DeWitt
’s Pack 8
Mason Returns to His Mate
Mason DeWitt is on his way to see his brother after ten years of
exile, but after stopping in at the local pawn shop to get some gas
money, he runs into the one person he hoped not to see. His
mate.
Derek McTavish has never forgotten Mason, even after ten years,
despite the fact that they only had a one-night stand—or four—
together, and when he sees Mason again, he needs to act before
the man leaves him again.
But Mason cannot forget that night when his wolf attempted to
claim Derek. He believes it was sexual assault, and Derek believes
otherwise, but will they reconcile their differences before a new
group of hunters arrives to start a new war between wolf and
man? Especially after Derek kills a hunter in self-defense, and now
they want his head as much as Mason's.
Genre: Alternative (M/M or F/F), Paranormal,
Vampires/Werewolves
Length: 36,574 words
MASON RETURNS TO HIS
MATE
DeWitt’s Pack 8
Marcy Jacks
EVERLASTING CLASSIC
MANLOVE
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www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Everlasting Classic ManLove
MASON RETURNS TO HIS MATE
Copyright © 2012 by Marcy Jacks
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62241-728-5
First E-book Publication: December 2012
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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www.SirenPublishing.com
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MASON RETURNS TO HIS
MATE
DeWitt’s Pack 8
MARCY JACKS
Copyright © 2012
Chapter One
Mason DeWitt sighed as he put his junky Honda pickup in park.
He propped his elbow on the steering wheel and shoved his fist into
his eye, rubbing away the tiredness he felt.
He couldn’t fucking believe he was back in this town. James was
going to have kittens when his younger brother showed up, no phone
call, no warning, not so much as a letter or text from the last decade.
It had been a long-ass drive, coming all the way down from
Northern Ontario, and getting through the border had been a pain in
the ass, but he was finally back.
For whatever reason, Mason had woken up one day and felt more
homesick than he’d ever felt in his life. It was pathetic, like he was a
kid away at camp, but something inside of him had just snapped.
He wanted to go back to his pack, even if it was only to say he
was sorry for the way he’d acted before they officially threw his ass
out.
There was one more person Mason thought he should say he was
sorry to, but Derek was a human, and after what Mason had done to
him, he figured it was best if he left the guy alone instead of stirring
up his shit just because Mason was having a couple of regrets.
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Marcy Jacks
He pulled the gold Rolex out of his pocket and stared at the thing.
Derek had given him this, once upon a time. The kid had stupidly
bought it for a man he’d known less than a week, squandering a lot of
the savings he needed to survive, and after Mason had left, he’d clung
to the thing like it was a teddy bear.
If Mason was finally going to let the other man go, he needed to
stop holding on to the little things that reminded him of the guy.
That, and he kind of needed the money for gas and food.
That was why he’d parked in front of The Old Highway
Pawnshop. He couldn’t believe this place was still in business after all
these years. It actually caused a nostalgic twitch on the inside of his
chest.
The pleasant feeling was replaced with dread when he was
reminded of what he was about to do.
Stroking his thumb over the glass face of the watch, Mason got
out of his truck. The door creaked when he opened it, and rust was
eating away at the edges of the vehicle.
Damn.
With nothing he could do about it, he took off his worn leather
jacket and slung it over his shoulder and walked to the front door or
the shop. He was pretty sure that the sign in the window that shouted
Come In! We’re Open! was even the same one that had been used ten
years previously.
He opened the door, the bell chiming as he entered, and he was
still stroking the face of the watch as he approached the empty
counter.
* * * *
Derek heard the bell at the front door chime, and he hurriedly put
the box of old game controllers he’d been searching through back on
the shelf. “Be out in a minute!” he called, writing down the number of
items in the box and their worth, according to the eBay page on his
Mason Returns to His Mate
9
iPhone, and then taped it to the box before heading to the front of the
store.
There was a single man standing in the shop, leather jacket slung
over his shoulder, looking up at the thirty-two-inch flat screen on the
wall that had the week’s weather and a soccer game playing, on mute,
of course.
Derek had never been a football or hockey type of guy. He loved
soccer.
“Sorry, that one’s not for sale,” Derek said, turning away from the
screen before he got pulled into the game. “I have others if you’re
interested.”
“No.” The man turned. “I’m―”
He stopped before he could say anything his. His face drained of
color when he looked at Derek.
It took Derek about a split second to realize who was standing in
front of him, too, and when it clicked, he was sure he was just as pale
as Mason.
He couldn’t help the hopeful smile that came next. “Mason?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“It is you. Holy God, you haven’t changed a bit.”
“You have,” Mason said.
Derek’s face went from cold to hot in less than a second. Right, he
knew what Mason was referring to. The last time they’d seen each
other, they were both about the same age. Derek was twenty, and
Mason had just turned twenty-one.
He wouldn’t have known it to look at the other man. Mason had a
build that bodybuilders and personal trainers spent hours in the gym,
or hundreds of thousands of dollars, to get.
Derek had looked exactly as any geeky twenty-year-old should.
He’d been scrawny.
That had always made his memories of their time together all the
better. The thought that a built guy like Mason would ever look twice
at a stick figure like Derek had always been something nice to think
10
Marcy Jacks
about whenever he remembered the other man.
Mason smiled hesitantly and stepped forward. Only one step
before he stopped. “What happened to you?”
“Late growth spurt, I guess,” Derek replied. “Work out three or
four times a week though, for about an hour, and I don’t drink any
protein shakes, so I’m pretty sure it was a growth spurt.”
Mason nodded, his eyes still glued to Derek’s body.
Derek liked the way he was being looked at. It was something
he’d not quite gotten used to, and it was always flattering, considering
he was the kid that got shoved into lockers in high school.
Now, although still smaller than Mason, he had the stomach and
shoulders of a GQ model. He even had something of a beard growing
out if he didn’t shave in the morning, which was a look he enjoyed, so
he tended to skip shaving every two or three days.
He knew the orange T-shirt he wore was stretching over his
abdomen, and he couldn’t help but be pleased as Mason stared.
“When did you get back into town?”
Had Mason come for him?
Mason blinked and seemed to come out of the trance that Derek’s
body had put him in. He shoved something into the pocket of his
faded jeans and cleared his throat.
“Just now. On my way to see my brother.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Derek said, doing his best to hide his
disappointment. “How is everyone doing?”
His choice of wording was done on purpose. He dared not ask
how the pack was doing. No, he remembered how Mason didn’t much
like talking openly about what he and his family all were.
Though the pack was situated just outside of Brampton, Derek
didn’t keep in contact with any of them. Not even Mason’s older
brother.
Oh, he saw them around once in a while whenever they did their
odd jobs to bring in money, but they avoided him and he avoided
them. He pretended not to know werewolves existed, and they
Mason Returns to His Mate
11
pretended he didn’t know. It was better that way.
Sometimes he thought he was the only man in Brampton to figure
it out. Everyone in town had their own superstition with wolves
because they were always in the area and always seemed to be
howling at night, but Derek had been especially interested in them.
He’d been a geek, really.
He’d always known about the group of people who lived just
outside of town, but most people thought it was just another group of
houses. They avoided those houses and those people because of all
the injuries and the occasional death that supposedly happened there.
He had been an incredibly curious geek.
He’d seen Mason for the first time, in an unguarded moment, in
the woods just outside the property where the other houses and
cottages were. Derek had thought him to be the most beautiful man
he’d ever seen in his life.
He hadn’t meant to spy on them. He’d honestly just taken the day
to go hiking. Then he’d watched the man shift, and he still thought he
was beautiful.
Mason had sniffed him out, and after a brief chase, they’d stopped
and spoken.
Talking with a real werewolf, who was naked, was the most
amazing thing Derek had ever done in his short life. Maybe it was his
obvious attraction to the other man that drew Mason to him in return.
Somehow they’d come together, and Mason had sworn him to secrecy
from that day on.
Even after Mason had left town, Derek had kept his promise.
Really, who was he going to tell?
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Mason said.
What? “You haven’t kept in touch?”
Mason’s face turned scarlet.
Shit. “Sorry, I didn’t mean―”
“No, no. Not your fault. I haven’t been keeping touch. Not
after…”
12
Marcy Jacks
Mason trailed off, and Derek didn’t push him. He did bite down
on his bottom lip, though.
He had a fairly good idea of what it was that made Mason run
away from his pack, and Derek was certain it had something to do
with the fact that they’d been fucking.
Why the hell not? Derek’s family had thrown him out after he
refused to go to one of those pray-the-gay-away camps. After the
sudden way Mason came to him and then left, it only made sense to
Derek that he was banished from his pack for having a relationship
with another man.
He was still having trouble deciding if the fact that he was also
human had something to do with it, too.
Was Mason going back to try and get back into their good graces?
Why would he even want to go back if they tossed him out?
Mason smiled at him and took a step back, his heavy boot making
the floorboards groan. “It was good to see you again, Derek.”
Panic seized Derek like a fist squeezing his heart and lungs, and
for a second he struggled to breathe.
Mason opened his mouth. What he was going to say, Derek didn’t
know, because he shut it again and turned around.
Derek hurried to the glass door and pushed it shut just as Mason
tried to open it.
Mason looked at him quizzically.
Without taking his eyes away from the other man―his pale-blue
eyes were more gorgeous than Derek remembered, and when had he
shaved his head?―he flipped the lock and turned the “Open” sign to
read “Closed” to any customers who might try coming in.
It was one thirty on a weekday, so Derek was pretty sure they had
some time.
“What are you doing?” Mason asked.
Derek recalled the way the other man was always able to smell
when Derek wanted him. Judging by how Mason’s nostrils were
flaring now, he had no doubt in his mind that Mason knew what he
Mason Returns to His Mate
13
was up to.
He took Mason by the hand and pulled him away from the door.
“Stay a while,” he said.
Mason didn’t protest as Derek led him into the back storage area.
Thank God he’d just cleaned up in here yesterday. There was no dust
or oil on the shelves when he pushed Mason up against them, grabbed
him by the chin, and kissed the man.
By the way Mason’s body went tight, it was safe for Derek to
assume that he’d just shocked the hell out of him. When his hands slid
around Derek’s waist, coming to a stop just above the swell of his ass
as Mason kissed him back, he’d guess that it wasn’t an unwelcome
shock.
He’d missed Mason so much. He just couldn’t let him leave.
* * * *
Mason didn’t know what he’d done right lately to have deserved
this. After what he did to the other man all those years ago, he
would’ve thought that Derek would never want to be in the same
room with Mason ever again, let alone touch him.
Despite that, Derek had smiled at him, made polite conversation,
and was now pressing his hips against Mason’s. His cock was hard
beneath those nearly too-tight jeans he was wearing, and Derek’s
fingers were undoing the belt and fly of Mason’s own worn-out jeans.
Whatever it was that put Derek in such a good mood, Mason
didn’t care, and he didn’t protest when Derek pulled down Mason’s
jeans and boxers, grabbed hold of his cock in his cool hand, and then
fell to his knees.
One hand grabbed Derek by the shoulder, and the other held him
by the back of the head, gripping him by the hair, when Derek opened
his mouth and put his lips around Mason’s throbbing prick.
He hissed in a breath. “Oh God.”
If Derek was just doing this to be cruel, so that he could get
14
Marcy Jacks
Mason off and tell him to get the hell out, then Mason would consider
it well worth it just to have those pink lips moving up and down the
base of his cock again. He was a bastard for letting this happen, and
he didn’t care.
Derek was as good as he remembered. Better, even. He didn’t
want to even think about what that actually meant, but it was there,
and he was loving the hell out of it.
When the other man hummed slightly around Mason’s dick, the
vibrations of his mouth shooting stars of pleasure behind his eyes, he
had to reassess that.
No, he was better than Mason remembered.
Mason pumped his hips, unable to contain himself as he looked
down at Derek. The other man brought his hand up to stroke and rub
at the base of Mason’s cock, the place where Derek’s mouth couldn’t
reach, and Mason nearly lost it.
Two more quick thrusts, and he did lose it. He didn’t even get the
chance to warn Derek that he was coming.
His legs buckled as he moaned, shooting his release down Derek’s
throat.
The man choked and pulled back, taking the last of Mason’s cum
on his cheek.
Mason was never really interested in face shots, but the inner wolf
in him growled his pleasure over the sight of his fluids on Derek’s
cheek.
It was a pretty sight.
Derek continued to choke, and the high Mason had been on left
him. He came down from it almost against his will and then realized
the gravity of what he’d just done.
He slapped Derek on the back, and Derek coughed and started to
breathe normally again. Then he touched his face and cursed, getting
to his feet.
He went off somewhere farther in the back and came back wiping
his face with a damp paper towel. He had a grin on his face that
Mason Returns to His Mate
15
Mason didn’t quite understand as he tucked himself back into his
pants.
Derek’s smile left him as he realized what Mason was doing.
“You’re leaving?”
“I told you I was coming here to see my brother.”
He realized too late how heartless that sounded, considering
Derek had just given him head.
The look on Derek’s face told him just how much those words
stung the other man.
Wham, bam, thank you, man. Ugh. Mason wanted to hide his face
from ever being seen again. Derek knew all about werewolves, but
Mason had never gotten around to telling him about a wolf’s mating
rituals.
He’d thought he was just having some fun. Just sex with someone
he happened to like very much.
He never expected to figure out that Derek was actually his mate,
and when he lost that fight for control over the pack against his
brother, his wolf wanted satisfaction, so it had gone to the one person
he knew he could get it from.
Derek hadn’t stood a chance. Mason had been in human form, but
it was all animal instinct that drove him to do what he’d done. Derek
had passed out when Mason had finished with him, and when Mason
woke up from his haze, animal urgings satisfied with Derek beneath
him and out like a light, long scratch marks marring the beautiful skin
of his back and even bruises on his neck and face…well, Mason had
to go.
Just like he had to go now. Clearly Derek hadn’t done that to try
and get back at Mason. Was it repressed memories? Was that why he
was able to stand in the same room with him? Kiss him?
A lot of things were certainly different about Derek now
compared to back then. Christ, he even smelled different. Mason had
known someone was behind him but hadn’t guessed it was Derek, and
he never would’ve guessed the other man would be looking like that.
16
Marcy Jacks
He was a supermodel now.
What the hell was he still doing in this small town? Last Mason
knew, Derek had been saving up to move to the city.
It was none of his business to ask, and he still had to think about
the possibility of Derek blocking out their last time together. Was
something like that possible even after all these years?
Maybe. Mason didn’t want to be around if that was the case and
any supposed repressed memories came hurtling back to him.
“I’m sorry, I need to go.”
Mason pushed past Derek and went out the door to the front of the
shop. He pulled on the glass door once before remembering that it
was locked. He unlocked it and exited the store, power walking to his
truck. He opened the door and slammed it again when he was inside.
Derek hadn’t looked at him when Mason left. He just stood there,
fists clenched and muscles tight with suppressed rage.
Mason was feeling a little rage right now. He couldn’t hit
anything in the truck. He’d destroy it and then piss himself off even
more. His wolf itched to be let out, to get running and hunting and
tear through some trees and maybe pick a fight with a mountain lion
or something.
That was probably the better choice and the one that would cost
less money.
Mason still had the Rolex in his pocket. He’d quickly stuck it
there when he realized it was Derek he was looking at. Mason had
thought he was ready to part with it, but clearly he wasn’t, and now he
still had no money.
He started the truck and pulled away from the curb, driving down
the two-lane highway that was paved in the middle of the small town
until he found a good place to pull over.
Highway 22 was where he needed to pull off, where his brother
and the rest of the pack were hidden, but he didn’t want to see them
just now. He wanted to let his wolf out.
Mason locked the doors and stepped out of his clothes, folding
Mason Returns to His Mate
17
them neatly and sticking them in the back with the few other packed
possessions he’d brought with him for the journey. He would have to
make this quick. He didn’t want any humans sniffing around here
thinking they could take something.
Mason’s transformation was always relatively fast, usually taking
no more than ten seconds, but now he was so worked up that the
rearranging of his bones and sudden growth of hair was almost
instantaneous.
The next thing he knew, Mason was shaking out his brown coat
and kicking up dirt as he charged into the woods at full speed.
18
Marcy Jacks
Chapter Two
He left again. Derek couldn’t fucking believe the gall Mason had,
even after all these years, and Derek was a complete idiot.
The second he realized that Mason was leaving him again, after
fucking him again, sort of if head counted, all the pent-up anger he’d
felt over the years returned like it was still fresh from when he was
twenty years old and he woke up to Mason’s disappearance without
so much as a note.
He hadn’t thought to be worried until three days had passed, and
Derek had gone to speak with Mason’s brother for the first and last
time.
“He’s not coming back. He was shamed,” James had said.
Every time Derek thought about it, he cringed. Mason had left him
because, somehow, his family had found out what the two of them
were doing, and apparently, even though they hadn’t been keeping in
touch, those old family connections were still strong enough to dictate
who Mason spent his time with even ten years later.
Whatever. He was done. Fuck him, Derek thought as he furiously
wiped down the glass casing that held all the more valuable
electronics and jewelry. If Derek never saw Mason again, he’d be just
dandy.
Except that he could hardly take the high road after he’d given the
other man head.
Fuck.
The bell to the door chimed, and Derek looked up as three men
entered his shop.
He was shocked to see anyone this time of day, but whatever, he
Mason Returns to His Mate
19
needed the business, and maybe some customers would take his mind
off this shit.
They were all dressed in hunting gear. Derek wouldn’t doubt that
they had a couple of rifles and shotguns in whatever car or truck they
drove up in.
He cleared his throat, trying to purge himself of all the negativity
he felt. “Hey, guys, how can I help you?”
One of the men, the only one of the three not wearing any shades,
drew the attention of the others to the deer head Derek had mounted
on the wall behind the counter. They all nodded to it in appreciation
before returning their attention to the human in the store.
There was apparently a leader in this group since only one man
stepped forward. “Yes, we were wondering if you were selling any
rifles or pump-action shotguns. Handguns would be good, too.”
This wasn’t exactly an uncommon question considering the woods
surrounding Brampton made for prime hunting grounds during the
season, but the season for big game hunting didn’t open for another
six weeks, and these guys looked ready to go out now.
“I have a couple of things on hand. Only shotguns, though. No
handguns or rifles, yet, and no one’s really come in to scoop the
shotguns up yet since the season is still a little ways away,” he said,
hoping they took the hint.
They didn’t. The leader then seemed to notice some of the
shotguns Derek had mounted on the wall behind them.
“Let me see that one,” he said, hardly paying attention to what
Derek had just told him.
Derek did as he was told, already thinking he was going to have a
picky sort of customer. He’d wanted to take his mind off of Mason,
but not like this.
None of the guns were loaded. Derek had checked and double-
checked that one before he’d put the guns on display, so he had no
problem with letting each of the three men handle the few shotguns
that he had. Most were pump action as the man had asked for, but a
20
Marcy Jacks
couple were lever action or the break-open kind.
The two men behind the leader seemed to have a lot of fun
pumping their shotguns and pointing the barrels at the rest of Derek’s
wares, testing out their sights.
“Hmm,” said the leader. He was maybe in his forties, if all the
silver in his short hair was any sort of indication. From what Derek
could see of his forearm, he also had a whole lot of small star tattoos
riding up to his elbow.
“You sure you don’t have any rifles?” The man looked at him
suspiciously, as though Derek would have some kind of reason for
lying about that.
“Pretty sure.” He was not selling his guns to these wackos. They’d
probably get stupid and shoot each other, and then Derek would be
responsible for it.
Then Derek got a little suspicious himself. “Why? What are you
hunting that you need a rifle?”
That had apparently been the wrong thing to say, or the right
thing, depending on how one looked at it.
All three men looked at Derek, and with a signal from their leader,
they all put the shotguns back on the glass counter for him to put back
on the wall.
