Mason's Regret

by Odessa Lynne

  He didn’t figure he needed to explain to anyone who he was talking about. Five should’ve been there. He could have explained the whole thing, and instead, Mason had been stuck trying to explain something he didn’t even understand himself.

  “I can’t tell if you hate the guy or if this is what it looks like when you’re in love.”

  Mason directed a flat stare at Marcus.

  Marcus laughed, but it was a tired laugh. On closer look, it was easy to see the fatigue around his eyes, and for half a second, Mason was sorry that he’d spent the last ten minutes arguing with his brother, especially after everything they’d been through.

  Mason waved Marcus away. “Go on. Get out of here. The doctor has those tests to run.”

  Marcus started for the door. When he reached it, he looked back to Mason. “So it’s the second one, huh?”

  “Fuck you,” Mason said just as Marcus stepped through the door.

  “That would be illegal,” Marcus called out from the hallway just before the door closed with a solid thud.

  “Goddammit.” Mason looked over at a patiently waiting Alan. “He gets on my last nerve sometimes.”

  Chapter 36

  Less than an hour later, Mason was side-eyeing the syringe Alan was preparing. His stomach did a little flip every time his gaze caught on the needle. It wasn’t that he didn’t like needles, but… this one looked long enough to go clean through his shoulder.

  Mason pulled his leg in until his foot was flat on the bed so he could rest his arm across his knee. “You sure this is really necessary?”

  Alan stepped up to the bed.

  Mason gestured. “You just told me not ten minutes ago how my shoulder is healing remarkably well. Your exact words.”

  “The wolves’ healing technology can work miracles, but sometimes even a miracle isn’t enough to do the job right. This particular mix’ll give the biotech inside you a little something extra to work with so the healing doesn’t stall out. Your body only has so many resources available. With as much accelerated healing as you’ve had to do over the last week, you need this. Sit up.”

  Mason pushed himself away from the headboard.

  “It won’t hurt much. Just take a deep breath.”

  “What good will—” He cut off abruptly, hissing through his teeth.

  “Just another second.”

  The needle slid out as easily as it had gone in.

  Mason glowered at Alan and rubbed at the spot where the needle had gone into his shoulder. Alan stepped back to the small table beside the bed where the metal tray of medical tools and supplies were and started tidying up.

  Despite the hour they’d spent together, Mason had learned almost nothing about Alan that he hadn’t already known—that was to say, nothing.

  After a moment of silence, Mason fluffed a pillow into the space behind him and leaned back again and asked, “Are you mated to one of the wolves here? You didn’t say.”

  Alan’s hand stilled over the collection of tools. “I just take care of the medical needs of the humans here. No one’s tried to claim me yet, and probably won’t from what I hear. Order comes straight from the first alpha.”

  “You lucky bastard.”

  Alan raised his head. “You have a mate. You’re not happy with that?”

  Mason suddenly wished he’d kept his mouth shut. “Forget it. It was just something to say.”

  Alan was watching him too closely. “If you have a problem with your mate—”

  “I’m not gay.”

  Alan fumbled the device he was repositioning. It was square, white, and small enough to fit in his palm, and the faint clack it made against the metal tray echoed in the silent room. He picked up the device again, then looked over at Mason with an expression too neutral to be trusted.

  Just to be sure Alan had heard, Mason said again, “I’m not gay.”

  “You’re… sure?”

  Mason stared hard at Alan.

  “Ah, okay.” Alan cleared his throat. “I’ve never had this situation come up before, actually.”

  “Never?”

  Alan didn’t seem to notice he’d taken to flipping the piece of tech he held end over end. “I know all the wolves here who’ve taken human mates but there are definite gaps in my knowledge. I’ve only been working with the wolves for a few years. But I know they try not to claim humans as mates. It’s not as common as you might’ve been led to think.”

  “That’s hard to believe, considering what happened to me—and Brendan, and Brendan’s pain in the ass friends—”

  “Okay, okay, I get it.”

  “And Marcus—”

  Alan shook his head.

  “And that nurse of yours—”

  “Okay,” Alan said, “you can stop being a smartass and listen.”

  “He left me out there in the woods with that woman. Do you think he was trying to tell me something, like the fact that he’s changed his mind?”

  Alan rested his hip against the table his tools were on and crossed his arms. The move emphasized the surprising bulk of his biceps. “He had to leave you behind. It was the only safe choice.”

  “Really?” Mason waited but Alan didn’t explain further. “Come on.”

  Alan shook his head. “Not my place to decide what you’re allowed to know and I don’t have time to start asking around. So that’s all you’re getting out of me. I just wouldn’t count on him leaving you in peace for long if that’s what you’re hoping for. You’re his mate.”

  “What I’m hoping for? You think I want him to just walk away after what he started?” Mason threaded his fingers together over his stomach—gently so as not to jostle his shoulder. “Letting him walk away is the furthest thing from my mind right now. He doesn’t get to do that. He started this shit and he’s going to finish it.”

  “Why?”

  Mason frowned at Alan.

