Page 51 of Pack Baby for the Silver Foxes

I sighed as I pulled out a chair. “I’m forty, Hud. Forty. I’ve got injuries older than her.”

“That’s not relevant.”

“It feels bloody relevant when I think about her waking up one day and realizing she’s tied herself to two men who remember dial-up internet.”

One side of his mouth lifted despite everything. “The good old days.”

“Now you’re making me feel old,” I said.

He stood and came around the desk, one hand in his pocket. Controlled, of course. Hudson could look controlled in a building collapse. “Do you think she’ll never age?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Do you think she’s foolish?”

“No.”

“Then don’t make her choice for her before she’s even been allowed to make one. I think we should go to Boston as planned.” The words hit where he meant them to.

Mary had chosen us in heat. That was the argument I reached for whenever I wanted to be honorable and miserable at the same time. She’d chosen us in her pain. Yes, her body was not making too much sense, but she still came to our room on her own legs.

She said yes when we asked, and yes again when we asked harder, and afterward she laughed in our bed making the universe tilt.

“She won’t want someone in his forties forever,” I said.

Hudson’s voice came quietly behind me. “We’re talking about forever?”

I turned. “Aren’t you?”

He held my gaze. There was no amusement now. Just the truth sitting between us, patient and dangerous.

“Did you smell her?” I asked.

His scent changed. “Of course.”

“Then don’t ask stupid questions.”

He looked away first.

That scared me more than if he’d argued.

I stood and crossed to the low cabinet where I poured water because it was too early for whiskey and because Hudson would judge me with his eyebrows. “She had four scents.”

“It turns out that so do we. Her violet opened our secret scent.”

“That’s my point. She never spoke about it. Did she know but chose not to acknowledge it because we’re the ones who are too old for her?”

“I’ve thought about that.”

“Matching one note is common. Lots of packs have alphas who don’t share scents but have one that matches their omega. Then, some would say two matching scents are serious. But three matching notes is what gets people whispering about fate like they’ve read too many old omega myths. But four?”

Hudson rubbed his thumb along the edge of the desk. “Four is almost impossible.”

“Almost.”

“And the violet,” he said.

My hand tightened around the glass.