At least now he wasn’t going to have a fight on his hands when he
asked to see their permits.
The man with the gray hair nodded to him. “Thank you for your
time.”
“You’re welcome. Have a nice day,” Derek said, nodding back.
The three men left the store, and suddenly everything around him
was quiet once more. The only difference was that now Derek had to
put all the guns away.
Weird. That had been way too damn weird.
* * * *
Mason Returns to His Mate
21
“You think he’s a supporter?” Billy asked. He was the youngest in
their group, but Tom liked keeping him around because sometimes, of
all the stupid things that came out of his mouth, there was a gem of
intellect that was good for their team.
Extra perspective was a good thing now and again.
Tom rubbed his chin. He didn’t do something as obvious as look
back at the store from which they came, though. That would be too
much. “Don’t know. We can keep an eye on him for a little while, see
if he leads us anywhere―”
“Fucking supporters,” Billy muttered.
Alan nudged him for interrupting. Alan was Tom’s son, and he
kept his boy around because he had a sharp eye and was good with his
weapons, just like his old man.
“Don’t let your opinions take you places they shouldn’t,” Tom
said, pointing a finger at Billy’s nose. “We watch him to see if he
leads us to any wolves”—it was never a good idea to call them
werewolves when out in public in the middle of the day, even if the
streets were deserted—“but you absolutely cannot stick with just one
theory. Every clue you get as to who’s supporting and who isn’t will
always support your theories, even when you’re wrong, and that can
lead to a lot of unnecessary deaths.”
Billy grunted and nodded, and Tom knew that his lesson had gone
straight over the idiot’s head.
He wanted to sigh his frustration but kept it inside instead.
“He was a shop owner selling weapons. Clearly it made him
suspicious that we’re dressed to go hunting when the season’s not
open. Take that into consideration when you observe him.”
“Will the guns we have now be enough?” Alan asked.
“We’re fine for now, but it’s always better to find the places that
can restock your ammunition or the weapon itself in case it becomes
damaged. Next time we walk in there, we dress as civilians, though.
Otherwise he might call the cops on us.”
And they didn’t want that, considering the things they were here
22
Marcy Jacks
to hunt.
A couple of months ago, the call went out to any hunter available
to come to Brampton to hunt down a pack of werewolves hiding in
the area. Tom didn’t personally know any of the hunters who took up
the challenge, but he did know that none were ever seen again after
leaving.
That was why he was here. If there was a whole pack of them,
then Tom wanted the money that having all of those werewolf pelts
could provide. He was going to be smart about this, however, unlike
the rest of those fools who’d all probably charged in, guns blazing,
letting the wolves know they were there and ruining the element of
surprise.
“For now we can all go hunting in the woods, set our traps, and
see if we can’t track anything with abnormally big wolf paws.”
Alan nodded, and so did Billy, his attention at a hundred percent
now that the talk of hunting was underway, and the three of them set
out to their truck and trailer, driving out to find an ideal place to set
up their camp.
* * * *
Mason ran himself nearly to exhaustion and was almost halfway
across the state by the time he decided to turn back.
He was tired, thirsty, and his paws were killing him. The sun was
nearly down by the time he got back to Brampton. He was able to
catch a deer while he was out running, so he at least didn’t have to
worry about buying any food when he changed back into a human.
He was still walking, limping was more like it, thinking he would
get a quick drink from the river when his paw stepped down on
something cold, metal, and flat. The click alerted him that something
was wrong, and he jumped out of the way just as a pair of huge,
rusted metal teeth sprung and clamped together.
Mason’s heart hammered like he hadn’t stopped running. A bear
Mason Returns to His Mate
23
trap? Jesus Christ! He almost got caught in a frickin’ bear trap!
Mason approached cautiously, sniffing the metal, and was
surprised at the fresh scent of human hands that had handled it.
Had bear-hunting season been moved? Last he checked, it wasn’t
for another couple of weeks.
Then, of course, the last time he checked was just over ten years
ago.
It was the sight of the rust on the trap that made him nervous.
Whoever it was who set this up, they weren’t much interested in
keeping their gear in good condition.
That was usually because the hunters didn’t care about keeping
the traps clean so long as they bagged a werewolf.
Mason stepped back, slowly. Canada had its share of hunters, but
because of gun restrictions and their wildlife protection act, it was
harder for a hunter to go after them.
It was because of this that he hadn’t so much as caught any whiff
of hunters in all the time he’d been away.
Barely an hour back into town and he nearly stepped in a trap. He
was so hopeless.
A twig snapped somewhere behind him, and he froze. The scent
of oil came into his nose, and then his heart rate spiked.
Not a twig. Someone had just pulled back the hammer on a gun.
Mason ran for it, leaping and dodging just as the first bang of
gunfire pierced the air.
Judging by the explosion of the shrub he’d nearly ran past, they
were using shotguns. Fuck, he couldn’t just zigzag his way out of
here. He was going to have to avoid some pretty big shots if he was
going to get out of this unscathed.
A loud whoop in the air sounded as another shot fired, and this
time he hadn’t been able to get completely out of the way on time.
The fur on his chest took most of the hit, but some of the shotgun
pellets still pierced his skin, especially on his left paw.
Mason yelped and stumbled. Fuck! He couldn’t die here. Not until
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Marcy Jacks
he got to see James, and not until he told Derek he was sorry for what
he’d done.
Even with his paw screaming at him, Mason put a hundred
percent into getting the hell out of there.
The hunters screamed and whooped again―were they fucking
children or something?―as they gave chase. Mason was tired and
injured now, but there was no way these hunters could catch him on
foot. He was too fast, even by werewolf standards.
More shots sounded from behind him as the hunters soon realized
this, too. Thankfully, nothing hit him this time as the trees he ducked
and dodged behind took the brunt of the attacks. He was back at his
truck in less than five minutes.
He transformed and did a quick check on himself. His chest was
bleeding and his arm was dotted with pellets. Thank God the shells
hadn’t been filled with silver. Otherwise he’d be in a lot more trouble
than this.
Mason took a quick couple of seconds to check on the truck. The
hunters must not have come by it because nothing was tampered with
that he could see. He also didn’t smell the strong scent of human or
guns in the air.
Right. That was enough on the status check. Mason jumped into
the driver’s side, pulled out his keys, and started the ignition.
The sun was almost completely set now, leaving long stretches of
orange color and shadows from the trees across the road.
It was going to be really awkward meeting his brother after all this
time, naked and bleeding.
He just hoped there was some extra alcohol and bandages for him
to use and someone willing to pull the fucking pellets out of his sorry
skin.
Mason Returns to His Mate
25
Chapter Three
It was weird, turning onto the unpaved road and driving way on
past the No Trespassing signs that were still nailed to the same trees
he’d thought he’d forgotten and then still going on another five
minutes until the wall of tall pines and oak trees cramping in on either
side of the road opened up to reveal a huge clearing with many
cabins.
The pups were still chasing each other around, and the omegas
looked like they were carrying laundry baskets or the small game
they’d hunted.
It wasn’t uncommon for an old truck to come driving onto the
property, so no one looked twice at it until he slowed down and came
just a little bit closer, and the people who were outside noticed that
the man driving was not someone they recognized.
Mason didn’t recognize all of them either. That was to be
expected. New alphas and omegas would have come. Pups would be
born.
The one strange thing he noticed was that all the cabins seemed to
be getting a much needed upgrade. The last time he was here, some of
these places looked ready to fall down. He could smell new wood and
sawdust. There were new windows on most of the cabins, too, and
some even had extensions built into them. There were two brand new
cabins that hadn’t been there before either, and the trailers were gone.
Had James won the lottery or something?
For the first time it occurred to Mason that James might not even
be the alpha anymore. Ten years had passed. Another wolf could have
come and fought him for leadership and won, forcing James to leave,
26
Marcy Jacks
much the same way Mason did.
He pulled up to the house that the alpha and wise woman always
occupied. It was the largest, and the nicest as far as Mason was
concerned, but now with the addition of the new cabins and the
renovations to the rest, it looked old and tired.
Mason felt pretty old and tired as he turned off the ignition,
parked the truck, and let his head fall back against his seat.
He was bleeding all over the place. His skin was sticky with
drying blood. That sucked.
Mason looked out the side mirror and noted the way the kids were
crowding around the truck, trying to see who was inside without
getting too close. The scent of blood was probably what kept even the
bravest of them from coming forward.
He watched as another adult, an omega judging by the size of him,
worked his way through the group of pups.
Mason squinted at him as he came closer. Was that―?
The omega with shaggy blond hair rapped on the window of his
truck. Mason grabbed the roller and lowered it.
Green eyes widened at him in surprise, and Mason recognized
who it was.
“Tristan?”
“Mason?”
Mason laughed. “Jesus Christ, I didn’t recognize you there for a
sec.”
Tristan had just turned seventeen when Mason left, and it wasn’t
like he and the other man hung out a lot, but there was no mistaking
that hair or those eyes. The guy was probably still wearing flip-flops.
Tristan hardly looked in the mood for a happy reunion as he
surveyed the inside of Mason’s truck. “You either, especially with all
the blood. Fuck, what happened?”
“I’m not that badly hurt. Ran into a couple of hunters with
shotguns.”
“Let’s get you inside,” Tristan said, opening the door and helping
Mason Returns to His Mate
27
Mason to get out.
His legs were fine, so he had no trouble walking, but Tristan kept
his hand on Mason’s good arm anyway.
Yup, he was still wearing flip-flops, Mason realized when he
looked down at the man’s feet.
“Is James here?”
“He’s out hunting. I’ll send someone to get him. Just take it easy
until we can get you cleaned up.”
Mason laughed a little, calmer now that he was in familiar hands.
“Not used to handling hunters anymore.”
“I can see that.”
Tristan didn’t so much as knock on the front door to request
permission to enter the leading alpha’s domain. Mason was kind of
flattered that Tristan felt the situation was deserving of overlooking
the basic forms of respect.
“Is he still alpha?” Mason asked.
Tristan looked at him, and it occurred to Mason that not everyone
in the pack was going to be aware that Mason hadn’t kept in touch
with his brother. James must have left that private.
“He is. He’ll look different from the last time you saw him,
though, and he has a mate.”
“Really?”
Tristan nodded, moving the both of them to one of the spare
bedrooms.
“Oh, that’s good. Good for him,” Mason said as they went inside.
When Tristan flicked on the light, Mason realized that this room
was no longer the spare bedroom he recalled it as being. There were
now six beds in here, and all of them looked like hospital beds from
the forties. The spare room had been turned into a medical room.
It made Mason wonder what had been happening over the years
for the pack to need it.
Tristan helped him onto the bed, not that Mason needed it, and
then pulled out some cotton swabs and alcohol from out of a drawer.
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Marcy Jacks
“Soak and clean your wounds. I’ll go get Old Maggie, and she can
help clean you up.”
“There any water in this house?”
“I’ll bring you something. Just sit tight,” Tristan said, rushing off.
Mason felt strangely alone when the other man was gone. He
looked around the room as he swabbed the holes in his chest and arm,
and then thought about all the changes he’d seen around the pack.
He wasn’t sure why, but it was almost as if he expected to come
back and see that no one had aged and nothing had changed with him
gone.
Nope. People were older. Some of the pups he remembered were
now adults and either out hunting with the other alphas or gone
somewhere to make their own packs.
Seeing Tristan had really hit it home for him. This place was no
longer his home. It hadn’t been since the day he was shamed and
forced to leave.
Mason had no idea what he was doing there, and never felt more
out of place. At this point, he was relying on the kindness of strangers
to not kick him out of the pack and allow him to stay long enough to
see his brother and let his wounds heal.
He wondered how Derek was doing.
* * * *
Derek had flipped the Closed sign around more than an hour ago
and was really just dallying around the shop, sweeping this, adjusting
that, to stall before going home.
He was hoping against hope that Mason would come back, despite
how he was still pissed off at the man.
He flicked the lights off just as the sky outside went full dark.
That was happening earlier and earlier now, and he was just getting
ready to grab his messenger bag and pack it in when the door jingled.
He stopped, his heart coming into his throat with hope. The door
Mason Returns to His Mate
29
was locked, so it didn’t open, but the person on the other side had
tried to open it so roughly, as though they’d walked right into the door
expecting it to open for them at this hour, that the bell tinkled anyway.
“Mason?” he asked when the door jingled again. Derek walked to
the door with an inflated heart and a smile on his face, just to stop at
the dark shadow that loomed on the other side of the glass.
Not Mason. “Sorry, we’re closed,” Derek said.
The door rattled again. Derek had to tell himself to stop being
such a pussy and just go over there and tell the guy.
“Sir, we’re clo―oh.”
It was the old man was before. His face was serious as he stared at
Derek through the glass and bars of the door. The kind of serious
someone had before they killed a man.
The deep frown on his mouth and black shadows under his eyes
wasn’t helping that either, nor was the handgun he had. He put it to
the glass and pointed it at Derek.
“Open the door, son,” the man said, his voice muffled through the
glass, but Derek still understood him perfectly.
He wished he couldn’t, but he had no choice in the matter with a
deadly weapon pointed at him. Not even his dad pointed a gun at him
when he came out to his family, and they were heavily against his
way of life.
Derek moved slowly, fearful that anything too quick would spook
the guy into firing. They kept their eyes locked as Derek twisted the
latch that bolted the door and then turned off the alarm.
The old man stepped inside, and with his eyes, and the gun, still
on Derek, he signaled to the others he had waiting for him outside.
Great. All three were still together.
“Listen, if it’s the guns you want, I don’t care, you can have
them.”
“Be quiet, boy,” said the older man, and he turned to one of his
younger companions.
“You sure ’bout this, Billy?”
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Marcy Jacks
Billy stepped forward, his eyes scrutinizing Derek. “Yeah,
positive. Those tire tracks came from that truck that was parked out in
front of this shop before we came in. He and that wolf were talking.”
Derek’s eyes just about popped out of his head. Holy shit, these
guys were actually hunters. They were out to kill Mason and the rest
of his pack.
Derek had never met hunters in real life before. Now that he had,
he was wishing with everything inside him that he wasn’t. There was
definitely no thrill to this.
The fact that they spoke so openly right in front of Derek couldn’t
be a good thing either.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ve had
barely any customers all day and none of them were regulars. If
you’re looking for someone, then I can promise you I don’t know
them.”
He’d promise that the sun revolved around the earth, too, if that
was what would make these guys happy.
Billy shook his head. “No. I came here earlier after that guy
entered this building. You had the door locked and the ‘Closed’ sign
up until your friend left and we came back. Those were his tire tracks,
sir. This guy’s a supporter.”
“A supporter of what? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Derek said, starting to panic now as it looked more and more like
these guys weren’t about to let him off the hook.
Their leader nodded, and then he reached behind his back and
pulled out a set of very official-looking handcuffs.
Derek lost it at the sight of them. He remembered the stories
Mason had told him about when a hunter thought someone might
have information they wanted. There was no way in hell Derek was
going to let these guys strap him to a table somewhere and strip the
skin from his body.
Pushing the old man’s hand out of the way, the one that had been
holding the gun, Derek shoved him back.
Mason Returns to His Mate
31
The gun fired, and the old man went down, falling against a stack
of display boxes that Derek had kept near the door.
The old man swore loudly, and Derek turned tail and ran for his
life.
“You mother fucking son of a bitch!” Billy yelled, chasing after
him as the old man screamed and cried out.
Good. Derek hoped he broke the old guy’s hip.
He jumped over the counter like he was still nineteen or
something, fleeing to his back room. To the heavy door that was
there.
“I’ll get you, you fucking faggot!”
Derek was so happy he got into running.
The door to his back room was left open for him, and with the
momentum he was running at, as he ran into his storage room, he
grabbed the door handle and pulled it shut behind him just as that kid
reached his hand out to grab hold of the door.
He got his fingers caught and shrieked instead when Derek
slammed the door on them. He winced at the gross crunch and high-
pitched shrieking but didn’t stop trying to pull the door shut.
Billy had to grab the door handle, and Derek watched him stick
his foot on the wall in the most desperate of acts and pull back on the
door just enough to free his hand, allowing Derek to shut and lock
himself in without taking Billy’s fingers with him.
The door was heavy and a good three inches of metal. It was as
good as a panic room and was where Derek kept all the ammunition
and other assorted items that hadn’t been priced to sell yet.
The only thing it didn’t have compared to a real panic room was a
direct line to the police.
But it did have a window.
It was small as all hell, but he could unlock it from where he was
and squeeze through if he tried.
The first thing he did was grab a Glock. He’d lied when he told
that old psychopath out there and his team that he had no handguns. It
32
Marcy Jacks
was his only handgun, and he had only a single clip to go with it,
unfortunately, but it was that or nothing. He wasn’t about to toss any
of the rifles he had out the window for him to collect when he got
outside in case those men would go out there and see that then simply
wait for him. He had no time.
Derek put the clip to the gun in his pocket and made sure the gun
was empty before he stuck it in the back of his pants and climbed on
top of a crate so he could reach the window.
The last thing he needed was to blow himself another ass crack.
He wormed his way out of the window and nearly fell on his face.
The wind was pretty much knocked out of him on that clumsy fall on
his chest, but he was still alive.
Derek groaned, forced himself to his feet, and started to hobble
off. Now that he was outside, he could better hear the wailing of the
men inside his shop, as well as the destruction as they tore through the
place, knocking over his shelves. He cringed at the sound of glass
shattering.
Whatever was going on in there, they were occupied. They
thought he was trapped in that room, and they were going to spend a
couple hours trying to get the door open before they realized Derek
was no longer inside.
Or they would give up and leave right now, walk out of the shop
empty-handed, just to see Derek slinking away.
He picked up the pace, heading down one of the alleys behind the
street just to keep himself from being easily seen.
The first place he thought to go was home, but then he stopped,
frozen in place.
His bag. His fucking messenger bag with his cell and wallet and
everything else he used during the day, it was still inside the shop.
Those guys were going to find it for sure. There was no way they
were going to mistake it for a piece of merchandise. They were going
to find it, open it up, find all his identification, and then they would
know where he lived.
Mason Returns to His Mate
33
Derek slammed the side of his fist down on the brick wall behind
him. It hurt, but he did it again. What was he going to do? What the
hell was he supposed to do now?
“Hello?”
Derek jumped. There, just down at the other end of the alley, was
another shadowy man. This was different from those three guys Derek
had just escaped from, but that didn’t mean they weren’t all working
together or something, and that didn’t stop Derek from bolting in the
other direction.
Right into the arms of another huge guy.
He flailed, brought his fist up, and caught the guy in the cheek
before his wrists were grabbed in a surprisingly strong pair of hands.
He wanted to elbow the guy, but he couldn’t, and when that huge
hand went over his mouth, he really started to kick and buckle.
This man was strong, though, and even though the other guy came
to hold down Derek’s legs, Derek got the feeling that his attacks
weren’t really doing anything to the man holding him.
Warm breath wafted over his ear. “It’s me, you idiot.”
Mason’s growling voice was just the thing Derek needed to stop.
Had it been anyone else, he would’ve kept on fighting until the death.
“Let him go, James. I got him,” Mason said, and the other man in
the alley with them released his feet. Mason then put Derek back on
the ground, releasing him.
Derek spun around. “Some guys just tried to kill me. They know
about you.”
“Yeah, I figured from the panic in your scent that you weren’t just
out for a stroll.” Mason put his arm around Derek’s shoulder and led
him down the alley. “Come with me. I’ll take you home. You’ll need
to lie low for a bit until―”
“I can’t go home,” Derek said.
“You have to. It’s the only―”
“No, you don’t get it. All my ID is back at the shop. There’s no
way they won’t find it and figure out where I live. Those guys are
34
Marcy Jacks
going to come for me. We need to call the cops,” Derek added, almost
as an afterthought. Not that it would’ve mattered, considering he had
no phone on him, but why it hadn’t occurred to him to contact the
police before was something he didn’t quite understand.