  “You’re not gay,” Alan said. “If you’re never going to be able to love him—”

  “Whoa the fuck down,” Mason interrupted. “It’s been three—what—four?—days. Okay, a week and a half if you count my—” He waved his hand in a vague way to encompass everything. “—whatever you’d call it.”

  “Recovery?”

  “Sure. Recovery. I’ve never had a serious gay thought in my life. But that fucker did something to me that’s really messed with my head.”

  “I see. You’re talking about sex.”

  “I’m not talking about—well, I am, but—ah fuck.” He hadn’t meant to allow himself to get flustered but his face was hot and his tongue tied. He leaned his head back to rest comfortably on the headboard so he didn’t have to meet Alan’s gaze.

  “So you two had sex and now you’re confused.”

  “It’s not—” Mason forced his voice lower. “I want things from him I don’t want from anybody else. And I don’t know why the fuck that is. It doesn’t make any sense. The first time I saw him—” He lifted his head and met Alan’s gaze head on. “Do you believe in destiny?”

  Alan straightened away from the table, clearing his throat. “Not in so many words.”

  “Yes or no?”

  Alan shook his head.

  “I don’t either,” Mason said. “But there’s something about Five that’s been different from the beginning.” He let out a hard little laugh. “I have a lot to be ashamed of. I’ve been a coward more than once in my life and it hasn’t done me any favors. I’m not leaving this place with one more regret tucked under my belt. I’ve got enough of those to last me a lifetime. I want to know what he started. I want to know where it’s going. I feel like I’m on the verge of something I’ll never get another chance at if I start running scared now.”

  Alan’s mouth quirked up at the corner as he uncrossed his arms. “I’m not sure when you had the time, but it sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

  “I don’t want to look back in ten, maybe twenty, years and be the same goddamned coward I was three years ago.” Mason low
ered his head, staring at his toes again. “He makes me think I don’t have to be.”

  “So you are attracted to him on some level, I assume, even if not physically. How was the sex?”

  Just the thought of answering that question made Mason’s heart thud against his rib cage.

  “You don’t have to answer.” Alan rubbed his hands together. “Not today anyway.”

  Mason gave Alan a side-eye, then just gave up and met that knowing gaze.

  Alan smiled. “It’s my job. Sorry. There will be an exam.” His accompanying laugh was gentle but it was clear he wasn’t joking.

  “Goddammit.”

  “You don’t get mated without sex. At least not as far as I know. So it’s not like this is news to me or anyone else.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m willing to talk about it.”

  Alan folded his hand together and tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I’m not sure how I can help you, but… Have you ever gotten aroused thinking about a man in a sexual way?”

  “I didn’t tell you any of this so you could help me.” Mason’s voice came out uncomfortably high. He cleared his throat.

  “I like helping people,” Alan said. “So have you?”

  “I do my best not to think about men in a sexual way,” Mason said. “It hasn’t been that hard.”

  He didn’t realize how that was going to sound until after he said it, and he felt a slow flush crawl into his face.

  But Alan didn’t give him shit over it, not like Marcus would have. “So what do you think of Five? Most people can appreciate how attractive the wolves are as a species.”

  “They’re alright,” Mason said as he adjusted his position to something more comfortable for his back.

  Funny how easy that made it to avoid meeting Alan’s gaze.

  Alan didn’t say anything, so Mason looked up. Alan had a piercing gaze leveled right at Mason.

  “Alright, goddammit. I can see the appeal, but I’ve never thought ‘Hey, he sure looks good. Wish I could fuck him.’”

  He hadn’t. Only now, with that thought at the forefront of his mind, he knew it could happen.

  Alan tutted. “They really don’t like it when you call mating fucking.”

  “They call mating fucking all the time.”

  Alan’s eyebrows rose.

  “They do,” Mason said.

  Alan didn’t argue, just moved to pull a chair up to the bed. He sat, leaned forward, and clasped his hands in front of him. “So tell me about your first gay experience.”

  “We’re not having this conversation.”

  Alan leaned in, the lines in his face firming up. “In a lot of ways the wolves think they understand us—but they don’t. I think it’s worse than we realize. The same can be said about us, I don’t doubt that one bit. But they think these mating rituals and instincts they have are perfectly natural—and they might be, for them. But there are things they do and think that we just don’t and it makes for some complicated consent issues that, frankly, are over my head. I’m not a psychologist—I just treat injuries the best way I know how. I wasn’t even finished with my education when—well, you can guess that.”

  “Can’t say I’m surprised. The only real doctors I know of are a lot older than you.”

  Alan smiled, deepening the creases around his eyes. “I’m probably older than you think I am, but yeah, I was in my last year when the first heat came.”

  Mason nodded, but didn’t prod.

  Alan’s smile dropped away again. “Are you okay with what happened?”

  “And if I’m not, what? What are you going to do about it, really?”

  The calm concern in Alan’s eyes was enough to twist Mason’s stomach.

  Mason made a sound of disgust and lowered his gaze. He started picking at the fabric over his knee. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “I don’t want to let you out of here if you’re going to have to go back into a situation where you feel like you’re being—”

  “Don’t say it!” Mason dragged his hands down his face, the words he hadn’t been able to stop Alan from saying ringing in his ears.

