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Gideon puts the Buick into park in front of the small university teaching hospital, and Finn will not be the first to make a move to exit the vehicle.

They’d spent the entire thirty minutes of the ride listening to Gideon grumble about the risks, the dangers, his feelings of impending doom, and the piercing state of the Florida sunshine in February.

Grayson had made the mistake of mentioning Gideon’s distaste for the lack of sunshine in Nashville in January about fifteen minutes ago and they’d all been denied coffee at a McDonald’s Drive-thru in retaliation, while Nix risks it all by muttering it’s Mickey-D’s under his breath.

He can’t blame Gideon for his grumpy attitude, as he understands that it arises out of anxiety.

As soon as they cross the threshold of the hospital, they’ll be in a public system.

Accessible by whoever Carnell has monitoring them, by whatever means.

And if Nix is the target, they are sitting ducks in a largely human world.

Clearwater’s Were population is much smaller than that of Nashville, and the larger concentration of humans versus Weres puts them at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to keeping their species a secret.

But on the other hand, Finn can and does blame Grayson for being an instigating asshole. He misses his coffee, dammit.

“Do you understand how this is going to go?” Gideon asks, turning so he can see Grayson and Nix in the back of the vehicle.

“They know we are coming, but this is still a human hospital. Stick with me. Dr. Merritt will do the talking. We get in, and then we get out. No one talks, no one gets separated, and no one dies. ”

“Yes, sir. In that order.” Grayson salutes.

Finn bangs the back of his head against the window. “Grayson. Why?”

Instead of answering, Grayson climbs out, pulling Nix along with him. Where Grayson has chosen a long-sleeved button-down over his navy shorts, Nix is covered from head to toe in a multitude of pack-scented clothes to better hide his now fifteen-and-a-half-week-old twins.

Finn now understands perfectly when pregnant people say they’ve “popped,” because he is bigger than ever, seemingly overnight.

It might not look so peculiar if Nix weren’t perfectly proportioned everywhere else.

He’d not started to fill out in his face, or have even one swollen ankle.

He looks like he’d swallowed a basketball.

Sighing as Gideon clicks the key fob to lock the doors, Finn leads the way in through the main doors.

The interior is lovely and cool, in shades of rose and light blue, with a mural of a moonlit sea covering the wall behind the information desk.

He’d called ahead with their time of arrival, and an officious man is leaning against the desk, chatting up a receptionist. He straightens up when they enter, and for a moment, Finn wishes he’d bothered with a jacket rather than just his button-down and khakis.

“Dr. Merritt! What a pleasure. So pleased to be of service today. I am Dr. Helmsford Rory.” He offers his hand. “Our mutual friends speak highly of you!”

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Rory. These are my…uh—” He hesitates, uncertain how to explain his four mates. “My patient, Grayson, and my associates, Gideon and Nix. Thank you for letting us use your equipment today.”

“My pleasure. I have the technician and radiologist available for you, as well.”

“Oh, well. That’s kind. Thank you. I don’t think we’ll need the radiologist. I’m well-versed in interpretation.”

The last thing they need is for anyone to get a look at something they shouldn’t. And Finn has a creeping feeling that this might fall under the heading of FOR HIS EYES ONLY.

“But thank you for your kindness. ”

“Oh, well, if you’re certain? It’s this way. Do your guests want to wait here?”

“No!” echoes from the other three members of the Rhodes pack, and Finn clenches his jaw.

Finn pastes his best bureaucratic smile on.

“If it’s alright with you, Mr. Rory, we’d like to stick together.”

“Certainly. This way.”

They make their way to the elevators, and Nix slips his hand into Finn’s. It’s a welcome comfort.

It’s going to be okay, Finn.

Nix’s voice is just as deep in his head as it is in real life, and he smiles. You are so hot when you are in doctor mode. Sigh.

He can’t help but chuckle at the narrated sigh, pushing his glasses up his nose with a wink.

He gets a vivid image of a naked Nix being held up and fucked in the elevator by his three alphas—while the fussy Mr. Rory watches—for his trouble.

He coughs and squeezes Nix’s hand, hard.

That’ll teach you. But also, do you think he’d be down? He’d probably blow a gasket.

Thankfully, before Finn has to entertain the thought of an aroused hospital administrator, the elevator opens on the quiet basement level. They pass the CT Scan area, ultrasounds, general X-ray, and two MRI machine rooms.

“This is machine one. It’s state-of-the-art, high-field resolution imaging. A gift to the hospital from an estate at the end of last year. We are very proud of her,” Mr. Rory boasts.

