“Judah.” Mason’s jaw tightens, muscle jumping beneath the skin. “You shouldn’t be alone with Judah.”
What in the hell is going on? I look between them. Mason is pale and sweating despite the ambient temperature. Judah looks like he just spotted a bear in the woods and is trying to decide whether to run or play dead.
“Mason.” I keep my voice gentle and soft. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”
“Nothing happened.” The words come out too fast, too defensive. “I just don’t think?—“
“Mason.”
He meets my eyes, and I see it—the wild desperation barely leashed beneath his professional calm. His pupils are blown wide, and there’s a sheen of sweat across his forehead, dampness at his collar. His hands are trembling. Not the controlled tension of anger, but a fine, involuntary shaking that he can’t seem to stop.
He keeps touching his neck, rubbing the back of it, tugging at his collar like it’s suddenly too tight.
Something cold settles in my stomach.
I step toward him, reaching for his forehead to check his temperature. “You’re sweating. And you look?—“
“I’m fine.” He jerks back from my touch, and the rejection stings more than it should. “It’s just too hot in here.”
It’s not hot. If anything, the kitchen is cool, early morning air seeping through the old windows.
I look at Judah.
He’s gone rigid, eyes widening with an expression I can’t read. His nostrils flare slightly—subtle, almost imperceptible—and then his face goes completely blank.
But his hands are trembling.
And mine have started.
Because I recognize what I’m seeing now. The flush spreading down Mason’s neck. The way his scent has shifted, deepened, grown richer in the air around us. The restless energycrackling beneath his skin that he’s trying so desperately to control.
“Mason,” I breathe, and my voice comes out strange, hushed with the weight of understanding. “You’re going into heat.”
TWENTY-SIX
PHOENIX
The bedroom doorslams behind us hard enough to rattle the oil paintings lining the hallway.
Mason stumbles against the four-poster bed, catching himself on one of the carved posts. His knuckles go white around the wood. Sweat darkens the collar of his wrinkled oxford, and the flush I noticed in the kitchen has spread down beneath the fabric, painting his throat in blotches of pink.
“Sit down before you fall down,” I tell him, steering him toward the edge of the mattress. My nest is still intact—blankets piled high, pillows arranged in the cocoon formation that took me an embarrassingly long time to perfect. Mason sinks onto the edge of it like his strings have been cut, and immediately his body curves toward the scented fabric, his nostrils flaring.
A groan escapes him. Low, involuntary, almost pained.
From the center of the nest, Atticus bolts upright. He blinks at us with the disoriented squint of someone ripped from deep sleep.
“What—” He looks from Mason’s hunched form to my face and back again. “What’s happening?”
“Mason’s going into heat.”
That’s enough to snap Atticus fully awake. He swings his legs off the bed, bare feet hitting the hardwood, and crosses to where Mason sits curled around the bedpost. Those green eyes sharpen into something focused, alert—the lazy charm stripped away in an instant.
He crouches in front of Mason, not touching, just positioning himself at eye level. “How bad?”
Mason’s jaw clenches so hard the tendons in his neck stand out like bridge cables. “I’m not in heat.”
I fold my arms. “Mason.”