  “Look—” He lowered his hands. “At first I wasn’t comfortable. I’m not going to pretend I was. It’s a fucking mess, what this heat has done to us—and what it’s done to them—”

  It felt significant that he had to say that, but he couldn’t ignore the truth the way he had in the past, couldn’t keep blaming Five and the rest of them for something that had always been out of everyone’s control.

  Everyone.

  He sighed, hard. “It was a fucking joke. On me. I thought I would hate it. I didn’t. He was… different. It was different.” He gave Alan a hard look meant to fend off any sudden questions. “I’m still not gay. But if there’s anybody in this world that has a chance of making me want to be, it’s probably Five.”

  “So you’re okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “If things were rough, I’m going to need to check you out. Anal sex is—”

  “Whoa!” Mason couldn’t keep the outrage out of his voice. “I’m not talking about anal sex with you. Forget it. Besides, I’ve got that healing shit inside me.”

  Alan didn’t say a word. Marcus would have. Mason was just glad he’d wasn’t there.

  “That wasn’t supposed to be funny,” Mason said, his face hot with embarrassment.

  “It was pretty damn funny.” But Alan’s expression hadn’t changed at all.

  “Is patient confidentiality still a thing?”

  “Of course. It was what I was taught and I mean to do things the way they’re supposed to be done.”

  “Good. Marcus can’t ever find out I said that.”

  Alan smiled. Then he sat back, clapping his hands against his thighs. “I just need to know you’re okay. I’m your doctor.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “If you’re sure…” Alan gave him an inquiring look.

  “I said I’m fine.”

  Alan looked over at a screen on the wall just to the left of Mason’s bed. “You don’t sound fine. And your blood pressure’s a little high. Your heart rate’s up. Nothing big, but it could mean something. Maybe I should run a few more tests…”

  “Alright, fine. You want the truth? I’m not okay. That goddamned shitbrain ran off just when I was about to tell him—” Memories surged to the fore. Mason tried to shut them down, but it wasn’t easy.

  He clenched his hand into a fist over his knee and just sat there for a moment, feeling again that emptiness he’d first experienced when he’d come back from his trip into the woods to find Five and the others gone.

  Alan eyed him with concern, his gaze flickering between Mason and that screen that was obviously telling him things about Mason’s physical state. “Go on.”

  “These are things I need to talk to him about, not you. Sorry. This just isn’t any of your business.” Mason pushed his hands down into the mattress and moved to the side of the bed, swinging his legs over. “How do I get in touch with him?”

  Alan started to answer, only to make an odd face and reach into his front pocket. “I’m sorry. I need to check this. It’s set to emergency contact only.”

  He pulled out a phone and took a look at the screen. A fiercely satisfied expression came over his face. He looked up. “Can you give me a second?”

  “Sure.”

  Alan got up from the chair and moved to the other side of the room, pulling up what looked like a holographic display from the small phone.

  Mason quirked one eyebrow, a little surprised to see that kind of tech on what had looked like one of the standard cheap phones that still worked with the sats. Then he heard Alan say “Devon won’t” and suddenly he knew why.

  Devon Fletcher was an old friend of Brendan’s and he was one of the men who’d had a wolf take him for a mate three years ago in the midst of the shitstorm Brendan had created. Fletcher knew tech, and with access to the wolves’ technologies, there was no doubt he coul
d probably do some amazing things given half the chance.

  From Mason’s position, he couldn’t see whatever it was Alan was watching, but he heard Alan say, “Excellent… that’s what I thought was going on… yeah, it’s a good sign… don’t let him push too hard… okay, I’ll be over soon, but I have some work to finish up first…”

  The next pause lasted long enough to feel out of place.

  Then Alan said, “Just send Ethan. He’ll know what to do. He’s a smart kid.”

  Another pause, this one even longer.

  “Listen, I know. Don’t—” He glanced over his shoulder at Mason. “I’m not in a position to go into this right now, okay? We’ll talk about it later.”

  The call ended and Alan pocketed his phone and turned to Mason.

  Mason pushed off the side of the bed and stood.

  Alan’s gaze lingered on the tray of medical supplies, his brow furrowing.

  “Problem?” Mason asked, squeezing his toes against the cool oak boards of the floor.

  “You could say that. I forgot to make you aware of one of the potential side-effects of the drug I put in your shoulder. I should’ve told you. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If you’d known, you might have tried harder not to talk.” Alan grimaced. “It’s one of the drugs the wolves created for us. Some of them make it more difficult for humans to control impulsive behaviors.”

  No wonder Alan had been so easy to talk to.

  “Forget it,” Mason said. “I feel fine. You were going to tell me how to get in touch with Five.”

  “The effect of the drug’ll last for several hours. Now might not be the best time to—”

  “There’s something I need to get off my chest with that bastard and I might as well do it while I’ve got a little chemical help. Tell me how to contact him.”

  “It’s a potential side-effect. It’s not a given—Ah. Okay.”

  Mason had thought that glare might do the trick.

  Chapter 37

  Three hours later, and Mason was sitting at the dining table in a small house, drumming his thumbs against the dark wood top. He’d been moved, without a clue where he was going, into what he assumed was somebody’s home.