“We can’t do that. Not with hunters. The police won’t have
anything on them.”
“Except breaking and entering and trying to kill me!”
“Shh!” James snapped.
Derek couldn’t believe he was being so stupid when they needed
to be quiet. “I’m making sure those fucks get put away as long as
possible for this.”
Mason lifted a brow at him. “Did they break in?”
“They―” Derek stopped. That was right. Derek had opened the
door and let them in. “They still attacked me.”
“And you’ve apparently killed one of them,” said James.
Derek couldn’t have been more stunned in all his life. “What? No
I didn’t.”
“I’m scenting blood and death coming from your store,” James
said, looking down at him curiously. Then his nostrils flared as he
sniffed again. “Do you have a weapon on you?”
Derek wanted to groan. He pulled out the Glock to show them. “I
do, but there’s nothing in the magazine. See?”
He pulled back the slider and showed them. “The clip is in my
pocket. I didn’t even get this gun until I got out of there. I didn’t shoot
anyone.”
“We heard a gunshot,” Mason said, also looking down at Derek.
“You sure you didn’t do anything by accident?”
Derek opened his mouth to reply again then shut it as he
remembered the way he’d pushed away the gun the old man was
holding and then shoved him.
He only saw that one man, Billy, chasing after him when he
turned around, not the other two, and that older man had been crying
pretty loudly.
Mason Returns to His Mate
35
Derek paled as the thought came to him that he might’ve
accidentally killed someone. “It was self-defense. They were pointing
a gun at me,” he said.
Mason gripped him by the shoulders. “And I’m glad you did
everything you were supposed to, to get out of there. Believe me, but
there is a dead man in there and way too much shit going on with
those hunters for the police to come now.”
Mason then looked up at the other man. “James?”
It took a second before it clicked with Derek. James? As in
Mason’s brother James?
“He’ll have to come with us at this point. You’ll be the one to
watch over him.”
Mason nodded. “Got it. Come on, Derek.”
Mason put his arm back around Derek’s shoulder and began
leading him away, like he was a helpless invalid or something.
Derek didn’t mind. His brain was having some off time anyway.
He could hardly think about where they were going.
He did know that, when they got there, it would be the first time
in his life that he’d ever stepped foot inside of DeWitt’s pack.
36
Marcy Jacks
Chapter Four
Tom held onto his son and cried when Alan’s mouth opened and
closed like a suffocating fish. His boy was trying to say something to
his old man, but he couldn’t speak because of all the blood that was
getting into his lungs, drowning him from the inside.
“I’m here. Alan, your dad’s here,” he said, his eyes blurring as
Alan’s twitching got to be weaker and weaker.
Then he was gone.
Tom stroked his boy’s hair, rocked him, and wailed. He could still
hear the banging and screaming coming from the back as Billy fought
to open the door that―
Tom’s rage suddenly spiked. Everything in the shop, every image,
every scent, became sharp and crystal clear.
He put his boy down on the floor, closed his eyes, and then went
to find Billy.
The stupid idiot was still banging against the metal door with a
stool, not so much as making a dent in it, favoring one hand, and
screaming through the door.
“I’m gonna get you, you fucking shit-faced coward!” He hurled
the wooden stool at the door, shattering it. “Get out here, now!”
His hand looked fucked up and mangled. Tom was going to have
to see to that.
He came up behind Billy and put his hand on the other man’s
shoulder. Billy practically jumped out of his skin.
“We need to go,” he said.
Billy’s eyes went as wide as golf balls. “That piece of shit! Look
what he did to my hand! I’m going to kill him!”
Mason Returns to His Mate
37
No, Tom was going to kill him. “We will, but we need to leave
right now. There was too much noise, and someone might be on their
way. We can’t be seen here.”
Though the town sat on the highway, the houses where the
inhabitants of the town lived were all scattered around. The likelihood
of someone being out here this late, hearing them, was slim, but Tom
didn’t want to risk it.
He didn’t want to be seen in the next half hour either.
“We’ll get him,” Tom said. “He’s stuck in there, so we’ll get
him.”
Tom led Billy back to the front of the store. Once the adrenaline
wore out, the stupid kid held his injured hand and started sniffling at
the pain.
He had no idea what pain was.
Tom picked up the body of his son and brought him outside to
their van.
“We’re taking him with us?” Billy asked.
Tom glared at him, and for a minute he considered shooting him,
too. Billy swallowed and took a step back, and Tom decided he would
keep him around for a little while longer, if only to have the extra
hand to help him.
There were gas canisters in the back of the van. Tom picked up
one and gave the other to Billy. The kid had trouble opening it with
one hand, but that wasn’t Tom’s problem. They sprayed the floors
inside and the walls outside with the fuel. Then they put the red
canisters back into the van, took a step back, and Tom lit a match.
He would prefer to watch that goddamn prick burn as he sent him
to hell, but this would have to do. Revenge could not always be short
and sweet. Sometimes it had to be quick to suit the situation.
The fire burned hot for only a minute before the alarm inside went
off. The sprinklers came on, but they were hardly a match for a gas
fire.
If anything, maybe that guy in the back would die from inhaling
38
Marcy Jacks
the smoke fumes that were suddenly building up. Heavy black clouds
billowed up and out of the store, rising into the night sky.
“Let’s go, before the fire trucks get here,” Tom said.
Billy obediently followed.
“What are we going to do now?” he asked when the burning store
was just a vanishing image in the rearview mirror.
It occurred to Tom that this was the first time someone other than
Alan sat in the passenger seat beside him. He was pretty sure he
didn’t like that.
He looked at the way the kid was still clutching his hand and
decided to show some mercy. “We’ll take care of your fingers first.
Set them and cast them. Then we bury my son. Then we find the pack
that wolf came from, and we skin every single one of them alive.”
* * * *
Mason could hardly believe his eyes the first time he saw his
brother again after ten years apart. The man had massive scars on his
face and neck, apparently from being shot in the chest with a shotgun
loaded with silver pellets.
Mason wasn’t going to have that problem. For one, he hadn’t been
hit with as many pellets as James had, and they weren’t silver. His
wounds still itched from where Old Maggie had picked the little metal
pellets out with a pair of tweezers, but they would eventually heal.
Right now his face was still scabbing up. He hardly looked good
enough to go and see Derek. The man had no choice but to stay with
them until these new hunters could be dealt with. Mason was just glad
James decided to let them stay.
“Thanks again for all this.”
“For the last time, you’re my brother. You don’t have to thank me
for wanting you here.”
“I’m no longer part of your pack though. You didn’t have to take
on my problems.” Problems that only existed because he’d come
Mason Returns to His Mate
39
back.
After James had come in to see him and the shock on both of their
faces had worn off, Mason had to explain why he was injured and
who he had seen first before coming here.
James had suggested they go back to the pawn shop, if only to
make sure the hunters hadn’t backtracked to where Mason had been
before their encounter.
Of course, somehow those bastards knew. For humans, hunters
made pretty good trackers. It was annoying to admit, but it was the
only way it was possible for them to have put together that he and
Derek were connected even though they hadn’t seen Mason’s human
face.
That is, until Derek had mentioned something about his tire tracks
after he’d driven away from the attack and the hunters had apparently
tried to get into the store when Mason and Derek had been in the
back.
He fought against the warmth in his face at the reminder of what
he and Derek had been doing.
“What’s the matter?” James asked.
Mason shook his head. “Nothing, just angry about all this.”
Finding out that the pawn shop and everything inside of it had
been burned to the ground the next day, with a warrant out for
Derek’s arrest for the insurance fraud he was supposedly attempting
by lighting up his own business, had just been the cherry on top. It
made Mason want to show his face to Derek less and less.
“You don’t have to be angry, and you are a part of this pack. You
didn’t have to stay away. You could’ve come back.”
“I know,” Mason said, wetting his lips as he and James walked
around the trees immediately surrounding the clearing of cottages.
With new hunters in the area, James didn’t want to be far from either
his home base or his mate.
“Then why did you stay away for so long?”
“Because…” Mason could never tell his brother about what he
40
Marcy Jacks
did. It was bad enough he’d shamed himself out of the pack, but
telling him that he’d raped his own mate was something else entirely.
He’d been lucky to have been received so well by his brother and the
rest of the pack, and he didn’t want those curious looks to change into
disgust and horror.
“I was ashamed,” Mason said. It wasn’t a lie.
James listed a crooked brow at him. “For losing?”
“Yeah.”
James stopped walking. “Are you saying that if I’d lost to you,
you would’ve expected me to stay away in shame for ten years?”
“What? No!”
“Then why did you stay away? The law says that if a challenger
loses the battle for the rights to alpha, he only has to stay away for
twelve months―”
“I know.”
“Ten years, Mason. Are you serious? And you haven’t even
started your own pack in all that time. I was beginning to think you’d
died.”
“I know! Okay? I get it,” Mason snapped. Wolf law stated that the
loser of the challenge only had to be away in shame for the twelve
months so that they would be more submissive when they returned. If
they didn’t return, it was expected that it was because they’d started
another pack.
Mason hadn’t started another pack, and he hadn’t died. Sometimes
he wished he had, however. He hadn’t really done anything except go
through the motions of living, trying to forget the people he’d left
behind.
Mason rubbed his face with his palms. “Look, I can’t explain this
right now, but I stayed away for a reason. Can you just leave it at that
for now?”
How about forever?
James looked at him. “Is it something to do with that human?”
“James,” Mason growled in warning.
Mason Returns to His Mate
41
“Because in case you hadn’t noticed, a lot of the guys around here
are mated to other men. It’s not exactly uncommon anymore, at least
not in this pack.”
Mason had noticed that, and he thought it was strange as hell and
completely unfair that he had his mate in his sights, was now able to
see Derek whenever he wanted, but had fucked up so totally and
utterly that any kind of relationship was out of the question.
The second Derek remembered what happened that night, if he
really was repressing the memory, Mason was going to have a lot of
explaining to do.
He was still considering the option of just asking Derek if he
remembered or not so that he could apologize now.
That was going to be an awkward conversation.
“Mason? Are you listening to me?” James growled. Clearly the
leading alpha didn’t like to be ignored when he was speaking.
Mason came out of his thoughts and remembered where he was.
“Yeah, sorry. Look, just please let me handle this with him. It’s
something I need to deal with on my own.”
James looked at him in that sharp way Mason recalled their father
doing whenever he was trying to get information out of his sons.
James was so much older than Mason was, but he’d always been a kid
in their father’s eyes, and always treated as such whenever they’d
gotten into mischief together. Usually that was because Mason
wanted to be troublesome, and James had been humoring him by
going along with whatever stupid little plans he’d come up with.
“For now. I’ll leave it alone for now and only because I have other
things to worry about. I don’t want you vanishing for another ten
years on me, Mason.”
“I won’t,” Mason promised, knowing it was probably a lie. If, or
rather when, the pack found out what he’d done to his mate, their
disgust in him would be so strong that they wouldn’t need the law of
the pack behind them to state that he had to go.
Anyone who could rape their own mate was considered a danger
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Marcy Jacks
to the other omegas and was not to be tolerated.
Mason turned to leave, but James’s hand on his arms stopped him.
It was mostly his own shock that allowed him to be pulled against
his brother’s chest. He felt James’s hands behind his shoulders and
neck as they hugged.
Mason hadn’t realized how much he’d missed this warmth, this
loving embrace of family, until just now, and he held his brother back
as tightly as he could.
“You’re all grown up now. You look so different,” James said.
He did? Well, he supposed so. There was still a major difference
between twenty and thirty. The last of his boyish looks were gone,
that was for sure.
“I think you’ve changed more,” Mason said, referring to all the
scars on James’s face.
James just snorted. “Yeah, probably.”
They were silent for all of three seconds before James’s grip on
him became tighter, if that was possible. “I’m serious, Mason. Don’t
leave us again. You go see that human now, and you and I are going
to talk later,” James said, releasing him and stepping away.
Mason wished he could make himself look his brother in the eyes
as he left, but he didn’t. He made his way over to the cabin where his
mate was staying. It was one of the newer but smaller ones. Mason
had noted that not so many wolves bunked up with each other
anymore with all the added space. Some even kept cabins to
themselves and their families instead of having to share.
Mason was going to have to ask James when all these new
renovations had started, but he didn’t want to be nosey about it.
He inhaled a heavy breath at the door, fighting to keep from
fidgeting on his feet too much. He finally stopped being such a pussy
and just knocked on the door.
Derek answered. His blond brows lifted slightly at the sight of
him, and he stepped aside, holding the door open for Mason to enter.
“Didn’t think I’d be seeing you,” Derek admitted.
Mason Returns to His Mate
43
I didn’t think you’d want to see me. “Sorry, was just catching up
on a couple things with my brother.”
He looked around at the small kitchen they were in. There was a
mug of coffee on the table, but it was still full, and no steam wafted
out of it. Cold.
“How’ve you been feeling?” Mason asked then cringed inwardly
at the stupid question.
Derek’s jaw clenched. “Fine, fine, aside from the fact that my life
is ruined.”
“I’m sorry about the pawn shop,” Mason said.
Derek flopped back into his seat with a scowl on his face. He
grabbed the mug between his hands and glared at his dark reflection
in the liquid. “Thanks,” he muttered.
Mason stood there for a minute before Derek sighed. “Sit down.
You’re making me uncomfortable standing there like that.”
Mason did as he was told, somewhat shocked by the command.
He had to remind himself that this was not the same Derek he knew
ten years ago. That was plenty of time for personalities to change.
He cast an appreciative glance at Derek’s body as the other man
got up to fix another mug of coffee.
His personality wasn’t the only thing to have changed.
His jeans fit him perfectly. Tight enough to give Mason a good
view without being indecently skintight. He wore a borrowed black T-
shirt with the Spider-Man logo on the front.
There was no coffee machine in here, so Derek had to rely on the
tea kettle on the stove and some instant mix. It took only a minute
before the thing was screaming and Derek was lifting it off the burner
and pouring Mason a cup.
“Do you still take it with four sugars?” Derek asked, reaching for
the half-full sugar dispenser.
Mason couldn’t believe there was ever a time when he drank
coffee like that. He couldn’t believe Derek remembered it either.
“One sugar is fine. A little milk, too, if there is any.”
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Marcy Jacks
Derek nodded. “They stocked me up with the basics. Everyone
here’s been really nice.”
Mason didn’t quite understand the accusatory look Derek sent to
him when he said that.
Mason accepted the coffee gratefully, sipping carefully, and
surprised at how good it was. Last time he ever had instant, it tasted
like shit and he swore himself off the stuff.
He watched as Derek dumped out his own cup and started making
another one for himself. “When did you buy the pawn shop?”
The clink of metal against the ceramic was the only sound Mason
heard for a minute as Derek stirred his coffee. “Two years ago. The
old lady was selling it for cheap, and I’d saved up some money, so I
picked it up.”
“The crazy cat lady?” Mason asked, incredulous. “Wow. I didn’t
think she’d survive another eight years.”
Derek smiled a little and came to sit down across the table from
him. “She still is alive, too. Still luring the squirrels in for her stupid
cats to go chasing around.”
Derek always had been more of a dog person. Maybe that was part
of the reason he and Mason had both clicked so well back then.
Mason’s spirits suddenly sank. “I thought you were saving your
money to go to the city? What happened with that?”
Derek had always talked about going to either New York or San
Francisco. It was one of the few topics they’d managed to properly
discuss in the three days they’d been together. He’d wanted to go to
be around more other people like himself and even kept maps on his
walls.
Not that Mason had paid much attention to them as he’d been too
busy pounding into the other man, but he did remember them.
Mason had been excited for him and saddened with the thought
that he would never be able to go to places like that. Being a werewolf
in a city was never a good thing.
Derek shrugged. “I guess I decided that I liked it here better.”
Mason Returns to His Mate
45
Mason nodded. He wet his lips and had to push the mug of coffee
away from himself before he gripped it too hard and shattered it.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
Derek took another mouthful of coffee and nodded. “Yeah, I
figured as much.”
Mason stiffened. “Uh, you did?”
Derek glared at him sharply again. “Do you have any idea how
many gay couples I’ve seen since I got here?”
“Uh…”
“A whole lot considering the size of this place. I swear, I think the
gays outnumber the straights at this point. Granted, one guy seemed to
be talking to himself, but that’s not what this is about.”
Mason couldn’t figure out where this was going. “Is that bad?”
“It is when your brother was the one who told me you left because
you were ashamed of me.”
“What?”
“You just disappeared without saying anything. Your whole
family here was avoiding me, too, and that’s fine, I got that with the
secrecy thing you all did, but when I finally got up the nerve to ask
James what had happened the next time I saw him in town, he told me
you left because you were ashamed.”
This had clearly been eating away at Derek for the last ten years.
He was definitely suppressing his memories of what had happened
that night, too.
Mason opened his mouth to tell him the truth, that he didn’t leave
because of anything Derek did, that it was entirely his fault.
Instead, only the half-truth came out.
“He didn’t tell you I was ashamed of you, and I never said that to
him either.”
Derek didn’t stop frowning, and when he looked like he was
getting ready to argue some more, Mason cut him off.
“I was shamed, Derek. I challenged my brother for the right to
lead the pack, and I failed. The loser in a challenge like that is
46
Marcy Jacks
required to leave.”
Derek’s face was wide open with stunned revelation, but it was
clear he still didn’t understand. “Why leave?”
Mason shrugged. “To teach humility. Can’t have an alpha who’s
sore from losing around the pack. They can leave and either start a
pack of their own, or come back after the shame is lifted.”
Mason just left out the part where he was only required to leave
for twelve months. He wasn’t quite ready to tell Derek about that.
Derek, instead of being relieved or grateful for the explanation,
got up from his chair, the legs scratching against the hardwood floor
before he paced around the kitchen.
“You fuck…you complete fucking idiot.”
“For what?” Mason asked.
“For not telling me!” Derek exploded, rounding on him. “You
were gone for ten years, you stupid shit! You could’ve told me you
were leaving or where you were going. You could’ve called, written,
anything.”
“I wasn’t aware that a three-day fling required that kind of
commitment,” Mason deadpanned.
Derek’s face drained of all color. He grabbed both the mugs in the
table and dumped the contents down the sink, then gripped the
counter edges hard. “Get out of here, now.”
Mason didn’t move, and Derek didn’t turn back to look at him.
This was wrong. This was not the right reason for Derek to be
angry with him, and Mason purposely embarrassing and pissing the
man off was the coward’s way out.
He got up from his chair and moved to where Derek was standing.
When he put his hands on the other man’s shoulder’s, Derek rounded
on him and pushed him away.
“Don’t touch me!” he yelled.
Like Mason could obey a command like that. He surged forward
and wrapped his arms around Derek’s shoulders, holding on tight
even when he struggled in his grasp.
Mason Returns to His Mate
47
Derek was more muscled and stronger now, but he could never
get out of a full-fledged wolf-hug.
After a solid minute, he stopped fighting, but he didn’t hold
Mason back. He did let his head rest on Mason’s shoulder, however.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” Mason said.
“Yes, you did. Dick,” Derek muttered.
Mason sighed, but Derek spoke first.
“You’re right, though. We weren’t together long for me to have
waited for you like this. I don’t want to come off as a stalker or
anything. I don’t know why I never let you go.”
Mason knew why, because they were mated. He wouldn’t burden
Derek with that information, however. Not when he was going to
have let Derek go so soon.
Never mind Derek letting him go. Derek was never going to want
to see Mason’s face when his memories of that night returned.
“Derek, there’s something I need to ask you.”
Derek pulled away and looked at him.
“I need to ask if you remember―”
He didn’t get the chance to finish when Derek reached his hands
up, holding on tightly to Mason’s shoulders, and then pressed his
mouth to Mason’s.
