Page 31 of Threads of Fate

Gideon responds, “Well, that popping noise is Nix’s bones setting.” A particularly loud one sounds near where Rowan has gone back in for a second whiff of the intoxicating scent, and his eyes blow wide with shock. The bones not hidden by thebandages on Nix’s face are shifting and roiling. “It’s been going on for hours.”

“Does it hurt?” Rowan feels a little sick thinking about it, and hearing it only makes it worse.

Jay runs a soothing hand through Nix’s hair. “It’s excruciating. They’re keeping him in a coma until the worst of it is over. They’ll get him a scan tomorrow if he remains stable. We didn’t want any of you to see him like this.”

In his pheromone-induced freak-out, Rowan had missed that even while in a coma, Nix’s body was in constant movement. The transition is reshaping him—healinghim at the same time.

Rowan remembers that Gideon hadn’t answered his question about why Nix smelled like the best sex anyone would ever have—in a bakery. When Nix is ready, Luca’s mocha and Nix’s vanilla sweets will be an irresistible combination. Rowan cannot wait. “You never answered: Why does he smell like sex on steroids?”

“We don’t know,” Jay says, gazing hard at his newest mate as if the answer is written on the soft skin visible around the bandages.

“What do you mean you don’t know? What does Yasmine say?”

“We consulted the on-call doctor, and they say it’s just his new scent developing, and it will probably settle. But we’ve requested an endocrinology consultation as soon as possible.” That’s fucked up because Nix’s mouthwatering scent is so far from subtle.

“So aside from thesnap, crackle, and pophorrorshow and thesmelling like sex in a bakery, he’s going to be okay?”

Jay sighs. Yasmine answers for him from the doorway, “We won’t know until we get him a scan and he wakes up. But it’s safe to say he’s much better than he was.”

Rowan feels an overwhelming wave of relief—so powerful it’s almost embarrassing. To hide the sudden sting of tears, he leansin, pressing his face close to Nix’s ear. “Hello, Nix. I’m Rowan,” he whispers.

Chapter Fourteen: Grayson

Grayson

The last three days have been some of the hardest Grayson has ever had in his short life. Not more than the rest of his pack, obviously, with a single exception:

Something is wrong with him.

Grayson’s pack would say he has high emotional intelligence. Though sometimes accused of being a fool, his real-life skills and instincts prove otherwise. Romantic yet practical, passionate yet reasonable, Grayson knows himself well—perhaps too well.

When he discovered that Jay’s Nix hadn’t died in a car accident eight years ago, it changed everything. Knowing they were still eight—a never-ending infinity of love and life—fulfilled something he hadn’t even dared to name.

For years, he’d carried an unspoken sense of absence. It felt cliched and ungrateful to admit, given his six incredible mates who love and cherish him as fiercely as he does them. But that ache lingered, unshakable and silent.

Unlike Luca, whose emotions are open for the world to see, Grayson holds himself tightly in check. Luca’s freedom to live instinctively is something Grayson envies because since presenting, he’s been unable to simplybe. Grayson has always felt his grip on the wolf needed an iron fist and a metal cage with a hefty lock.

Because Grayson’s wolf is loud. Outwardly, he maintains a light-hearted persona, channeling his energy into his art, his work designing beautiful structures and loving his mates in ways they need. But the older he’s gotten, the more he’s learned to compartmentalize, keeping the darker parts of himself hidden. Or so he thought.

Imagine his horror, when he first scented Nix—while Nix was still human—and his wolf erupted. He’d felt the urge to attack Jay for the right to be Nix’s prime alpha. No matter that Grayson had no intention of leading the pack, he’d just wanted to take Nix for himself and fuck the consequences. It is so contrary to Grayson’s motto of restraint that it means he’s had to look his wolf dead in the eye and know the past ten years have been for nothing.

Every day since, Gray has worried about doing just that; taking Nix for his own no matter who he has to ruin. No matter that these men are his mates, fated and loved, bonded forever. And it’s only getting worse. He’s spending every waking minute while waiting for word on Nix’s healing, researching every corner of the internet for answers about why he feels like this and dreading (yes, dreading)the moment when he’ll be faced with their mate, awake and more alluring than the sun.

How is he possibly going to face them all—face Nix—without tearing into him, overwhelmed with the desire to fuck and to own? To merge them, and for once in his life,finallyfeel whole? Grayson hates himself the most when he looks too closely and sees only greedy anticipation.

After going on three days of constant research, he is no further along in finding an answer. He should probably tell someone what’s going on, and sure, he’s been close a few times—Finn or Leo, given that he is avoiding Jay as much as he is Nix. But every time he thought about speaking up, he couldn’t do it.The pack already carries so much—he refuses to be one more thing they have to worry about.

He’ll figure it out. He has to.

So now he’s awake early the morning after they had gathered to watch Jay turn Nix. Grayson removes his nose from Luca’s armpit, the beta’s mocha scent the only thing helping Grayson battle against the sultry aroma seeping from Nix’s room.

That’s the other thing: since the moment he’s scented Nix, even as a human, his dick has been in some state of hardness. If it weren’t so awful, it might be funny as he entertains the idea that maybe he’s permanently damaging himself. After all, the commercials tell you that you should seek medical help for erections that last longer than twenty-four hours. This is already way past that.

It’s so unlike him. As an enigma, he’s hard-wired to need sex more often than a regular alpha, but it has always been a point of personal pride to control his urges, and he often chooses to do without.

He has always believed that abstinence (to a degree) builds strength of character, and when he does give in, the release is next level. Finn tells him he’s edging himself and that it’s an actual kink, one that’s not common with Weres given their refractory period, high libido, and general animal instincts tobite, fuck, and breed. But it works for him, and his mates respect and enjoy it in their way.

This isn’t even the longest he’s been without, having been with Rowan the day they found out about Nix and Jay the night before that, so he shouldn’t have been so worked up. His shame surges with the need to mate Nix. He’d been violated in the worst ways and was fighting for his life, but even the shame wasn’t enough to kill Grayson’s hard-on.

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