
