Gideon snorts, not at all impressed by Mr. Rory, his misogyny, or his posturing.

Finn quickly covers his snort by clearing his throat.

“Grayson has had one other MRI before, so he knows the drill.”

Grayson had fallen from a ladder in the Art House a year and a half ago, and Finn had insisted, as he’d had back pain that hadn’t disappeared as quickly as he’d liked.

“Wonderful. I’ll visit with my staff until you’re done. A superb administrator’s work is never done, you know.”

“Thank you, Dr. Rory,” Finn adds and watches as the big man approaches the technicians’ work station. The looks of resignation on their faces say it all.

“Okay, you two have to stay out here. In fact, Nix, give me a second.”

Finn finds what he’s looking for inside an empty X-ray room, and when he comes back, he brandishes them like a trophy.

“Ta-da! Please wear these. I am sure it’s safe down here, but just in case.”

He lifts Nix’s sweatshirt and clips on a lead apron on the front over the babies, and a second around his back—effectively blocking any stray rays of energy from getting to their babies.

Nix’s eyes go misty, and Finn hears: This is the most romantic thing you have ever done for me, Dr. Merritt. And that’s saying something.

He can feel his cheeks go pink.

“That’s enough out of you.”

He kisses Nix’s cheek, though, so he knows he appreciates the sentiment.

“I think I need to raise the bar, though.”

Nix giggles, as he pushes Gideon down on the bench outside the room, before sitting his lead-covered butt in his lap.

“Oof. Go easy on me, Kitten.”

“Are you complaining? Surely not.”

Rolling his eyes, he makes his point with a firm squeeze.

Grayson is leaning against the wall, with his eyes closed and his ankles crossed. He might look relaxed if you didn’t see his hair moving in the non-existent breeze or that muscle ticking in his jaw.

Undeniably weird, no doubt about it.

“Come on, Gray. Let’s check everything’s in working order. Did you take your piercing out?” Finn asks, receiving an eye roll in return.

The technician, Emmy, is efficient and walks Grayson through the process. It’s a tight fit for Grayson’s shoulders, which are already much broader than he was for his earlier scan, eighteen months ago .

“Okay, you’ll need to stay as still as possible, Mr. Pearce. I’m sorry it’s so tight in here, but press this button if you need anything.”

Finn puts a hand on Grayson’s ankle.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, let’s do this before…fuck. The wolf doesn’t like this, ?Finn. Like, at all.”

“You did fine the last time, though?”

“Yeah, this isn’t me. This is him.”

Oh.

Finn wishes he understood better. Sure, his wolf had been crystal clear during his rut and in the days leading up to it, but it was nothing like the daily battles the enigmas seemed to face.

“Okay, we’ll hurry.”

Finn follows Emmy behind the glass partition.

“He’s ready when you are, Emmy. Thank you.”

“Sure thing, Doc.”

The MRI machine starts up, and it’s loud, even in the booth. Clanking and a steady whirring are perfectly normal, and the images start showing on the monitors. But these aren’t the typical images Finn is used to seeing.

Nope.

There’s elevated activity, as flashes of pink and blue flash across the surface of Grayson’s brain—a pattern of ethereal activity across every single one of his mate’s cerebral nodes.

They’re concentrated in the frontal lobes, where cognitive function is located, and in the temporal lobes, where the light is brightest. Those areas are known for memory and sensory processing.

Occasionally, the MRI captures bursts of activity in the parietal lobes, where spatial awareness and sensory integration usually take place.

It’s beautiful, but not at all the appearance of typical Were brain function.

“Holy shit,” Emmy whispers.

Finn silently agrees. Holy-mother-fucking-shit.

What is going on in Grayson’s brain?

The scan progresses downwards toward Grayson’s chest and abdomen, and when it’s centered over the place where Gideon had said Grayson was glowing, there is a surge in the machine’s core.

Now, Finn knows the science behind MRIs and how they work, and in the second before all hell breaks loose, he has an epiphany about radio frequency bursts, magnets, and the nature of hydrogen nuclei.

It’s then that the MRI machine starts to emit a high-pitched sound.

Emmy meets his gaze in a shared holy shit moment, and she hits the kill switch a moment too late.

Finn drags her to the floor, under the desk, as the heavy-duty glass implodes into the booth.

He feels a million shards hit his back as he shields her, but his thoughts are only for his mate, stuck in the exploding machine.

Grayson!

It’s Nix’s voice inside his head, but it echoes his own distress perfectly.