The touch of Derek’s lips on his was like having a really strong
alcohol in his system for the first time. It was like a tiny, pleasurable
jolt sizzled through his body that he couldn’t contain.
No. No. This was all fucked up. He knew what Derek was doing,
and if he allowed it to go on, the other man was going to hate him
even more after he found out the truth.
It nearly killed him to do it, but he pushed Derek away from him.
“We can’t do this.”
Derek’s eyes turned into kicked-puppy sad. “Why not?”
“Because…because of what I did to you.”
Derek’s eyes squinted in the way that people’s eyes did when they
were thinking. “What did you do? Leave?”
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Marcy Jacks
“No. I…” God, he didn’t even want to say the word. “What do
you remember about that last night we were together?”
Derek shook his head. He didn’t get it.
“Derek, you won’t want to be with me if you remember that.
What I did…and I’m so sorry that I did it. I didn’t mean to, I swear to
God I didn’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I…” Mason had to extract himself from Derek’s arms. He
couldn’t admit to something like this when Derek held onto him for
dear life. “I raped you.”
He whispered the words, but Derek’s head flew back like he’d
been punched. “You what?”
His yelled words made Mason cringe. He could face down
hunters, take out a fully grown moose with his claws and teeth alone,
but the emotional stuff, terrible confessions, he apparently couldn’t
do.
That was why he looked away from Derek’s face and stared at the
counter and sink behind him instead.
“It was right after I’d lost the challenge to James. My wolf was
still mostly in my head, and we were both angry for the loss. I went to
you to take it out on, and I knew what I was doing, but I just couldn’t
make myself stop. It didn’t seem to matter. When I came back to my
regular self, you were unconscious beneath me.”
Then there had been the way Derek’s rented house had been
trashed and the blood between his legs, which was enough to tell
Mason just how rough he’d been.
“I know none of that’s an excuse, but I just thought you should
know.”
“Why?”
Why? Why did he do it? Why was he coming clean? “I don’t―”
“Why come to me with this now? After all these years? I
remember what happened that night, Mason. I’m starting to think that
you don’t.”
Mason Returns to His Mate
49
Every image he could remember was fuzzy, but there was no
mistaking what it had been. At least not to him.
“Derek—”
“Mason,” Derek cut him off, mocking his voice. “I wasn’t exactly
fighting to get away. I remember you coming to me that day,
practically knocking down my door before I could answer it. The
second you saw me, you picked me up and tossed me on the couch,
and I’ve never been fucked so good in my life.”
“What?”
“Then we went into the bathroom, and then the kitchen, and then
my bedroom, and long after I thought I couldn’t come again, you
wrung another one out of me. I remember waking up to my house
trashed, yes. My ass was killing me, but you were gone, Mason. That
was the worst feeling in the world, waking up to find your almost-
boyfriend had just taken off after spending the night. Then I went to
James, and you have no idea how much I’ve been torturing myself
with this the last ten years.”
Derek’s eyes were swimming, but simply because he was able to
hold back his tears didn’t mean that Mason felt any less shitty for
having caused them.
“Derek, I’m sorry. I―”
Derek grabbed him and held on tight. Mason allowed himself the
luxury of hugging him back.
All these years. All these years of sleepless nights and guilt, and
he hadn’t done what he thought he’d done. Derek had wanted him,
even when he was at his most wild. It made Mason want to sing.
That feeling was sidetracked by the realization that he’d been
unintentionally hurting his mate in other ways, and he held Derek
back as tightly as he was able, allowing himself the freedom to take in
the other man’s scent, to enjoy their bodies pressing together.
“Please don’t leave again,” Derek begged.
“I won’t,” Mason said, pressing his lips to the softness of Derek’s
hair. Then his lips found Derek’s earlobe, then his neck, and when
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Marcy Jacks
Derek turned into him, their mouths met.
That wonderful electric feeling returned, and Mason’s fingers
clenched around the muscles of Derek’s abdomen.
Derek pressed himself against Mason’s body. Their breathing
became hitched and raspy incredibly fast.
“I missed you so much,” Derek said.
“Missed you, too,” Mason said, grabbing Derek’s jaw and putting
their mouths together again.
It was hard to take it slow enough that their teeth wouldn’t clash
while they wanted to keep the frantic pace they’d set for themselves.
When Derek’s tongue touched Mason’s lips, he opened his mouth
and allowed that wonderful tongue to slide inside. Derek tasted like
coffee. He tasted wonderful.
Mason gripped the fabric of the Spider-Man T-shirt and began
pulling at it, stretching the material until Derek took the hint and lifted
his arms above his head, allowing Mason to remove it, exposing his
gorgeous chest.
He bent down and took one of those budding nipples into his
mouth. Derek gripped his shaved head with one hand and held onto
the counter with the other. The gasps he made were the sweetest
sound Mason had ever heard.
He was a fool. What an idiot he’d been for all these years,
punishing himself for something he hadn’t even done, denying them
both this pleasure.
The thought was like a punch in the gut. They’d lost ten years
because of him.
He only hoped Derek would forgive him for that as well, but for
now, he wasn’t thinking entirely with his brain.
There was only one thing he wanted, and his wolf wanted it, too.
“Fuck me right now, Mason,” Derek demanded. “Right here.”
His mate wouldn’t be denied this time.
Mason Returns to His Mate
51
Chapter Five
Derek dragged Mason down onto the floor with him, putting the
other man on top of him, luxuriating in the feel of their bodies pressed
together.
They were actually going to do this. Mason wasn’t going to run
away from him again, and Derek wasn’t about to let himself get put
off.
His jeans were way too tight. He wished he’d been able to borrow
a pair from someone a little bigger because right now these ones were
way too uncomfortable.
Still felt pretty damn good when Mason humped against him,
creating the best kind of friction for the still-clothed swells of their
cocks. He did it again, and then again, until Derek thought he would
come from that stimulation alone.
“Stop, wait.” He pushed Mason off him and undid the button of
his jeans pulling down his fly. “You need to return the favor first,” he
said, pressing his hand down on Mason’s shoulder.
The man grinned, wolfishly was probably the most appropriate
way to describe it all things considered, and then sank down between
Derek’s legs.
He grabbed him by the base of his heavy cock, stroked it lovingly,
and his too-blue eyes looked up at Derek for every little reaction he
might have. Then he pressed his mouth down on the head of Derek’s
prick, kissing it and then hardening his tongue into a point and
pressing that into the slit.
Derek moaned. “Holy shit! Oh fuck, that’s nice.”
Of the few people who’d given him head since Mason had left,
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Marcy Jacks
none of them had done that. Derek couldn’t imagine a reason why
they hadn’t or why he hadn’t thought to do it. It was amazing.
He didn’t just want Mason to kiss his dick. He wanted that whole
warm mouth around his cock, sucking it, pulling back and forth with
his lips, and swirling his tongue.
“Suck it, Mason. Put my cock in your mouth, right now.”
“Love the way you talk,” Mason said, and then thankfully, he did
as he was told.
Derek’s body went as tight as a bow string, his head pressing back
against the tiled floor of the kitchen as Mason gripped his hips and
tightened his mouth around Derek’s penis, and then pulled up and
down, sucking back leisurely, like he had all the time in the world.
He supposed that right now he did.
Derek moaned low, trying to keep himself from being too loud as
he pressed his hands to his mouth. He tried to pump his hips in time
with Mason’s mouth, but Mason’s strong hands on him were too
much, and he could barely move. It was a form of sweet torture in of
itself.
He suddenly didn’t care if he came with Mason’s cock in his ass
or with Derek’s cock in Mason’s mouth. Right now, everything was
good so long as he reached the end.
The pulsing in his body grew worse, and Derek reached his hand
down to grip the back of Mason’s head, trying to push him farther
down, to take all of him in.
Mason let him do it. He deep-throated Derek easily, and Derek
pulled his hands away and gripped his hair. He was losing it, he really
was.
“Fuck, you’re good at that. Your mouth looks so pretty wrapped
around my dick. I love it,” he said.
When Mason’s eyes met his, and the other man winked, Derek’s
body responded and everything inside him tightened, preparing for
release.
He pumped his hips hard until Mason was forced to release him
Mason Returns to His Mate
53
and just let him do it. So close, his balls became tight between his
legs, he was so. Fucking. Close.
Mason halted that by grabbing onto the base of Derek’s penis,
squeezing tightly enough to almost cause pain but in reality just
stalling the release of his orgasm.
Derek shouted his despair. “No, no! What are you doing?” he
demanded, desperately.
“You’re not coming yet. Not until I put my cock in your gorgeous
ass,” Mason said, keeping his grip on the base of Derek’s prick just as
tight as they stared at each other.
Mason meant it. There would be no coming for Derek until Mason
could enjoy himself with him.
Already Mason’s hand was moving up and down the exposed
flesh of Derek’s thighs, tickling him as they moved down and around,
touching his crack. His fingers went in, finding the sensitive hole, and
they circled.
Derek gasped and lifted his hips as much as he was able to allow
those wicked fingers a chance to really move.
Mason’s eyes were no less wolfish as he watched Derek. They
watched each other, really.
“I’m gonna put my heavy dick in your ass, and I’m gonna fuck it
until you pass out.”
Just like the last time, Derek realized, and he shivered with
anticipation.
“Oh, yes, Daddy,” Derek moaned.
Mason’s eyes quirked a little, but that was probably because he’d
never heard Derek say that before.
Well, he was going to get used to it.
Derek shimmied out of the jeans and tossed them someplace
where they wouldn’t get ruined. It was bad enough that he was going
to have to find another black Spider-Man T-shirt for Tristan. He
didn’t want to be ruining the jeans he’d borrowed from Corey.
Mason didn’t undress. He grabbed Derek by the hips and pulled
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Marcy Jacks
him up, positioning him on his hands and knees. Derek was a mess of
excitement. This was happening. This was finally happening.
He heard the zipper come down roughly from Mason’s jeans, but
then he stalled with his hands on Derek’s hips.
Derek looked behind him to the utter despair on Mason’s face.
“What is it?” he asked, hardly able to contain his impatience.
Mason shook his head a little. “We don’t have any lube.”
Derek’s eyes widened. Christ, he’d forgotten about that too. It
wasn’t like he came to this pack prepared for sex.
He got to his feet and rushed bare assed to the bathroom.
“Derek―”
“Stay right there, I’ll be back,” Derek said. There was no way he
was putting this off. No way in hell.
He looked in the medicine cabinet and found something that could
be useful. Hand lotion for dry skin. It would have to do, and Derek
was going to make sure it worked.
He went back into the kitchen with the small bottle in hand and a
grin on his face.
Mason returned it at the sight of him. “What do you have there?”
“Something to ease the way. Here,” Derek said, tossing the bottle
at him. He couldn’t help but notice his cock when Mason caught the
bottle. It was thick and heavy. He nearly winced at the color. Poor
guy had some serious blue balls there.
Mason grinned at him just as Derek got down on his knees and
kissed him. “This should work,” he said.
Derek happily got back into position. Mason opened the cap and
squeezed the white contents into his hand. Derek felt the intrusion of a
wet and slick finger against his pucker. The lotion was cold. It had
been a while since he’d done this, but he was no less eager, and he
pushed back against the intruding digit.
Yeah, this should definitely work.
Mason moaned, likely at the sight of watching his finger disappear
in Derek’s asshole.
Mason Returns to His Mate
55
When Derek began humping back against the finger, Mason
added another.
Derek closed his eyes and moaned a little. It felt good. Those
fingers were just what he needed right now. Thank God that bottle
had been handy.
Then Mason added a third, and for a second the pleasure was
offset by a sharp, burning pain. Derek clenched up and held still for a
minute, adjusting himself.
“You all right?” Mason asked. “Is it not working?”
Derek blew out a breath and shook the hair out of his eyes as he
looked behind himself. He smiled at Mason. The pain was
manageable. He would be fine.
“Great. I’m ready now,” Derek said, spreading his legs wider to
emphasize that point.
Mason’s nostrils flared, his eyes becoming sharp and golden.
Derek could still remember those eyes from the last time they had
been together.
Mason grabbed his dick, poured pretty much the rest of the bottle
into his hand, and covered his cock with it, biting his lip as he did,
and then lined it up with Derek’s hole.
He was so strung out on the anticipation that it was nearly too
much for him, nearly better than actually having someone inside him,
stretching him, filling him.
Then Mason pushed in, stopped, and then thrust the rest of the
way when he felt Derek relax beneath him.
Derek moaned and bucked as the tip of Mason’s heavy cock
touched his prostate. “Oh fuck! Oh fuck!”
He tried thrusting against Mason to get it going, his cock and balls
ready to shoot out his cum, but Mason was too fast for him, and he
reached around and grabbed him by the base of his penis once more.
“You fucking prick,” Derek cursed, letting his head fall down
between his hands. Despite being unable to come, that didn’t stop him
from humping into Mason’s hand or back against the dick in his ass.
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Marcy Jacks
Mason chuckled. “I’m going to make sure you only come when I
tell you to.” Mason thrust into him for good measure, and he groaned
brokenly.
“Fine, fine, just stop with this and fuck me!” Derek had had
enough of foreplay and waiting, and while he was the kind of person
who liked to draw out his pleasure, right now he was more interested
in just coming.
He and Mason would take their time later.
Mason, however, did not release his dick, but he did continue to
thrust into Derek’s hole, still touching the very edge of Derek’s
prostate and moaning deliciously as he did.
It was good, so fucking good, and despite his anger over not being
able to come, Derek thrust back against him like it was the first time
he’d ever had sex all over again. They had zero rhythm, and he felt
when Mason’s balls slammed against the back of his thighs as Mason
rocked against him. He took pleasure in the groans coming out of the
other man.
“You’re mine. Never leaving you. Mine,” Mason said.
“Fine. By. Me,” Derek gasped, and then he collapsed down to his
elbows, listening as Mason moaned at the new position.
That was apparently all it took, as Mason’s already-fast hips sped
up, pumping into him like there was an engine inside him doing all
that work.
Derek squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his forehead against the
floor, and cried out as Mason finally let go of his prick and he came.
Derek’s hand shot down like it had a mind of its own and grabbed
his cock, jerking it as he came, drawing out the pleasure.
He was still on his high when he felt Mason release his fluid
inside of him with a long shout. His fingers were digging so sharply
into Derek’s hips that he thought he might have bruises later.
Hell, he would have bruises later.
Derek’s body turned into Jell-O, and the second he felt Mason let
up on his grip, he collapsed, not even minding the fact that he now
Mason Returns to His Mate
57
had a small puddle of his cum sticking to his stomach.
Mason didn’t seem to mind much either as he came down, gently,
on top of Derek’s back.
Derek felt the warm press of those lips against his back and his
neck.
He crossed his arms to rest his cheek on them and then turned to
look behind him.
Mason’s eyes were blue again, and he was looking at Derek in
that same way he remembered being looked at back when he was a
scrawny little stick figure.
That never got old coming from this man.
Mason snuggled down next to him, and they both took a moment
to just breathe and let the strength in their limbs return.
“I don’t know too much about werewolf strength,” Derek said
after some companionable silence. “But I’m thinking the next time we
should take this into the bedroom.”
Derek wasn’t too sure if it would be considered rude for him, as a
guest, to be having sex in the guest house in which he was staying,
but it was way too late for that now.
Mason chuckled. “Least I didn’t destroy the kitchen this time.”
Derek laughed.
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Chapter Six
Tom slammed down the radio, causing Billy to jump. The
bandages on his fingers were comical as he tried to clean out the guns
they had and collected from that pawn shop before it burned to the
ground, but Tom was not feeling very peachy right now.
“No word yet?”
When Tom glared at him, Billy quickly went back to what he was
doing.
No, there hadn’t been any word yet. The other hunters in Tom’s
circle were all either scared away from the site, having heard the
stories of other hunters not returning, or returning after losing so
much ammo and coming back with so few pelts, if any at all, that
there were not many people out there willing to take the risk of
hunting these creatures.
At least not in this area.
Cowards. It was the most dangerous ones who needed to be taken
out as quickly as possible! Did they not see that? Tom had sent a
message to those wolves when he burned down the establishment of
that supporter. He and Billy couldn’t yet take a trip to the house, not
with the police watching it to see if the boy would come back. He’d
been listening on the local radio. No bodies found within what
remained of the shop. Apparently there was a window that the guy
had slipped out of.
It was a shame, really, but at the same time not at all. Burning that
little prick to death would have been a good punishment, but at least
now he could hunt the man down and watch him burn instead.
Tom hoped the little bastard got cocky enough to try coming back
Mason Returns to His Mate
59
so he could skin him like he would any werewolf. He’d skin the little
prick alive, dry the hide, and then make sure the wolves got the skin
as a little present.
He’d work out the details of the delivery later.
Persistence always paid off. After another hour of calling his
contacts, he was given the number of a group of younger hunters, still
fresh on the idea they were invincible and searching more for a thrill
than for the eradication of one of the world’s most dangerous species.
They weren’t too far away from the area, maybe a day’s drive.
That was better than Tom could’ve hoped for. He could plan through
the night and expect to have his new team in by tomorrow afternoon.
From what Tom has seen so far, there were plenty of werewolves
in this area, more than enough to keep a bunch of thrill seekers happy
while Tom searched for the pack where that kid came from.
* * * *
Derek was now able to walk more freely around the land now
compared to before. It wasn’t as though anyone had been preventing
him, but more like he just didn’t feel comfortable going for a stroll
around a crowded area filled with strangers who were avoiding him.
Then suddenly, people were smiling at him, inviting him out to
their barbecues, shaking his hand, and making him feel like he’d been
friends with these people forever.
Somehow he got the feeling that was partly to do with his and
Mason’s getting together.
He doubted Mason had gone around telling everyone they’d had
sex and were now a couple. It was more likely that the thin walls of
the cottage paired with the stupid smile Mason had sported ever since
leaving the small cottage was more the culprit.
He tried to hide his embarrassment to the best of his ability
whenever another member of the pack put their arm around his
shoulder in a welcome-to-the-family sort of way or smiled at him in a
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Marcy Jacks
knowing fashion.
Currently, Derek was with a few of the werewolves that had made
him feel the most comfortable.
Adam, Corey, and Tristan.
If Derek remembered this right, Corey was the partner of Mason’s
brother, and so the other man had spent as much time as he could
making Derek feel welcome, even before the entire pack found out
that he and Mason were having sex.
The only difference was that now everything didn’t feel so
awkward, so Derek was able to accept the invitations that Corey
offered him. He was sort of curious as to how Corey’s hand had
become so badly scarred. It looked as though several layers of flesh
had been peeled away and never grew back. He didn’t want to be
rude, so he didn’t ask and tried not to stare.
Tristan was the most fun, and Derek liked sharing a beer with
him, and Adam was an alpha.
Since this was the first time Derek had been able to actually be
near any of these amazing people for this long, he allowed himself to
be curious about this subject. He wanted to learn everything he could
about the place that had once been Mason’s home.
“So, two wolves of the same sex coming together is normal? I
mean, no one here seems to have any issues with that,” Derek added
when all three pairs of eyes looked at each other.
There were the usual awkward glances at each other before Adam
decided to answer that one. “I wouldn’t take what you see in this pack
as being the norm for other packs, Derek,” he said. “A lot of the
alphas here have mated with omegas. That’s normal, but not that
common. In the wild, real alpha wolves tend to mate with other
alphas, and only if they’re opposite sex. Nick and I are mated alphas,
but we’re werewolves, so that sort of mix isn't common at all. The
fact that we’re both alphas and male is a whole other level of
different, actually. A lot of people would’ve thought we’d be too
aggressive to make a mated pair, but somehow it works for us.”
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61
This new information shocked Derek. “So, you don’t actually see
a lot of wolves of the same sex coming together?”
“We have lately,” Tristan said. “I’m mated with a human, though.
