Page 9 of Threads of Fate

So, he’d used his useless alpha strength to rip off the filing cabinet door to get his friend’s bag out and apologized, but he’d get the charting done tomorrow…or was it now today? He just couldn’t face logging Austin’s injuries clinically. Not when he felt overwhelming anger and sadness at every single one. After all, his heart hurt, and there was the pressing matter of that good cry.

The shower did a lot to get the rotten pear scent out of his nose (if not his memory). Grayson’s basil and green tea body wash and Leo’s cinnamon-orange-scented lotion soothed him. These were the scents that made him think of family and love.Now, he wants to climb naked into bed with Jay. The door to Jay’s room is never closed to any of them, not figuratively or literally, and it’s easy for Finn to walk on silent feet to the large king bed in the center of the room.

His pack alpha lies naked on his back, one muscular arm over his head and the other around a curled-up Grayson, whose sleeping nose is pressed into the side of Jay’s neck. Both mates smell like sex and home. It’s all Finn has thought about since he realized their mate had run back into his old life, injured and afraid.

His stomach rolls again, and Finn presses into Jay’s side with a small whimper, inhaling the familiar scents of pine and come. Without his scent blockers, he must smell awful despite the artificial scents from his shower. Finn isn’t surprised to see his mate’s nose twitch or feel his sleepy, sated gaze.

“Hey, baby.” Jay smoothes his hand down Finn’s back and over his ass. “Tough shift?” Finn moans at the caress. He’s not thinking about sex, he just needs the comfort in that touch; feels it in his soul.

The tears start again because this thing with Austin is big. Call a family meeting, all hands on deck BIG, but he cannot find the words to explain how he let their mate run out the door, and his mates probably haven’t been asleep long. He will tell Jay tomorrow and ask for help. Find Austinandstill keep his honor intact.

“Yeah. A terrible, no good, very bad day. Can I tell you tomorrow?” he whispers, pressing a kiss into the broad chest under his head.

“Of course. Do you need anything?” He gently pulls Grayson’s arm across his chest so that his hand is also on Finn. It works to soothe Finn even more. A press of lips to Finn’s hair, and he slips further toward the exhausted oblivion of sleep. His alpha has him now. Nothing to do but rest.

“Just this right now. Just you and Grayson.”

“All right. Sleep now. It’ll be better in the morning. Love you, baby.” Jay holds him tighter, and Finn breathes in again, the scent of pine and Grayson’s fresh basil scent mixing with his own.

“Love you too.” And with that, he sinks under.

***

Jay’s bed shifts and wiggles. Finn’s bed-mates had left before the sun rose for meetings, leaving him to go back to sleep alone with a persistent discomfort thumping near the base of his skull. The delicious scent of mocha soothes it a bit and if he had to choose his favorite scent of all his mates, Luca Wilde’s would be it.

Finn’s nose is filled with rich mocha flavor, and he swears that when he scents Luca, he can taste it in the back of his throat. Arguably, tasting Luca is also high on his list of favorite things. The expensive coffee maker in their gourmet kitchen attests to the fact that Finn is a coffee fanatic.

But Luca Wilde being awake at six in the morning means only one thing: he’d been up all night in their home studio, hopped up on caffeine and music.

“Finn. Finn. Finn. Finnieeee! Wake up. Isn’t today your partial shift?” Finn, lying on his front, cracks his eye open to see Luca’s big, chocolaty brown eyes up close. His curly brown hair is glorious, and his heart-shaped smile is turned into a sneaky smirk.

Climbing onto Finn’s back, Luca kisses down his spine, nipping and licking, making Finn shiver and wish he had an extra hour to thank his beta for keeping him on schedule. Maybe they could put Luca’s extra energy to a good purpose if Gideon had given permission. When Finn finally looks like he’s awake, Luca smacks his ass hard and rolls off him, scrambling out the door and cackling like a maniac.

