“No. Not them.”
I’m not going to let him get away without sharing more. “Tell me.”
Mason’s voice softens when he talks about Judah and Dominic.
“They were the only ones who never flinched,” he says, and something warm flickers behind the exhaustion in his eyes. “Judah walked me home from school every day. Not because he thought I was weak—because we were friends and it was on the way. And Dom would fight anyone who looked at me sideways. Not out of alpha possessiveness. Just pure, unfiltered rage at anyone who tried to hurt someone who was part of his family.”
I think about Dom’s face when he told me the story in the kitchen. The crack in his voice when he talked about Mason leaving. The way his hands shook.
He was my family too. The first real family I ever had.
“Falling in love with Judah was…” Mason trails off, searching for words. “Slow, at first. Then all at once. I don’t even know when it happened exactly because there wasn’t a single moment. It was just the accumulation of a thousand things.”
My throat tightens. I know that feeling.
“And the camping trip?”
Mason’s eyes squeeze shut. “My heat came early. And Judah was there. I don’t know which one of us is to blame for making it happen.”
“You bonded.”
“We bonded.” The words come out hollow. Empty. “I woke up the next morning with his mark on my chest and suddenly I was drowning in him. Drowning in…”
“In what?” I prompt, when it’s clear he won’t finish.
Mason’s face crumples.
“Horror,” he whispers. “He felt this…wave of absolute, devastating disgust at what we’d done.”
It feels like the world shifts slightly on its axis.
Because the alpha who busted in here a few minutes ago was anything but disgusted.
The emotion I saw on Judah’s face wasn’t horror.
It washunger.
I cup his face in my hands, forcing him to look at me. “Mason, honey. Did Judah ever actuallysayhe regretted the bond? Did he use those words?”
Mason blinks, brow furrowing. “He didn’t have to.”
I could argue with him and if he wasn’t in heat, I probably would. But now isn’t the time to point out the glaring sinkhole in the middle of his field of logic.
So I stroke my thumbs across his cheekbones, wiping away the tears that have started to spill. “I find it absolutely impossible to believe that anyone could be bonded to you and feel anything other than grateful.”
The words are true. Completely, devastatingly true. Whatever complicated feelings are churning through me right now—the hurt, the jealousy, the sense of betrayal—none of them change this fundamental fact:
Mason is extraordinary. Mason is loyal and competent and endlessly kind. Mason has spent three years taking care of me, far above what has ever been reasonable or what anyone else in his position would ever consider doing.
Mason stares at me with wide, wet eyes.
Then he kisses me.
My brain short-circuits. For a fraction of a second, I freeze. Caught off guard by the press of his lips, by the salt of tears on his mouth, by the desperate way his fingers curl into my shirt like he’s afraid I’ll disappear.
Then I’m kissing him back.
Mason makes a needy sound against my lips and presses closer. His body fits against mine like a puzzle piece snapping into place, all lean lines and feverish heat. His hands find my waist, my hips, the bare skin at the small of my back where my shirt has ridden up.