He does have that alpha personality, which I guess works out for us.”
“These idiots don’t know what they’re talking about and are just
guessing,” Corey said. “I haven’t been a werewolf for very long, only
a couple months, but I’ve checked in on this. Yes, in the wild it’s
common for two alpha wolves to come together. Not an alpha and an
omega like how werewolves do it.”
“Yeah, but how we’ve been mating here is what’s not common,”
said Tristan.
“Says you and only because you’ve never seen any other pack but
this one and Phil’s.”
“Who?” Derek asked.
“He’s a leading alpha in a neighboring pack.”
Jesus Christ. It wasn’t just James’s pack in the area, but there
were more of them? How had Derek lived the last ten years of his life
in Brampton and never known this?
Granted, he hadn’t known for certain about werewolves until he
met Mason, but he’d thought he’d developed an eye for them after
that. He thought he’d be able to tell when there were more of them in
such a small area.
Guess he was wrong.
Tristan had the decency to look sheepish. He crossed his arms and
actually pouted. “Doesn’t mean anything,” he muttered.
Corey rolled his eyes and looked back at Derek before bringing
the neck of his beer to his lips. “Sometimes these guys’ll forget
they’re people first and wolves second.”
“Our wolves are just as much a part of us as any wolf in the wild.”
“Yes, but they don’t change into people and get jobs to bring in
money. We’re similar to them, yes, very similar, but we’re still in a
whole different league, and that means different rules will apply to us
and our instincts.”
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Marcy Jacks
He had a pretty good point, and from the looks on Adam’s and
Tristan’s faces, they knew it, too.
Not that Derek had any idea of what it was like to be a werewolf,
but it was the most interesting thing in the world, watching them
debate over the differences between werewolves and wild American
wolves.
The questions at first ranged from being serious and philosophical
to silly and joking. Tristan even went so far as to ask if a wolf
transforming into a human would be a wereman.
Derek chatted with them some more, getting the lay of the land, as
well as some of the rules the pack followed in order to survive.
Everyone was responsible for a couple of things. Some did the
laundry and cooked, though everyone was responsible for their own
cleaning, while others went out and hunted for meat or took odd jobs
in town to bring in money.
Derek had seen them before, usually alphas loading up their trucks
with the furniture of people who were moving into a different house
or apartment.
He knew that Mrs. Kettle, the crazy cat lady he’d purchased the
pawn shop from, had her groceries delivered to her by one of the
wolves from this pack. Another female werewolf did her gardening
while she drank iced tea in the shade.
Derek wondered if anyone in the town knew just how close they
were to dealing with the supernatural.
“What’re your plans?” Corey asked.
Derek blinked. He hadn’t meant to space out like he had. “Me? I
guess when my name clears I’ll see what I can salvage of the shop.
Maybe the insurance money will be enough for me to start it up again
if there’s nothing left over. Why are you shaking your head at me?”
Corey stopped, his body going tight, as though he hadn’t realized
he’d been shaking his head to begin with.
More of that awkward looking amongst each other thing happened
between Tristan and Adam before they both got up.
Mason Returns to His Mate
63
“Hey! Where are you both going?” Corey demanded.
Adam downed the last of his beer and put the empty bottle on the
picnic table where they’d been sitting. “You’re the boss’s mate and an
omega. As far as stuff like this is concerned, you’re in charge.”
“Stuff like what?” Corey asked.
“Gentle letdowns,” Tristan said.
Derek didn’t like that one bit.
Both men said their good-byes to him and shook his hand, and
Derek was left alone with the man who was apparently going to try
and gently let him down about something.
“Okay, what are they talking about?” he asked.
Corey’s jaw clenched up. “Maybe this is the kind of thing you
should be speaking with James about. He’ll know the rules better than
I will.”
Likely because James was the one to make the rules. “Please just
tell me what the rules might be then,” Derek said through clenched
teeth. He’d never fought so hard for patience before in all his life.
The rest of the pack wandering around must have seen the other
two weres leave the table, or at the very least they sensed the tension
coming from the space, because everyone was suddenly keeping a
distance.
Corey ran his hands through his hair, shifting his body so that he
was facing Derek straight on from across the wooden table. “Okay,
this is what I know, and you’ll still want to double-check with James
and Mason because this might not even be permanent.”
“Might” didn’t take away from the fact that Corey had also said
permanent. “Just tell me.”
He especially wanted to know what the hell Mason had to do with
this.
Corey drummed his fingers onto the table. “You know that the
police are looking for you, right?”
Derek nodded, keeping his eyes firmly locked onto the guilty ones
that Corey was sporting. “Yes, because they want to question me
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about insurance fraud.”
“Right, well, considering that there are a couple of hunters out to
get you, too, we can’t let you get picked up.”
Derek had already figured that part out, but what he thought was
going to happen clearly didn’t mesh with what the werewolves were
expecting to happen.
“I figured you were all keeping me safe from the hunters. Is this
because you’re all worried that if I’m brought in the hunters will try
and get me out of the station or something?”
“It’s not like it’s unknown for a hunter to be a police officer.
Believe me, I was shocked when I heard about that, too. It’s not
common because they prefer to go their own route instead of chasing
human bad guys, but we are in a pretty secluded area. Small town,
woodland for miles in all directions, it wouldn’t be too far out there to
assume that someone with a badge who comes looking might be a
hunter, too. Even if they’re not, they’re going to ask you questions we
can’t let you answer.”
“Like what?” Derek snapped, suddenly liking Corey a whole lot
less. He didn’t particularly enjoy being told what he could and could
not do.
“It’s just complicated,” Corey said, glancing around.
Suddenly Derek noticed that there were a couple of people
attempting to inconspicuously look over at them, some inching closer
as they did their chores or watched the pups.
They were either spying because gossip was as much of a
temptation with werewolves as it was with any other species, or they
were concerned about the well-being of their leader’s partner.
Derek made an effort to keep his anger down a low simmer.
“There’s nothing complicated about this. I have a life I built for
myself. Eventually I want to go and pick it back up again.”
“We’re not kidnapping you,” Corey said.
Derek pressed his lips together. No, technically they hadn’t done
that. Not in the legal sense, he was sure, even if he didn’t know squat
Mason Returns to His Mate
65
about the law. They were keeping him here for his protection, there
were people out there who did want to see Derek dead for what he’d
done at the pawn shop, and Derek was more than happy to avoid
those people for a while.
Still, Corey was basically telling him that this problem would
never be solved, and that he would never be able to leave. He didn’t
want to be stuck here.
“James told me about you,” Corey said, lifting his hand. “See
this? This is what happens to humans who support werewolves. I’ve
been shot, too, and I’m lucky to be alive.”
Derek shivered.
“The pack’s been avoiding you for your own protection, but now
that you’re mated to Mason, you’re as connected to us as it gets
without turning you into a werewolf.”
Mated? He and Mason had only just reconnected. It was a little
early to be using that kind of wording, wasn’t it?
He still had to fight this. “I have people who will miss where I
am.”
If his landlord and the general public who came to his store
counted, which they didn’t.
Corey had that look on his face that said he knew Derek was full
of shit. He had no one who loved him on the outside and no one who
would care that he’d vanished from the face of the earth.
Derek suddenly felt sick.
“When these hunters are taken care of, it’ll be safer for you to go
back out into town. We’ll make up a story that you can tell the police.
Isaac has a lot of money, and he’ll make sure you get a good lawyer.”
“And how long will that be?” Derek asked.
Corey’s eyes were pitying again. “I don’t know. Honestly, I
don’t,” he added quickly when Derek was about to argue some more.
“Hunters are dangerous, and you said yourself that these guys likely
have your ID. If we can’t kill them before they show your picture off
to other hunters…” Corey trailed off and shrugged helplessly.
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Marcy Jacks
And he’d wondered about his hand. Now he knew. For the first
time, Derek saw the darker side of this pack. These were nice people
from what he saw on the outside, but realistically, they were part of
the paranormal. They had hunters to deal with and occasionally had to
kill in order to survive. They would kill the men who were after
Derek as well, but that was only because those hunters were also after
the pack. Would they kill Derek if he threatened them, too? Even in
this small way?
He was hardly the kind of man who had issues with death and
killing, so long as it was done in self-defense, but to hear it talked
about so openly and casually was surreal.
Derek got up from the picnic table.
“Where are you going?” Corey asked.
Was this why the other man had been so nice and inviting to him
before? Because he was charged with keeping an eye on him?
“Back to the guest house to think,” Derek muttered, stuffing his
hands into his pockets and not looking back.
Corey didn’t say anything to him as he left.
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67
Chapter Seven
James clenched his jaw when his younger brother finished telling
him the story. “You stayed away for ten years over that? I should kick
your ass right now.”
Considering the lazy life Mason had been leading ever since his
self-exile, not having to worry about hunters and all, James didn’t
doubt he could do it.
“I know. It seems pretty stupid when I think about it.”
“It is stupid,” James said. “Jesus Christ, you mean to tell me that I
lost my brother for ten years because you had too much fun one night
with your mate?”
“Didn’t exactly work out like that,” Mason muttered.
“Whatever.” James was in the mood to fight something now, and
since fighting his brother would be counterproductive, he was really
hoping one of the wild werewolves prowling the area would jump out
at them or something.
They were still around, he knew that much. Their scent was faint,
but it was still in the area. They were being oddly quiet lately. Maybe
their human sides were starting to come to? Who knew?
James and Mason were only out here because they were hunting
them. Not to kill them, but to bring them in.
James had decided that increasing the pack right about now with
some more alpha wolves might be a good move, and since most of the
wild wolves out here were transformed against their will by Deacon,
and with Deacon being dead and all―sort of―they might be willing
to come in and learn to be more civil. He just had to catch them first
before he could convince them that letting out their more human sides
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Marcy Jacks
wasn’t exactly a bad thing.
Nick was still out there with Mickey. Their area to search was
wide and farther out than James’s, so maybe they were having better
luck than James was.
“Well, thank God you decided to come back and finally talk to
him. Otherwise I might still not have you,” James said. He could
hardly look at his brother right now for how angry he was.
“Yes, but now his shop is gone,” Mason said.
James was about to hit him over the head with a whole lot of shut-
the-hell-up-with-that-self-pity-shit before Mason started speaking
again.
“We need to kill those hunters and fast. The longer he’s away
from the human world, the harder it’ll be for him when he goes back.”
James lifted a scraggly brow at him. “You don’t want him to stay
with the pack?”
“I do, I mean, it would be preferable, but the second he finds out
he can’t leave, he’ll flip out. He’s human, James. He won’t want to
have the pack forced on him.”
“I haven’t forgotten that he’s human. Isaac is human, too, and he’s
fine staying with the pack.”
“Yes, but he can leave anytime he wants. He’s not in hiding.”
His brother had a good point, but he refused to let Mason beat
himself up over it. The last thing he needed was for his little brother
with the guilt complex a mile long to go running away again for
another ten years.
James decided to drop it, but the conversation wasn’t over. He
would be bringing this up again.
They kept on the vague trails of the wild werewolves for another
couple of hours, only deciding to come in when the sunlight, the little
of it that there was streaming down through the canopy of trees,
turned orange and the air started to cool for the night.
The end of the day had arrived. James was starving and
desperately wanted to get into bed with his mate. He wanted to get
Mason Returns to His Mate
69
into his mate, period. He still had a lot of frustration to get out of him,
and sex tended to help with that.
Too bad Mason had all the sexual knowledge of a blushing virgin
or he would have known that ten years ago.
They arrived back at the pack. Nick and Mickey must’ve been
thinking along the same lines as James and Mason because they
appeared like shadowy ghosts through the thicket of trees and shrubs
at just about the same time as he and Mason did.
From the look of them, they’d clearly not had any luck finding
any of the wild werewolves either.
That was disappointing, and James tried not to let that show on his
face.
It wasn’t just that he was looking to increase his pack size—his
pack was big enough as it was—but with hunters out there, he wanted
to keep as many werewolves out of their path as possible. Not all wild
werewolves were angry and vicious, after all. Some were scared,
slowly losing their rational thinking minds to the wolves inside of
them.
They headed for their respective cottages. James could smell the
steak cooking for him a mile away, and his mouth watered.
Corey couldn’t cook for shit, and neither could James, outside of
using a barbecue. Likely that meant that Old Maggie was the one
doing the cooking.
Nick and his mate Adam tended to take turns doing the cooking
depending on who was out on rotation that day or who was out for the
longest. That tended to work for them. Mick and Jason had a pretty
good go of it, too. Jason enjoyed cooking, and Mick enjoyed eating.
It took a second for James to notice that there were no smells
coming from the cabin where his brother’s mate was situated. The
human might’ve already eaten. James was pretty sure that neither he,
nor Mason, had told the man when they were going to return. That
didn’t stop the bad feeling from settling into his gut that Mason was
going to have a bad night tonight.
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“I’ll see you tomorrow?” James said.
God, he wished it hadn’t come out sounding like a question. Of
course he was going to see his brother tomorrow. The man was not
going to leave on him again. James wouldn’t allow it.
“Yeah, sure,” Mason said, already moving toward the cabin.
James hoped everything would be okay between those two. He
really did.
* * * *
Mason fought the urge to say the standard “honey, I’m home” line
when he opened the door. He was still over the moon about having
Derek in his life, but he didn’t want to be too silly about it.
It wouldn’t have mattered anyway since Derek was sitting at the
kitchen table, apparently waiting for him with a single beer in front of
him.
Mason smiled at him and shut the door. “Hey.”
Derek nodded. “Hi.”
Okay. Mason stepped into the kitchen and looked around.
Everything looked pretty clean, and he didn’t catch any lingering
scents. “You haven’t eaten yet?”
Derek shook his head. “Nope.”
His mate wasn’t in a good mood. Mason pulled out a chair and sat
down. “How about we order pizza or something. I haven’t had that in
forever. You’re still a meat-lovers guy, right?”
At least, Mason hoped he was.
Derek suddenly turned his hazel eyes onto Mason, and Mason
froze up.
“Would I be able to go into town with you and pick it up?”
Shit. “Derek, I was going to tell you. I was just waiting.”
“For what? For me to make plans on reopening my store just to
have everyone give me the poor-idiot look?”
“No, I was waiting until we found the hunters,” Mason said,
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71
trying to hold onto his patience, but his inner alpha didn’t enjoy the
challenge he heard in Derek’s voice.
“According to Corey, that could be years,” Derek countered.
Well, had it been another alpha to spill the beans, Mason could’ve
gone and kicked his ass. The omega mate of his brother, not so much.
“It won’t be years. James and I are going out to search for the wild
werewolves to bring up our numbers. We’re not finding them, so that
can only mean they’re being scared away by the hunters. They’re
close, and when they attack us, we will kill them and you can go on
your way.”
Derek looked at him sharply. “Go on my way? Just like that?”
Mason rubbed his face. “Derek, you’re purposely being difficult.”
That had apparently been another wrong thing to say. Derek’s face
went beet red. Mason had never seen anyone go that shade in anger
before. It was surreal.
Derek got up and left the table, knocking the chair he’d been
sitting in over. Mason sat there and listened to the slam of his door
echo through the small cottage.
He couldn’t help it. His own anger started to bubble up inside
him. They were trying their best, Goddamnit. Derek needed to stay
here for the safety of the pack. It was a damn miracle the police
hadn’t found this location and come to ask questions yet, and unless
Derek wanted a slow death, then hiding here was the best option.
Mason got up from his own chair, the legs scraping across the
floor harshly as he pushed away from the table and went for the door
leading outside.
He slammed the door much the same way Derek did, hearing the
crack in the new wood as he went.
Shit. Back only a couple of days and already he was destroying
his brother’s stuff.
Looking over to the cabin that belonged to the leading alpha,
Mason was mortified to see James looking at him from his deck.
Mason didn’t know what the man had heard, but clearly, he’d
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heard enough. Mason wanted to tell him that he was sorry, but
nothing left his throat. He made for the tree line.
He was nearly there when he heard the door he’d just destroyed
fall completely off the hinges.
“Mason, wait!”
Derek. Mason didn’t want to talk to him right now. He ran into the
trees and quickly got out of his clothes. He transformed just as he
heard Derek stepping into the thicket of shrubs and trees, and then
Mason went on a cleansing run.
* * * *
Derek nearly ran after Mason, but the sudden darkness in the sky
and the black shadows that made it impossible for him to see through
all the trees, had him turning back.
James had come down from his deck and met Derek halfway.
Derek never felt so small in all his life as he did before the brother of
the man he’d just chewed out.
“Will he come back?” Derek asked.
James wet his lips and looked toward the trees. “Don’t know. He’s
a grown man, and he’s been away too long to still be considered part
of this pack. Unless he counts you, there’s nothing to tie him to this
place anymore if he chooses to go wandering for the rest of his life.
Derek’s fists clenched at that comment. “It was just a fight.” And
not even a very big one at that. Mason wouldn’t leave him again over
one heated argument, would he?
The fact that he didn’t know was something that scared Derek
more than anything. He and Mason didn’t know each other anymore.
They barely knew each other ten years ago.
James didn’t say anything. He merely sighed, turned, and went
back to his cabin where his partner was waiting for him on the deck
stairs.
“Aren’t you going to help me look for him?” Derek demanded,
Mason Returns to His Mate
73
shocked that Mason’s own brother could just go back home after
something like this.
James turned to look at him. “I told you, it’s his choice to come
back or not. I won’t force him if that’s not what he wants. I will tell
you that it would be an incredibly bad idea for you to go into those
woods during the night by yourself.”
“I don’t care. I’ll go anyway,” Derek said, already backing up
toward the black forest.
James clenched his jaw at him, and his hands became fists.
Whatever, alpha boy. I’m not part of your pack. You don’t order
me around.
“I would be willing to escort him.”
Derek jumped at the pale figure that appeared at his side from
seemingly nowhere. The man had the lightest blond hair Derek had
ever seen. It was so light he doubted it was natural. On top of that, the
man had red eyes.
And fangs.
Derek backed away a step. Was this guy another sort of werewolf,
or were those fangs and eyes part of what Derek suspected them to
be?
“You sure about that, Ivan?” James asked.
Ivan nodded. “I have Eric with me. We will be fine. Back within
the hour.”
Ivan started walking toward the trees without even waiting for
Derek.
Derek looked between both men, trying to figure out what was
going on, when he gave up and just followed the other man.
He was glad for the company, but now that he had a good look at
this guy, Derek was pretty sure that Ivan was the man he’d seen
talking to himself on the rare occasion when he happened to be
outside at night.
Red eyes, fangs, and outside only during the night.
“Please don’t be offended if I ask you a potentially awkward
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question,” Derek said.
“Ask away,” Ivan replied as they entered the darkness of the
woods.
“Are you a vampire?”
Ivan stopped and turned around to look at him. Derek froze up at
the sight of those glowing red eyes. It was all he could see. Like the
man was a ghost or something.
“I am,” Ivan replied. “But you have nothing to fear. I find the act
of putting my lips onto a strange man’s neck to be repulsive. I prefer
to drink my blood from a glass or, failing that alternative, to hunt for
it in these woods.”
Derek couldn’t help himself. “You’d rather put your mouth on a
wild animal than on a person?”
“I find most wild animals to be far clearer than most humans.”
Just the sound of Ivan’s voice gave Derek the impression that
the…vampire was cringing as he made the comparison.
Like when Derek first found himself welcomed into the pack, he
had a thousand questions, but now was not the time to be asking them,
not when Mason might be attempting to take off on him again.
There were some things he did need to ask. “How will we find
him? Can you smell him? Is Mason even still in the area?”
“Vampires are hunters by nature,” Ivan said. “But, admittedly, the
hunting capabilities of the werewolf are far superior.”
“But we don’t have a werewolf with us. Ivan?” Derek put his hand
on the other man’s shoulder when he didn’t immediately respond. The
quake he felt in Ivan’s shoulder, in his entire body really, had Derek
stumbling back.