“Luca Wilde! Get back here! You’re going to be sorry.” His mate’s plump bare ass, barely covered by a t-shirt, jiggles out the door at top speed, and Finn has to smile when he hears something about not threatening him with a good time. He wonders if there’s food left or just coffee, and follows his bratty mate into the hall and down the stairs after pulling a patented Jay-style black t-shirt over his nakedness. He preens a bit at Grayson and Rowan’s catcalls when he gets within sight of the breakfast bar.

It takes mere seconds for Rowan to get up from the bar with an obvious glint in his eye, teeth sunk into his bottom lip. The young alpha’s aroused spicy rum scent would normally have Finn meeting him halfway and then ending up on the couch for a quick and dirty something-something. Finn is a huge fan of Quick and Dirty with Rowan Foster.

Rowan hasn’t been presented for long, and already he’s struggling with the volatile nature of his sex drive. The endocrinology experts attribute it to him being an enigma alpha—a rare subset of alphas who are not only more instinct-driven but more everything: more intense, more impulsive, more primal. But then again, so are Jay and Grayson, though they seem to handle it with a touch more finesse.

The three enigmas often send each other and their mates into a hormone-fueled sexual feedback loop. Even now, it often fell to Finn or Leo to open the windows and put grumpy enigma alphas with blue balls into a cold shower, or they’d undoubtedly be relegated to a life of poverty.

Hand up in the classic “stop” pose, Finn speaks firmly. “No, Ro. If you get any closer, I will be late.” Rowan looks like he’s weighing the odds that he could convince Finn, regardless of a short-staffed hospital shift.

It is the sudden thought about the hospital that brings the previous day crashing down, and suddenly, the crushing painin Finn’s head surges. “Fuck,” he says, staggering and falling forward. Nausea and remembered grief combine to make his vision black around the edges.

Intercepting him just as he hits the tile floor, Rowan mutters, “Finn, fuck. Did I make you weak in the knees?” He’s genuinely worried, but Finn is not the only one who is uncomfortable with big emotions. Finn curls into Rowan, breathing in spiced rum-scented comfort while Luca hurriedly hands him some water.

“Gideon texted that you didn’t eat your lunch or dinner yesterday. Eat this, please.” Grayson gives him a protein bar usually reserved for emergency nutrition during their ruts. Five alphas on a rolling schedule of bi-annual ruts meant the pantry was always full of emergency snacks. Grayson is stunning in the early morning light, his long black hair pulled half up off his face and his blue eyes electric with concern.

“Was he pissed?” Finn asks, taking a huge gulp of water and chewing three-quarters of the bar in one bite. He realizes he is ravenous. And cold…andhey…was that a hand on his dick? “Rowan!”

“What do you expect?! It’s so pretty,” the big alpha whines, giving it a slow pump, “and it’s right there, and I’m trying to cheer you up. Yours is totally my favorite one, too.” He turns his doe-eyed smile up to level five to show his dimples (He uses those dimples and freckles to his advantage whenever he can), It also makes him a huge fan favorite, with odes to the Long Road Home’s drummer all over every social media platform.

“Not ten minutes ago, you told me that mine was your favorite.” Grayson rolls his eyes. “To be fair, it was in his mouth at the time,” he says to Finn with a smirk.

He loves his mates, and they are just trying to help. No doubt, Jay told some or all of them that he’d had a hard day at the hospital, and they knew him well enough that he would talkabout it when he was ready. Well, he’s decided he isn’t ready to talk about it yet.

Somehow, in the dead of sleep, his subconscious mind had decided that he would do what he needed to do to save Austin, even if Austin himself wasn’t on board. Keeping quiet about it hadn’t been about the fact that he wasn’t proud of what he was going to have to do to get the information, or that he hadn’t done it last night. Not at all. It was about making sure he honored Austin’s choices, and Finn had to find him first to make sure he knew he had some. It would mean losing everything he’d worked for, but Austin was worth it, no matter the consequences.

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