What the fuck?
“What’s happening to you?”
His night vision was shit, but he’d adjusted enough by now to be
able to see the outline of the vampire he was with, so he could see
when the shaking subsided.
It hadn’t been a violent thing to begin with, so Derek hadn’t been
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worrying that the man was having a seizure or anything like that, but
still…
“Hey, you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
Derek jerked back again when the voice didn’t match Ivan’s. He
tried to see around the vampire, thinking there might’ve been another
person in the area with them.
As far as he could tell, it was just the two of them.
“How’d you do that with your voice?” Derek asked.
Ivan turned around. This time, instead of glowing red eyes, the
irises that lit up in the dark were gold.
Derek squinted, thinking he might not be seeing this right.
“How’d you do that with your eyes?”
Ivan stepped up to him, and then strangely, held out his hand. “My
name is Eric. I’ll be helping you to track Mason. Nice to meet you.”
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Chapter Eight
Mason wasn’t much interested in being found. That was the sole
reason why he’d left. He made his way over to the pond where he and
James used to play when he was a pup and James was still bigger than
him. He was happy to see it was still there and as beautiful as ever, if
a little overgrown with weeds.
He always felt better whenever he came to this place, so he
approached the water, glowing under the moonlight, found himself
the rock where he used to sit, and sat down.
The boulder was flat, and partly out of the water, leaving the top
dry, perfect if he wanted to cool his legs in the pond without getting
his ass wet.
He sat down and gently kicked his legs in the water, feeling the
minnows and tadpoles tickling his toes.
He was always calmer whenever he came here. After ten years
away from this spot and, even though he didn’t want to admit it at the
moment, from Derek as well, he didn’t know how he’d survived the
last ten years without either.
Now that his inner wolf had been let out to run, Mason was able to
better think about his circumstances.
He guessed Derek did have a reason to be pissed. That was
exactly why Mason had kept it from him that his stay might be
extended or even permanent if they couldn’t find and kill the hunters.
He knew Derek would worry and that he would be angry.
Mason hadn’t chosen to keep those things from him to be a prick
or anything, and that was the one thing that pissed him off the most
about all this. That Derek seemed to think that Mason got a kick out
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of keeping secrets from his mate. He didn’t.
The fact that Derek was his mate was also something of a secret,
but he was working up to that.
Mason sighed. Maybe ten years of being his own wolf and relying
on no one but himself for his decisions had turned him into a pussy.
He couldn’t handle the thought of what would happen if someone was
to become upset with him.
That was why he’d lost the challenge against James that day. He
wasn’t fit to be the leader of a pack, much less to make decisions for
his mate.
“Mason!”
Mason damn near jumped out of his skin as he half turned his
body just in time to watch Derek come running after him.
What the hell was he―
Oh, he saw that vampire, Ivan, standing behind Derek in the
shadows. He was naked, and his eyes were not red, suggesting that
he’d been possessed by the ghost of Eric.
He didn’t care how romantically the others spun that story. It
creeped him out.
“Mason.” Derek ran two feet into the water, soaking his shoes and
the bottom of his jeans to halfway up his calves before he stopped.
The rock that Mason rested on was on the other side of the pond,
just on the other side of the small and gentle waterfall that came from
the river and fed into the pond, keeping the water always fresh and
clean.
Because of the horseshoe shape of the pond, and the little
waterfall in the center, the only way to get onto the rock where Mason
sat was to either swim to it or jump to it.
It forced both men to keep their distance from each other.
Mason was glad to see his mate, but was still grumpy in the fact
that he wanted to be left alone. “What do you want, Derek?”
Derek winced, and Mason bit down on his bottom lip. He wasn’t
meaning for these stupid snappy things to be coming out of his mouth.
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He just wanted some solitude to think.
The thought of Derek turning around and leaving on that final
note just so that Mason could have that solitude wasn’t so appealing.
“Wait,” he called when it looked as though Derek was about to do
just that.
Mason got to his feet and jumped to dry land, landing at a crouch
beside Derek.
The other man’s face dropped in shock as he looked over at the
rock and then back down at Mason. “I didn’t know you could jump
that far.”
“It’s a talent,” he said, then turned toward Eric or Ivan or whoever
the hell that was. “We’ll be fine on our own for a bit.”
Eric―at least, Mason was going to assume it was Eric considering
the other man was naked, meaning he’d just transformed―nodded
and then turned around, vanishing back in the shadows.
The man would probably stay close by, just in case, but Mason
wasn’t entirely looking for privacy at this point.
“What are you doing here?” Mason asked.
Derek wet his lips, and he didn’t look Mason in the face. “I was
worried you’d try and leave again.”
Mason hesitated and then decided to just go for it and put his arms
around Derek’s shoulders. To his extreme relief and delight, the other
man held him back. “I wouldn’t do that to you again. I just needed
some time to think.”
“Didn’t want to risk it,” Derek said against his shoulder.
He felt good there. Warm and solid. Mason loved having him
against his body. He could stay like this forever.
“Sorry I worried you. I just…I did what I did so you wouldn’t
worry.”
“I know that,” Derek said, pulling away enough to look up at him.
“But I’m not a werewolf, or an omega or whatever. I’m human, and I
don’t like other people deciding what I should and shouldn’t know
about my safety without my say-so. I’m sorry if that goes against
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what you are, but this is how I am,” Derek said.
Again, Mason fought the urge of his inner alpha to demand to be
given the right of way in everything. If Isaac and Tristan could do
this, then he could, too.
“Okay. I’m sorry it came out that way, but I can’t be sorry for
trying to protect you,” Mason said. He needed to be stubborn in this
thing, at least.
Derek looked at him long and hard. “Protect me from people who
want to hunt and kill me, not from the emotional stuff. That I can
handle.”
He could do that. “Deal,” Mason said.
“But Isaac did offer to go target shooting with me to bone up on
my aim with a pistol,” Derek said, smiling. “Just in case.”
Just in case. Christ, there wasn’t going to be a single thing about
this that wasn’t hard.
Clenching his jaw, Mason nodded. “Just try not to get into any
trouble, all right? These guys are usually more skilled than the
average human.”
“You have my guarantee that I am too much of a coward to do
more than hide under the bed if some guy comes at me with a gun or
knife.”
Mason was about to argue against that and say that his mate was
no coward, but the look on Derek’s face, that same shit-eating smile,
told him that his mate was joking.
He might be serious about not running straight into their next
battle, but Derek was no coward. Mason knew that. Derek wouldn’t
have survived that first encounter with the hunters if he had been.
“All right. I’ll hold you to that, and the next time we might have
to keep you at the pack for an extended period of time, I’ll let you
know first.”
Derek kissed him. It was a gentle and chaste pressing of their lips,
and no kiss had ever been as sweet.
“I’m just glad you’re staying,” Derek said.
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“I won’t leave again,” Mason said, putting his fingers into Derek’s
hair. Even if he did ever decide to leave, this time he would make sure
to take Derek with him.
While Mason loved the press of their bodies, there was still that
one more tiny detail that needed taking care of. “Ah, Derek, since you
don’t want me keeping emotional touchy feely stuff from you and all,
there’s something else you should know.”
Mason gently pushed them away from each other, and he and
Derek held each other at an arm’s length, but they didn’t completely
separate.
Neither wanted to let the other go.
Derek frowned a little, but his face hardly turned angry, nor did
Mason get that vibe out of him.
“All right, what is it?” Derek asked.
“It might make you angry.”
“Spit it out, DeWitt,” Derek said.
“Okay, here it is,” Mason said, gripping Derek’s shoulders tight.
“We’re mates.”
He shrugged and smiled to mask how nervous he felt. “Ta-da?”
Derek blinked at him a couple of times, his brows lifting as he put
together exactly what something like that would mean.
“You mean, like, we’re together now? Because I already figured
that part out,” Derek said with a grin, trying to get closer to Mason
again.
“Yes, we are, but not in the way you’re thinking,” Mason said,
pushing Derek back a little, ever fearful of the building confusion on
his lover’s face.
He had to explain himself quickly. Derek wasn’t known for his
short fuse, but everyone had a limit on what they could take.
“A mate, for a werewolf, isn’t the same thing as taking a lover or
a partner. It’s not just attraction, and it isn’t always based on love.
There are a lot of weres in the world who find themselves mated to
people they can’t stand. When I say we’re mates, what I mean is that
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you and I are spiritually connected. Pretty much for the rest of our
lives.”
Beyond that, too, if he remembered the story about Ivan and Eric
right, but he didn’t want to get into that too much.
Derek’s brows shot right into his hairline. “We’re married?”
Mason shrugged. “If that’s a good way for you to look at it, then
yes.”
“Holy shit.” Derek rubbed his face with both palms before sliding
his hands into his hair. He looked like he was struggling to not lose it.
“I don’t want this to be another choice you think is being taken
away from you,” Mason said. “I know we haven’t been together for
that long”—not long at all—“so I don’t want you to feel pressured or
anything. I want to be with you, so much, but if you ever want to go,
when the hunters are dealt with, you can go back to Brampton or
wherever you want to go and I won’t stop you.”
Derek looked up at him sharply. “That’s why you walked out back
there? Because you thought I wanted to leave you?”
Fuck. Mason wasn’t good with these kinds of things. “I just don’t
want you to think you’re trapped here.”
“It’s not about that, Mason. Jesus!” Derek said. “I love you. I’ve
loved you since I was twenty years old. I’m kind of glad you told me
about this. Really glad, actually, because now I know that I’m not
insane for holding a candle for you for that long. You’re saying that
the reason I never forgot about you was because of the way we’re
connected?”
Mason smiled at him, and he touched Derek’s face. He had such
nice skin. “Yes.”
“You never forgot me either.”
Not a question, but the statement deserved an answer anyway.
Mason could feel the way his face went stove-burner hot as he
replied. “No.”
Derek kissed him.
Mason had been wrong before. This kiss was the sweetest.
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Considering he was still naked from his recent run as a werewolf,
his immediate arousal was noticed right away by Derek, who started
to shimmy out of his clothes.
Mason wouldn’t have taken the other man for being the type to
want sex in such an open place.
“What are you doing?” he asked, just to be on the safe side.
“No one’s around, right?”
Seemed he was still a little shy.
Eric was nearby, but Mason had no doubt that the other man, or
men, whatever, would leave once he realized what was going on.
That, and Mason wasn’t about to put a stop to what Derek was
doing to him. He couldn’t.
When Derek was just as naked as Mason, he kicked his leg behind
Derek’s feet, tripping the other man and holding onto his arms tight
enough to gently lower him down to the ground.
“You bastard.” Derek laughed, and then they kissed again.
Something was different about this, Mason noted. He wasn’t
entirely sure what it was, but there was something about touching
Derek’s skin now compared to before that was on an entirely different
level.
Everything in his body tingled, the harder he pressed himself
against Derek, the better he felt, the more the nerves under his flesh
responded, and the more they both shivered.
“Fuck, what is that?” Derek asked.
“Don’t know,” Mason replied, humping against him, pressing
their cocks together, and putting his lips against Derek’s neck and
jaw.
It felt like his senses had been heightened. When he kissed
Derek’s jugular, he could feel the rush of blood beneath the man’s
skin as his heartbeat pumped within his chest. His lips could feel
every inch of his skin, taste everything on him.
He smelled like clean sweat, and Mason could even taste the
water from the shower Derek had taken that morning.
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Derek lifted his knees, groaning and pushing his hips back against
Mason’s thrusts. He felt like a teenager in heat. He needed to get off,
and he needed to do that on Derek, in him. He needed to claim him as
his own.
“You’re mine,” Mason growled.
“Ah!” Derek said, a sound between a moan and a sigh as his
fingernails tugged on the skin on Mason’s back.
Derek tried kissing him, but Mason pulled away. “Tell me you’re
mine,” he demanded.
“I’m yours. I’m yours. Fuck me, already!”
Mason complied, pulling himself off of his lover and flipping the
other man around almost violently. He couldn’t help himself. He just
needed to do this.
Mason gripped Derek by the hips and placed a kiss onto his
pucker. Derek shivered, his entire body clenching up. He knew what
was coming, and Mason pressed his tongue against the waiting hole,
pushing against the ring of muscle.
Derek bucked and cursed and said all sort of things that Mason
paid no attention to. His only focus was on his task, preparing Derek
for what he was about to do.
He didn’t listen to the words Derek said, but the sounds went
straight to his balls and dick. His balls became heavy, and his cock
thickened and pulsed with the blood that rushed into the organ. It was
nearly becoming painful.
When his tongue found that spot, the very tip tickling along the
edges, Derek shouted and fell down on his elbows, one hand reaching
down to jerk on his cock while he came.
The ring of muscle was now loose, and when he sensed that
Derek’s heart was coming back down to a normal rate, Mason pulled
his tongue out, but he wasn’t finished by a long shot.
“Back on your hands and knees,” he commanded.
Derek’s chest heaved for breath like he’d just run a marathon, and
he turned to look over his shoulder at Mason.
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The sight of Derek’s own cum on his chin, just a little but still
noticeable, was nearly enough to pull him out of this strange
dominant haze he was in and make him laugh.
Not quite enough, though. “I said, on your hands and knees.”
Derek grinned and at him and did as he was told. His muscles
shook ever so slightly as he struggled to obey the command, but obey
he did.
“Haven’t seen you like this since that night,” Derek said, that
smile still tugging at his lips. “Check my pants pocket.”
Mason was confused by the sudden command, but he did as he
was told. He barked a laugh when he pulled out another one of those
small bottles of hand lotion.
“You’re carrying these around now?”
Derek’s red face, bright with embarrassment, was endearing.
“Yeah, yeah. Can’t exactly go to the store and buy the real deal yet, so
I’ve been keeping that handy.”
Mason made quick work with the hand lotion, using as much of it
as he could before he grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head
back, catching his lips in a biting kiss as he lined up his aching prick
and plunged deep inside until his balls touched on the back of Derek’s
thighs.
Derek’s moan was swallowed by Mason’s kiss. He didn’t wait for
the other man to adjust to the intrusion. Derek didn’t need it. He was
already humping back against Mason’s thrusting dick like a dog in
heat.
Mason loved every second of that. He was going to fuck this man
until Derek passed out, just like the last time.
That thought had him slowing to a stop, his human mind coming
through the haze of what he was feeling and what he was doing just
enough to really notice the similarities between right now and that
night ten years ago.
He’d been just like this, only less in control of himself. His
memories of that night were still a blur, but he knew he’d been rough,
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and had he not had Derek’s word to tell him that he’d enjoyed himself
just as much as Mason had, then he would still be bearing the guilt of
what he’d thought he’d done.
He was claiming his mate. Mason’s alpha wolf was dominating
him right now, taking over in a rare occurrence that put instinct before
intellect. Had Mason been claiming Derek that night as well? Was
that why he was doing this now? After a ten-year separation, did he
need to reclaim his mate? Or was this just the two of them coming
together as normal?
Derek’s gasping voice called to him. “What’s wrong?”
Mason blinked and looked down at him. Derek’s hazel eyes were
clouded with lust, his face desperate, and judging by the way his arm
was moving in that rhythmic way, he was still stroking himself,
desperate to come once more.
Mason pulled about halfway out of him and then thrust back
inside.
Derek’s eyes squeezed shut at the act, his mouth opening in a
blissful cry.
“Perfect. I’m going to put a smile on your face,” Mason said,
thrusting long and hard inside of his lover’s asshole.
Derek was forced to release his cock and put both hands down on
the ground before he could fall on his face again. “Trust me, you
already are. Fuck, just like that,” he moaned, pushing back against
Mason’s hips.
They fucked in an irregular pattern. There was no rhythm to what
they were doing, but it was the best sex Mason had had in years. The
push and pull of his cock inside that tight hole was to die for. He
needed to let his inner wolf out more often because it knew a thing or
two about passion and fucking.
Mason gripped Derek’s hips as tightly as he could without
breaking the skin and straightened his back, looking down and
watching as his dick disappeared inside of Derek’s hole.
“You. Are. So. Fucking. Hot.”
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Derek didn’t say anything. The only sounds he seemed capable of
making were the breathy moans that had become his language as
Mason claimed him, fucked him, touched everything inside of him.
The sizzle in his balls when they bounced like a wrecking ball
against the back of Derek’s thighs only added to his pleasure, and
when everything inside of him went tight and the pleasure built, he
knew the end was near and sped up his pumping hips.
Derek cried out. “Holy fuck! I’m coming! I’m―”
Derek spilled himself again, though this time, he didn’t grab hold
of his dick to hurry it along. He was more eager to just let it come on
its own this time, it seemed.
Mason held on and fucked Derek as hard and as fast as he could,
throwing his head back and yelling his orgasm when it gathered inside
of him and shot out of his cock, spilling himself inside of his lover.
As he came, Mason grabbed the base of his prick and quickly
pulled out. He stroked himself the rest of the way, and let his cum
spill onto Derek’s back.
When he finished, he sighed at the sight.
Now he’d claimed his mate.
“Wow.” Derek laughed, letting his body flop over onto the soft
sand. “We need to do that more often.”
Mason had no intention of letting them leave this pond until
they’d made love at least four more times. Even after being so
recently satisfied, already his cock was twitching for more. If Mason
so much as allowed himself to look down at his lover, his mate, and
think a couple of dirty thoughts, he’d be as hard as those math exams
he took for those online classes he’d tried a couple years ago.
As it was, he decided his mate could use a five-minute breather.
The longer Mason held off, the better the pleasure would be when he
had that perfect ass in his possession again.
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Chapter Nine
Tom had everything he needed now. The three extra hunters had
arrived, although they were cocky little shits, the lot of them. He
wouldn’t trust any of them to have his back, but they were idiots to
assume that he had theirs.
“Just stay behind us, old man,” said their leader, Tatum, who
refused to take any commands from Tom.
Really, what sort of stupid new-age name was Tatum anyway?
Fucking parents nowadays naming their children such ridiculous
names. They should be shot, really.
That was fine. This was only a temporary deal anyhow. All he
needed was for these new hunters to lead the way into the area where
the pack of werewolves resided. They’d captured one not too long
ago, but he’d unfortunately been a wild one, with no allegiance to any
pack.
The monster had still known where to find more of them, and he’d
given the location of the pack willingly.
Not just one pack, but two. There were two packs within an hour’s
drive of Brampton. Tom couldn’t believe his good luck. It was no
wonder that the other hunters who’d arrived before him had such
trouble getting any pelts to sell, or even getting out of the area alive,
when there were so many organized wolves out and about.
That didn’t seem to deter these men a single bit. Tom had known
they were thrill seekers and hungry for money, but just being in the
same room with them was a nightmare. The oldest of the three was
only twenty-four years old, and the stupid idiot carried around one of
those portable gaming systems and played it during the night, as
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though that wasn’t the perfect way for a werewolf to find them by
following the sounds.
Even Billy, fool that he was, was smart enough to keep those
things locked up and out of sight. Tom was pretty sure the guy had
even sold his to help pay for a new pistol not too many months ago.
These boys were practically worthless, and how they’d survived
for so long, Tom would never know.
The only information they took from him, and hesitantly at that,
was when he pulled out the photo ID from the bag and wallet they’d
snagged from the store before lighting it on fire.
He’d explained that the man in the picture was human and a
supporter. The three boys nodded and told him they would protect
him if some human should attempt to attack.
God, Tom could hardly wait for these idiots to get killed in the
coming battle.
* * * *
Mason woke up to the warmth of the sun on his body and the
warmth of Derek’s body beneath him. He was so comfortable that for
a moment he’d thought he was lying in bed with his mate, just waking
up before the alarm could start its bitching for the day.
No. They were still at the pond.
Mason picked himself up onto his hands, pulling his weight off of
Derek’s back.
The other man shivered with the sudden chill then opened his
eyes, looked up at Mason, and smiled.
“Morning,” he said.
Mason breathed a sigh of relief. Though he’d been assured by the
man beneath him, some part of him still chewed over the possibility
of what would happen the morning after. He’d been frightened, but
Derek was awake. From what Mason could see, there was no blood
between his legs, and he was smiling up at Mason.
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Mason cleared his throat. “Good morning.”
Derek lifted himself, prompting Mason to pull the rest of his
weight off of his lover, and then Derek looked around. “Wow. Can’t
believe we spent the whole night here.”
Mason could, and he’d been stupid for allowing it to happen, all
by themselves as they’d been. “We should get out of here.”
“Sure, just give me a sec. I’m filthy.”
Mason watched as Derek stepped into the pond, carefully at first,
adjusting himself to the cold temperature, and then diving in.
Mason could hardly deny him the quick wash, not with the way
they were both covered in dirt and dried-on cum.
Derek came up for air, shaking the water out of his hair. It was the
most gorgeous sight Mason had ever seen in his life. “Aren’t you
coming?”
Mason clenched his fists, and then he carefully sniffed the air. He
scented nothing that that should concern him. No other foreign scents,
aside from Ivan’s, but that had long ago faded.
Why not?
Mason went in after him. They swam around for a bit, enjoying
the water and each other, and then they lazily made love again on
Mason’s rock before getting back into the water to wash off one more
time.
The only thing that was a factor in making them leave was how
hungry they were both getting.
That, and Mason didn’t want to risk that some of the omegas and
pups came to spend the day here and saw two men having sex.
Werewolves were pretty good with nudity, but he didn’t want to teach
any young kids about the birds and the bees.
“I’m never going to fit into these jeans,” Derek complained when
it came time for him to dress.
The best he could do was put on his boxers, wearing them like
shorts, and force his T-shirt over his head before sticking his feet into
his shoes, still damp from the night before.
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“You could always just go au naturel,” Mason suggested,
wiggling his brows.
“Not in this lifetime,” Derek said. “Just because you have no
shame doesn’t mean I don’t either.”
Mason was both looking forward to and dreading the day when
Derek broke free of that shy nature of his.
“Let’s head back.” They’d dawdled long enough, and Mason was
beginning to get antsy without really knowing why. Those were the
worst feelings to have. It meant his instincts were going crazy, but
whether it was danger, some of the pups playing pranks, or an animal
coming onto his territory, he wouldn’t be able to identify it until he
saw it or smelled it.
Mason made sure to hold Derek’s hand tightly in his, and Derek
just had to notice that they were power walking the way back.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing, just hungry,” Mason lied.
He heard the growl in Derek’s voice and noticed right away the
way the other man’s hand tightened in his.
“Mason,” Derek warned.
His wolf didn’t like the challenge, but for the sake of some
immediate peace, Mason decided to let it go. Derek wanted honesty,
and Mason had to remember to treat him like an adult when it came to
these things if he wanted to keep him.
This was going to take some getting used to.
“My senses are going a little crazy. I’m worried and scared, and
that only tends to happen when there’s something to be worried about
lurking nearby.”
Derek shivered, but his grip on Mason’s hand never wavered. If
anything, it tightened reassuringly. “Okay.”
That…had been so much easier than Mason had thought it would
be. They kept right on walking and were another couple of minutes
away from the safety of the pack when Mason jerked the both of them
to a stop.
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His ears twitched, and his bare feet registered the feel of footsteps
coming toward them from far away.
“What is it?” Derek asked.
Mason turned to him and put his finger to his lips then motioned
toward the shrubs just before pulling them into the safety of them.
What are we doing here? Derek mouthed once the thick branches
and leaves were hiding them.
Then he froze as the sounds that Mason had heard came close
enough for human ears to pick up on.
“The pond is this way. Little far out, but the kids like to go
swimming there,” James said.
“I hope you have life jackets,” said another voice that Mason did
not recognize. It was authoritative, though, and considering what they
were talking about, the owner of that voice could only belong to one
profession.
Cop. Someone had finally come to check out DeWitt’s pack and
see if Derek was anywhere over here, hiding.
“No, but they’re not allowed to go without at least four
accompanying adults, and they all know how to swim.”
Mason watched between the leaves as James and the officer, who
was in full uniform, passed by.
As the officer spoke, asking more questions about this and that,
James’s eyes looked down toward the shrub where Mason and Derek
were hiding. Their eyes met right before he went back to his
conversation, both passing on by, heading toward the pond.
Mason waited a minute, until his sensitive hearing couldn’t pick
up on the sounds of his brother’s and that cop’s voices or their
footsteps crunching in the twigs and leaves on the trail.
Then he and Derek stepped out from their hiding place. “They’re
making sure you’re not hiding here,” Mason said.
“For the first time I’m glad I didn’t come with any personal
possessions,” Derek replied.
That was right. If Derek had a whole load of things back at the
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guest cabin where he was staying…
He didn’t. There was no clue for the cop to see that Derek was
with them. Hell, for all Mason knew, James had said that only Mason
was staying in that cabin.
Which, for the last couple of days, had been true.
“We need to get back,” Mason said. He and Derek hoofed it back
to the houses.
They didn’t know what to expect when they got back, which was
why Mason slowed them down and they hid behind some more of the
larger pines and shrubs.
There was a cop car. Parked smack dab in the middle of the drive,
blocking any other cars or trucks from coming or going.
There was another man leaning against the driver’s side door. Not
in uniform, and he was wearing a duster like he was in the Wild West
or something.
Derek squeezed Mason’s hand, grabbing his attention. What do we
do? he mouthed.
Wait, Mason lipped back, because that was all they really could
do.
Wait they did. For nearly a half an hour. Mason didn’t know what
exactly James was doing with that other guy in uniform at the pond.
Did the guy want to drain it or something? Mason was pretty sure
there were no bodies in the water, though a few had been known to
get buried around the land.
Still, it had been so long that Derek had long since lost the fear of
being caught and had started to doze against Mason’s chest.
Mason was about ready to join him. The boredom was killing him,
and apart from how mildly funny it was that every werewolf walking
around in the pack knew he was hiding there and the cop didn’t, there
was little to entertain.
Then the snap of a twig a little too close to their hiding location
pulled him from his almost-nap.
He looked up and around, but his hiding place was a little too
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good because his visibility of his surrounding area was next to
nothing.
Then another snap, and footsteps, then voices.
Mason relaxed as he recognized James’s voice, still speaking to
the cop in uniform as they walked down the path and back to the
pack. James was promising the officer that he would call if he ever
saw anyone fitting Derek’s description and yadda yadda, but Mason’s
muscles bunched up again and that instinctual fear took over once
more.
There was something else nearby, and it had gotten closer while
Mason was distracted with his brother and the cop.
It was enough that Derek had come out of his dozing to look
around with him. There was no wind, the trees were absolutely still,
so whatever it was, the scent wasn’t reaching Mason’s nose just yet.
Another snap of a twig, and then a metallic click, and then the
scent did come to him.
Human, oil, metal, and a whole lot of pissed-off tension hung in
the air. Mason was about ready to get up and risk being caught just so
he and Derek could find another hiding place when the hard steel
barrel of a gun pressed into his neck.
“You don’t move any more than that.”
He was fast, Mason had to give him credit for that. He looked up
into the face of an older male with a square shape and silver hair. His
expression was of the serious kind, seriously pissed off, and he would
kill Mason if he tried to move.
It was Derek the old man was staring at, though.
Shit, this was one of the hunters belonging to that group Derek
had fought back at the pawn shop.
He seethed into Derek’s direction. “You murdered my son.”
Oh, fucking Christ. That was even worse. Mason grabbed a hold
of the barrel of the rifle before the hunter could point the thing at his
mate.
The guy growled at him. “Let go, or I will kill you.”
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“That gun fires and you’ll have every werewolf on the pack land
after your ass,” he retorted. “It’ll only be another couple of seconds
before they figure out you’re in here with us. You snuck up on me,
but you won’t get by thirty werewolves.”
“Won’t matter when my boys start attacking.”
What? He had more sons?
Whatever the case was, it didn’t matter because the guy had
basically just said he had backup and that they were going to carve
through the pack.
He tried to quickly think of any way he could take this guy out
without killing himself or Derek, before Derek made the first move.
Derek lunged out from his hiding place in the shrubs and started
running full speed to James and the cops.
“Hunter! Hunters are here!” he yelled.
“Fuck!” the old man seethed, turning his gun around and
smacking Mason in the face with the butt of the rifle.
He saw stars and fell back but didn’t pass out. The human was
desperate if he thought a move like that would accomplish anything,
but when Mason blinked, he saw how the hunter was pointing his rifle
through the branches and leaves of the shrub. Likely he was pointing
that thing at Derek.
Mason launched himself at the man with a roar, knocking him
onto his side, the gun firing as Mason threw them both down to roll
onto the ground, each fighting for the weapon.
Mason was strong, but for a human and someone who looked like
they could qualify for the senior’s menu at the local diner, he was also
pretty tough. Perhaps the sloppy nature of Mason’s attack had
something to do with it, as well as the loud ringing in his ears brought
on by the blast of the rifle, but all he was concerned about was putting
this hunter out of his misery before he hurt Derek or any member of
Mason’s family.
More gunshots sounded, and for a split second Mason thought that
they, too, were coming from the rifle that he and the hunter battled
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for.
No, the barrel didn’t get hot again, and the shots sounded far
away, even to his damaged ears.
The shots could be coming from the cops or the other hunters that
this man supposedly had waiting around the pack land.
The gunfire continued, and Mason realized that so much shooting
couldn’t come from only two men. The hunters were attacking.
Suddenly, the older hunter slammed his knuckles into Mason’s
face, and he felt the white-hot burn of liquid fire against his skin. The
human did it again, and again, until Mason’s strength was so sapped
that the human was able to roll them over, putting Mason beneath him
as he straddled Mason’s hips.
There was blood on his knuckles, but something was also
gleaming there as well. Mason squinted up at it to see what it was
through the blood, and then he could have kicked himself for not
having expected this.
Silver rings. The cheating bastard. Mason guessed that a hunter
didn’t get to be that age by playing fair with his game.
He was going to get him for this, but the silver not only wounded
him, it sapped his strength so completely and utterly that, by the time
the tenth blow came down upon his face, he was so weak that he
could barely lift his hands to deflect the attacks.
The hunter had full control of the weapon now, but he seemed
more interested in teaching Mason a hard lesson.
The attack stopped, suddenly and without warning. His hair was
grabbed into a hard fist, however, and his face lifted up so that the
blur in his eyes cleared, and he could see the righteous gleam in the
man’s eyes as he stared down at his beaten opponent.
“Gonna keep you alive, wolf. I’m gonna wait until your wolf
comes out, and then I’m gonna skin you alive.”
He wasn’t done with that either. He had to announce his plans like
an evil cartoon villain or something. “I saw the way you and that little
queer were holding hands. I’m gonna kill him in front of you. I’m
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gonna carve my son’s name into every inch of his skin and make him
ask for me to kill him. Think I’ll skin him, too, make a leather jacket
out of him or something.”
Mason growled, and that heavy fist with the silver rings on it
came down on him again, and then a meaty finger was pointed at his
nose.
“Don’t you dare growl at―”
Fast footsteps shot through the shrubs to stand directly where both
Mason and the hunter were currently entangled. The hunter took his
eyes away from Mason for just a second before his head flew back,
blood and hair and bone and other things exploding out the side of his
head after the gunshot sounded.
Ouch, more pain in the ears. If Mason lived through this, he was
setting up a quiet room for himself and would never leave it.
He wondered about the man who’d saved him and had thought it
might be one of those cops before Derek’s face appeared before him.
Mason couldn’t believe it. Derek had really…
No, it did make sense. He remembered Derek taking a gun with
him from the pawn shop when he was escaping from the hunters. He
knew how to use the weapon and had foolishly come back for his
mate.
That didn’t stop Mason from wanting to kick his ass for being that
stupid. He was supposed to be hiding somewhere, not rushing to
Mason’s rescue. Even then, his alpha pride would take a long time to
heal after he was the one who needed rescuing by his mate instead of
being the protector he was supposed to be.
The worry and horror on Derek’s expression as he surveyed
Mason’s face didn’t help anything either.
“Jesus Christ, what did he do to you?” Derek asked, glaring down
at the body of the man he’d killed then gently lifting Mason into his
arms.
Mason groaned, his entire body stiff and sore, even though he was
only taking shots to the face.
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Perfect. He had silver poisoning. If he remembered it right, Old
Maggie kept some antibiotics for that in her room. Not just her room,
the whole main house was loaded with medical supplies.
It was nothing special, just basic alcohol, disinfectants, and swabs.
That was usually more than enough to fight off the infection brought
on by silver.
There was just one problem, those were all in the main house, and
to get there, he and Derek would somehow have to get through the
gun fighting and mini werewolf war being waged on the front lawn.
It was better if he just didn’t tell Derek about it. The infection
could take him, and if he died, so be it. He didn’t want to risk the life
of his mate any more than he needed to.
Derek’s hand on his forehead was cool to the touch. His gasp over
the temperature was clear and filled with concern.
Mason hadn’t thought he would be that warm.
“Jesus Christ, you’re burning up!” he said. His fingertips gently
touched down on the mash that was Mason’s face, and then he
reached over to grab at something.
“These rings…Christ! Is this silver?”
Derek had a bad habit of cursing. Mason wasn’t exactly religious,
but considering their circumstances, it was best not to piss anyone
upstairs off.
Then Derek spoke the words that had Mason as scared as all hell.
“Maggie, that wise woman who lives here, I heard she keeps
medicine for this kind of thing.”
No. No. No. Fucking no! Mason tried to tell Derek not to risk it,
that he was unlikely to even sneak through the trees to get to the
house without being spotted by someone or shot by a stray bullet.
You’re safe here. Don’t go.
They were mated, but Derek was not a werewolf, and so Mason’s
mental plea when unheard as Derek pulled his T-shirt over his head.
He gently wiped away some of the blood with it before folding it
up into a square and gingerly placing it under Mason’s head to use as
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a pillow.
“I’ll be back soon,” he said, kissing Mason’s hands since his face
was too fucked up for any man to put his lips on. “I promise.”
If Mason had been able to move, he would have flipped out
shrieking as Derek ran away.
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Chapter Ten
Derek’s heart pounded as he ran through the trees, coming around
full circle on the pack land.
As he did this, for the first time he realized how big the land was
as he was soon out of breath. He hadn’t even made it halfway to the
main house yet.
He hadn’t been doing his exercises for the last little while, ever
since he’d come to this pack, really. Was that enough to account for
his sudden lack of strength?
He shook his head, cursing himself for being so weak when his
lover, his mate, was probably dying back there where Derek had
found that man getting ready to kill him.
He would not let that happen. He was getting into that house and
getting that medicine if it was the last thing Derek ever did.
Derek straightened and shot off again, thoughts of Mason
renewing his strength. He came to an abrupt halt, though, when the
loud shot and fast zoom of a bullet buzzed by directly in front of his
face.
Derek’s heart pounded as he brought his hands up to make sure
his nose was where it was supposed to be.
It was attached securely, not hanging off by a thread of flesh, and
there was no warm, wet blood on his face either. The bullet had
missed. It had sounded so close.
He kept right on going before he could find out if that bullet had
been a stray or if someone saw him and was aiming for him right
now.
Derek didn’t think he’d ever run so fast in his life, and soon he
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was right across from the main house. All he had to do was leave the
safety of the trees and rush out past the two cottages between him and
James’s cabin, and he would be there. He might even be able to sneak
in through the back door.
A hairy body slamming in front of him, knocking back one of the
trees Derek was hiding behind, had him screaming and leaping back
before he could get crushed.
The pine was thin but tall, and the fact that the body of one of
these werewolves simply falling back into it was enough to make it
come crashing down was just insane. The base of the pine snapped,
and the crack that pierced the air was like the banging of thunder.
The wolf picked himself up just fine, however, and leapt back
onto his paws, his―her?―hind hair up in a show of dominance and
anger, before those amazing claws dug into the earth and the wolf
launched itself at the hunter who’d come after it with a rifle.
Derek felt no need to jump in and help. He never said he was the
honorable sort, and right now, his only loyalty was to the man he
loved.
Using the giant wolf in front of him as a distraction, Derek was
able to easily maneuver between the cabins, all of which had shotgun
holes punched into the walls, and get to the main cabin.
He grabbed the side door and tried to turn the handle. It wouldn’t
budge. It was locked. Fucking perfect.
Derek ran to the back. There seemed to be no fighting at all going
on back here. It was almost as though the hunters and werewolves had
decided to stick it out in the group that they were in once Derek had
blown the cover of the hunters.
They were going to have one more reason to come after him for
that one, he figured.
He grabbed the handle for the door, and it wouldn’t budge either.
He pounded his fist into the door, but that didn’t do anything except
make a loud, and painful, popping sound in his knuckles that hurt like
a motherfucker.
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The door was new, it seemed. It felt strong when he busted his
hand against it, and there wasn’t a window he could break to unlock
the door and get inside either.
Running to the front would be suicide, even if that door did
magically turn out to be unlocked, which he doubted.
The omegas who were unable to fight, elderly, and children were
all locked into the relative safety of their homes. That included the
wise woman, it seemed.
Derek needed that disinfectant and that medicine.
There was no window on the door he could bust open, but there
was a pretty big window that led into the kitchen that he could climb
through if he found something to break it with―
Bingo. Potted plant.
It was heavy. The pot was a red-brown ceramic, not one of those
plastic cheap things, not to mention the weight of the earth and plant
inside the thing.
Derek hurled it at the window. The glass shattered in a satisfying
symphony of sparkling glass.
He was already running around bare chested in his boxers, so
there was no way he could climb inside without slicing himself open
on the shards of glass that hadn’t neatly broken free from the frame.
There was a shoe matt just in front of the back door. He picked it
up. The bottom was a rubbery plastic, and the top had that thick,
rough carpet-like material that usually came on things like these.
It would have to be enough.
He used it to punch out whatever big bits of glass where left over,
and then folded the matt over the sill of the broken window before
climbing inside.
He didn’t do too badly at all, and with his weight pressing down
onto the matt, the glass that cut through only managed to get his
hands and legs just a little. Enough to cut and bleed, but not enough
that he was overly worried about it, and he would be able to walk out
the door when he left instead of going through the window again.
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He was careful to avoid the rest of the glass shards that had
broken and flown inside, along with the now-busted potted plant, as
he hurried down the hall. He’d never been inside this cabin before.
James had always come to see him, so he didn’t know where the
medical supplies were kept.
He was assuming that most of them would be kept inside a first
aid kit in one of the bathrooms in this place, but he didn’t know where
the bathrooms were either, and he found himself opening doors at
random just to see where they led.
Garage, sitting room, bedroom, bed―
“Ahhgg!” Derek screamed when he opened the door to another
room just to have acid sprayed into his eyes.
It burned! Fucking Christ, it burned like hell! He was blind!
Derek fell to the floor and curled up onto his back, clutching at his
eyes and screaming his pain, hardly caring if his attacker got him
again or kicked him when he was down. He just wanted the pain to
end.
“Serves you right for coming into my home, you dirty, filthy―”
The elderly female voice stopped with the name calling, and
Derek thought that she was going to leave him to his fate on the floor,
but after enough tears had left his eyes, washing them out, Derek was
able to take his fists away to look up into the blurry and curious face
of Old Maggie.
Her eyes widened at him when he looked at her, as though she
were able to really recognize him now that he wasn’t hiding his face
behind his fists.
“Oh dear, you’re that young boy!”
Derek looked down into her left hand and noticed the little pink
bottle in her hand.
She’d gotten him with pepper spray. It had sure as shit felt like
acid to him.
“Uh-huh,” was all he was able to say. He flinched when she
reached down for him, but she didn’t spray him in the face again with
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any of Satan’s liquid pain like before. Instead, she helped him to his
feet and pulled him into her bedroom before sitting him down on the
bed.
“What in the world are you doing breaking in here? You should
have stayed in the forest. That’s where you were all night, wasn’t it?”
Damn, did every werewolf in the pack have to always know about
Derek’s sex life?
“I need your help. Mason was poisoned with silver, and now I
think he’s dying out in the trees.”
Maggie looked at him sharply. “Come again? Silver poisoning?”
She didn’t say it as though she were hard of hearing or anything
like that, but rather because she was shocked to the possibility of it
even happening.
Maybe that was actually horror on her face. Derek was still having
a hard time seeing.
“He was shot with a silver bullet?” Her footsteps sounded as she
walked away from him.
Derek heard a tap running. She had a connecting bathroom in
here, it seemed, and then she handed him a cool wet cloth. He
gratefully put it over his eyes.
Wait! A bathroom! The first aid kit must be in there somewhere!
“No. A hunter held him down and punched him with silver rings
on his fingers. Mason’s face is pretty messed up. I barely recognized
him.
“We must go to him right away. Is he near here?”
No, he wasn’t. Not with that crowd fighting out there. From what
Derek had seen when he ran out to James and that cop, right before
the hunters jumped out of the trees to attack, the werewolves
outnumbered the hunters at least five to one.
The hunters were skilled, however, and they had gadgets and guns
on them, and they’d been planning for this, whereas the werewolves
could only fight at close range, with the exception of Jason, Isaac, and
the one cop who was still alive last time Derek had checked on him.
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They could use guns, too, but did they carry those kinds of
weapons on them all the time? Derek had had to run into the cabin
where he’d been staying to get his from under the mattress before he
was able to go back to Mason.
Regardless, the fight was still happening, which meant it would be
hard getting back to Mason. He told all this to Maggie, including
where he’d left his lover.
Her lips thinned and eyes squinted in thought, and then she went
back into her bathroom. Derek’s eyes were starting to feel better
already, even if he was still blinking a lot. She had to of put more than
just water on this cloth.
She came back from the bathroom with another dry cloth, one of
those brown bottles of disinfectant, and what looked like just a plain
bottle of water.
“Will those help?” Derek asked, looking at the supplies and
realizing that they didn’t look like much for what Mason was
suffering from.
“This will be more than enough to save him,” Old Maggie said,
surprisingly lifting up the water bottle instead of the disinfectant.
He knew almost nothing about werewolves and their medicine, so
he was just going to have to trust her on this one. He got to his feet
and held out his hand to take the bottle.
She slapped it away. “Do not be an idiot. I’m going with you.”
Derek watched her walk slowly and carefully out the bedroom
door, her pace clearly showing off her age.
“Really, I can get it to him faster.”
She spun around and glared at him. “You, young man, are rude
and ignorant. I am a wise woman and a werewolf. You will likely be
the one to have a hard time keeping up with me.”
Derek sincerely doubted that, but before he could utter a word,
Old Maggie vanished around the door, and in the hallway, Derek
heard a terrible ripping sound.
He rushed out to help, thinking that maybe she’d been attacked.
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He came face to face with a pair of golden eyes big enough to be
basketballs. Old Maggie had transformed, and she was enormous.
Bigger than Mason was, and maybe even bigger than James.
With all that white fur, she could have passed for an arctic wolf
had it not been for her size.
Watching him and growling slightly, Old Maggie bent down her
magnificent head, opened her jaw, and gently scooped up the supplies
she’d placed on the floor. It looked like she was keeping her lips and
tongue back to keep them from getting too wet, and was sheltering
both bottles and the washcloth behind her massive teeth.
Derek swallowed hard at the sight, and the huge white wolf
snorted in what sounded like a laugh and then stuck her nose in the
air.
Maggie sniffed deeply, her eyes briefly lowering to the cuts on
Derek’s hands and knees, and then she moved back in the direction of
the kitchen.
“Hey, wait!” She was fast. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d
said Derek would have a hard time keeping up with her. He got into
the kitchen just in time to watch her neatly leap across the broken
window sill, not so much as disturbing any of the glass on the tiled
floor.
“Damn,” he said then ran for the door. He unlocked it and headed
out to be with Mason.
* * * *
Detective Ryan Miller was having a pretty shitty day. First he had
that conversation with Officer Decker, a conversation he didn’t much
feel like thinking about right now, and then he watched Officer
Decker get shot in the back of the head.
The poor bastard was currently lying facedown in a muddy pool
of his own blood, and even as Miller fought for his life thanks to the
gun wound in his own lower abdomen, he couldn’t help but think of
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the time he and Decker spent together. Christ, it was only two days
ago that they’d―
Fuck! Miller shot off his gun again, catching one of those kids
with a rifle in the neck. The boy couldn’t have been older than twenty,
and he dropped his weapon and grabbed at his spurting neck wound.
His eyes were wide, but he was still alive and determined.
He was set on taking Miller out before he died, and he pulled a
pistol out of a holster at his hip and pointed it straight at Miller.
He prepared for the shot, at least knowing it would take him out of
this fucked up alternate universe where people changed into giant
wolves and his ex-lover was dead on the ground.
The bullet never came. Another one of those giant wolves leapt
onto the boy with all the speed and grace of a diving hawk picking off
prey.
The boy screamed. At least, Miller assumed that the gurgling cry
that came from his mouth a split second before those teeth took his
head off was a scream. Either way, he couldn’t help but wince, and
though he was a detective and had seen some strange shit, even he
had to turn away from the sight of that wolf chomping down on the
severed head. The crunching of bone under those massive teeth was
enough to make him shiver consistently. His body would not stop.
Every crunching sound felt almost like tiny grains of sand popping
between his own teeth.
Fuck.
The wolf swallowed the head then belched. Miller looked up at
the massive animal, and in turn, it was looking back at him with a
fixed expression. Its head was down and bloody mouth was open as it
panted.
Miller didn’t want to go like that poor bastard had. He hated using
his gun, and had never killed anyone before, but it would have been
better if that boy had died by his bullet rather than through those
terrible teeth.
The wolf came forward, putting one hesitant paw out, tail
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twitching slightly.
The rest of the gore and chaos vanished as panic overcame him.
He liked to think of himself as an adrenaline junkie. It was part of the
reason why he was able to do his job without going completely
insane, but getting his head taken off by that thing was way the fuck
out of his comfort zone.
Miller put the barrel of his Glock to his temple. It was hard and
cold and just about everything else that was usually described in the
novels he read. He was almost disappointed to realize that there was
nothing about it that was different. Maybe that was just because this
would be the last thing he experienced before he died.
The wolf whined and lunged. Miller pulled back on the trigger.
The fucking thing…the stupid mother fucking piece of shit Glock
jammed on him. He couldn’t lower his weapon to get the spent case
out of the slider and try again because the wolf transformed and was
suddenly a naked human.
The man, wolf, whatever, the guy grabbed him by the wrist that
held the gun and pulled his hand away from his head. He squeezed
until Miller was forced to release the weapon, dropping it with a dull
thud onto the ground next to him.
“What in the bleedin’ fuckin’ hell did you think you were doin’?”
he asked, his accent strange and something Miller couldn’t quite
place.
That question, and the fact that his head wasn’t being swallowed
down the throat of the giant wolf right now, was enough to make
Miller feel pretty stupid. “Hoping to keep you from doing that to me,”
he said, nodding toward the headless corpse.
The man looked back at his handiwork, as though he could have
forgotten about it and then sneered down at the gun, batting it away
with his hand as though it were a bothersome toy.
“Bah! Strange weaponry of today. Loud as a bitch in heat. Don’t
know why you’d want to put somethin’ like that near yer ear.”
What the hell was this guy talking about?
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Whatever it was, it hardly mattered that the man had saved his life
because Miller was intelligent enough to know that he was dying
anyway. His body was already cold, and everything on him shivered.
No longer because of that disgusting crunching sound, but because his
body was trying to produce some heat for him.
He must’ve closed his eyes without realizing it because the next
thing he knew, he was being shaken awake.
“Rhyan! Rhyan! Stay awake, man!”
The stranger said his name in an odd manner, rolling the R and
drawing out the syllables, but Miller didn’t recall ever telling him his
name to begin with. How did he―?
A hard slap on his cheek pulled him out of his drowsy thoughts. “I
said keep your wits about you! Stay awake!”
This guy could go and fuck himself for all Ryan cared. He just
wanted to clock out already. He was tired. Whatever it was that had
been happening here, it had been so much bigger than insurance
fraud, and he and Decker hadn’t been even remotely prepared for the
shit storm that came onto them.
Suddenly, Ryan felt pretty weightless. That man with the strange
accent had picked him up and was taking him somewhere. He
couldn’t help but think about how kind it was for him to risk his life
like that, but he said nothing. The place where the bullet had pierced
into his guts had long since grown hot and throbbed, and he just
wanted this over with.
The man spoke to him, stroked him gently, searching for more
wounds, but then did something completely strange, considering the
warlike situation in the area.
He pulled back the collar of the brown duster Ryan was wearing,
as well as the blue collar of his button down shirt, then touched his
neck.
His fingertips felt warm and rough, but they traced over the patch
of skin with a sort of hypnotic awe.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
Mason Returns to His Mate
109
Get what? Miller could barely keep his eyes open, and it was a
struggle to think. “Get…on my neck?”
The man had to shake him again. “Aye, where did this mark come
from?”
Oh, his birthmark. Ryan often wondered about it, too, not so much
recently, but when he was a kid, he loved it so much, enjoyed
showing it off, and thought that it somehow made him special, that he
had secret super powers or something stupid like that.
It was a little birthmark, circular in shape, and a little spiky along
the edges. Strangely enough, if anyone looked closely at it, really
observed and studied it, they could see the little speck of regular-
looking skin that gave the appearance of a narrowed eye, as well as an
open mouth with little fangs.
The birth mark resembled a dragon curled up but roaring in both
warning and rage.
“Was born with it,” he said and then passed out before the man
did his strange wolf thing again, transforming and howling into the
sky.
For some reason, a word came to him, but maybe it was a name.
Whatever it was, it had no meaning at all to him, and yet it came to
him before he could completely pass out.
Blasius.
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Chapter Eleven
Derek could hardly believe it when he watched Old Maggie pour
the water down Mason’s throat, helping him to swallow the seemingly
normal-looking substance, and then clear away the blood on his
recently disinfected face to reveal skin that healed right before his
very eyes.
It healed into new skin, too, red and a little swollen at first due to
the injuries Mason had sustained but then clearing up and becoming
healthy and pink again. His skin looked better now than it had before
he’d taken in the water, and Mason had nice skin to begin with.
When Mason’s eyes fluttered open and he blinked up at Derek, he
had to look at the older woman and the bottle in her hand.
“What is that stuff?” he asked.
Old Maggie made sure to shake the last of the drops still in the
bottle onto Mason’s face, though he hardly looked like he needed it
and blinked and tried to turn away as she got water in his eyes.
“Clean water from the pond. It has healed him quite nicely.”
So it hadn’t just looked like water, and it wasn’t even water with
vitamins in it. It was just plain water. Maybe even a little dirty due to
the fact that it had come from a pond where people go swimming.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“It will heal his wounds, but he will still be slightly feverish
unless he is given more right away or time to rest.”
Another gunshot sounded. Resting was definitely out of the
question, but they couldn’t stay here either. “Mason, can you walk?”
Derek asked, already pulling him to his feet anyway.
“I’m fine,” Mason said, though his reply was a little too drowsy
Mason Returns to His Mate
111
for Derek’s comfort.
“We need to bring him back to the house. The other injured alphas
will be going there and expecting me,” Old Maggie said.
Derek nodded, as impatient to get the hell out of here as she was.
He put Mason’s arm over his shoulder and only managed to take a
single step before the cocking sound of a shotgun registered in his
ears.
Derek looked up and froze. It was that other hunter. The kid
whose fingers he’d smashed inside the door of his shop.
He held the shotgun against his shoulder pretty well considering
the heavy bandages that were wrapped around each of his broken
fingers, but his good hand was on the trigger of the gun, and it looked
just fine.
The look on the face of the hunter was both furious and
disbelieving as his eyes traveled down to the body of his older leader
that was still on the ground. He shook with the range of emotions that
he no doubt felt, his eyes wild and angry before scrunching briefly in
pain, as though he were about to cry, and his jaw clenched up, a small
sound leaving his throat, as though he were fighting back either a
rage-filled scream or a cry of sorrow.
“Please,” Derek said.
Mistake, the kid looked back up at him, hatred in his eyes blazing
and the gun held steady in his grip.
Derek wished he could remember the kid’s name. He was sure
he’d heard it somewhere before, and then maybe he could really talk
with him instead of just begging for his life.
“He was going to kill us,” Derek said.
“You deserve to die, you fucking supporter. You and all these
Goddamn freaks in this fucking inbred camp.”
“These are good people,” Derek insisted, feeling the sweat
collecting on his forehead and on the back of his neck as he looked
down that barrel hole. “They never wanted to hurt anyone. You came
here to them.”
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Marcy Jacks
The boy’s eyes went back down to his dead leader. He wiped his
face against his shoulder but still didn’t lower his gun from Derek or
Mason.
Then he snarled. “Fuck you, you piece of shit supporter.”
The blast of the gun sounded, but Derek hardly felt any pain at all.
That was because Mason had thrown his body over Derek’s, shielding
him from most of the shotgun pellets that exploded from the shell of
the kids gun.
The sudden dead weight of Mason’s body over his made Derek
scream. He grabbed Mason under the arms, trying to keep the both of
them up, but then the gun blasted again, and Derek felt like his hands
had exploded with fire.
Mason actually smiled at him as they went down.
“It’s okay. It’s all right,” he seemed to say, though he had no
voice at all. Maybe Derek just had trouble hearing him through the
screams of the hunter who’d shot at them.
Derek looked over Mason’s shoulder. It seemed the kid had either
forgotten about old Maggie or had dismissed her as a threat since she
was a nude elderly lady. She’d transformed back into her larger-than-
life arctic wolf and currently had her paws down on the boy’s chest.
She was eating his face, tearing away at the flesh on his chest, as well
as his hands and arms when he tried to push her off.
He was no match, and eventually his screaming stopped, and the
white fur of the arctic wolf was stained and spattered with red blood.
Mason stopped moving on top of Derek, but he could still feel the
heartbeat of the man against his chest. He was still alive, but the
heartbeat was weak and fluttery.
Derek looked down at his hands. He was still clutching at
Mason’s back, but his hands were bloody and gory as all hell. The
fingertips on his index finger on the right hand and the pinky on the
left were missing, and it looked as though his ring finger was nearly
blown away right at the midknuckle. He could see the white of the
bone, and it was hanging on by he wasn’t sure what.
Mason Returns to His Mate
113
He looked away, refusing to move his hands because he wanted to
keep Mason as close to him as possible, and he didn’t want to remind
his body that he was supposed to be in severe pain right now.
God, he wished he hadn’t looked down.
There was no doubt in his mind that the pellets were silver, and
from what he’d seen of his hands and Mason’s back, they were big
pellets, too.
Mason was dying. He could tell with every second his heart
delayed.
Derek felt himself drifting off, but wasn’t sure if his wounds were
enough to be killed over. He only saw his hands. Where else had he
been hit?
He closed his eyes, still clinging to his mate, hoping that wherever
Mason went, he would be sure to take Derek along with him.
* * * *
When Derek came to, everything on him throbbed with pain. He
clenched his hands without thinking about it and then screamed for
the agony that small act had caused him.
It was only then that he realized he couldn’t breathe, and he
struggled harder, the thundercracks of pain only encouraging him to
fight harder, to get out of the water, to breathe.
He was finally let up for air, and he shot up with a choked gasp,
water flying everywhere as he flailed around like a drowning animal,
which was probably the most accurate description of himself at the
moment.
Strong hands grabbed hold of his shoulders, helping him to get his
footing.
Mason! Derek gripped the arms attached to those hands and held
on tight, and one of those hands smacked him on the back, and
suddenly, after only a bit more choking, he could breathe again.
He looked up, and the face he saw was not Mason’s. It was James
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who had held him under the water, and his scarred face held worry for
him as he gripped his upper arm.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Derek lifted his hands to get another look then wanted to cry. This
water, this strange, amazing, wonderful water, had managed to heal
his wounds, and while everything was stiff, his middle finger bent
properly. The bone hadn’t been compromised.
The water knit skin back together pretty well, but it seemed it did
not regrow bones and lost limbs because the tips of two of his fingers
were still missing, giving his hands a sort of uneven look about them
that he did not like in the least.
“Where else was I shot?” Derek asked.
“Your shoulder took some of the pellets, and so did your leg. We
picked them out before putting you under for a swim, though, and we
got you in here pretty quick. I don’t think you’ll scar.”
James’s eyes still flickered down to Derek’s hands. He should be
grateful he still had them period and that they were practically at a
hundred percent mobility, but he couldn’t help but sulk a little at the
ugliness of the missing fingertips.
He looked around, expecting to see Mason in the water with him.
His heart starting hammering when he didn’t spot his lover anywhere
at all.
“Mason?” he asked. He wanted to know and didn’t at the same
time. Christ, if James told him that Mason had died, Derek was going
to have a shit fit. He thought he just might die himself.
If they were mated, shouldn’t Derek be feeling it if Mason had
died? Wouldn’t he know? Wouldn’t he have followed the man?
James took away all those questions with a single answer. “He’s
alive. He was in the water long before you were, and now he’s back at
the house with Maggie.”
The relief Derek felt actually made his legs quake. He’d never felt
anything like that before in his entire life.
“How is he? Is he awake?” Already Derek was wading out of the
Mason Returns to His Mate
115
water. His legs were sore as hell, but he needed to get out of here and
see Mason. He needed to look at him with his own eyes to confirm he
was all right and breathing. The fact that Mason wasn’t here with
Derek right now could only mean that, despite the healing power of
the water, he hadn’t woken up, so he wasn’t really sure why he’d
bothered with asking.
“He’s still unconscious last time I checked, but we’ll be expecting
him to wake up soon enough. You should know that the damage to his
skin was pretty severe before we put him in the water. Most of his
body was healed just fine, but there will be scarring.”
Derek stopped and looked at James’s face, his scarred face. Derek
had seen the healing powers of the water when Old Maggie made an
unconscious Mason drink from that water bottle, but despite how
carefully they’d cleaned his wounds, his face had still healed up a
little roughly, with a few indents here and there in the skin from
where Mason had taken a particularly hard punch with one of those
silver rings.
This time, however, his pack mates, anyone with any skills with a
needle, really, would’ve needed to pick out the silver pellets before
they could do too much harm to him then put him in the water, and
Mason had already been feeling weak because of his last encounter
with silver. Did that mean that his body wouldn’t have healed so well
the second time around?
“Just take me to him. Please,” he asked.
James nodded and led the way.
They walked carefully at first, Derek limping along until he was
able to walk out the stiffness and hurry up. He and James were
practically running the rest of the way back when he was able to.
The area where the cottages were was strangely quiet. Alphas and
omegas worked together to clean up the mess left behind by the
hunters. There were no bodies that Derek could see, meaning they’d
all been cleared away by now. There were still bloody patches in the
dirt, and Derek did his best to not look at them, especially the larger
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Marcy Jacks
ones that had dried into the brown dirt.
He didn’t know how many members of the pack had died, but
judging by the quiet nature everyone worked in, the way they all kept
their heads down as they hosed blood off their walls or racked up
bloody grass, there had been some casualties on their side.
James opened the front door to his house, and Derek was glad
they didn’t have to go through the back. He wondered if the other
man knew or not yet that Derek was responsible for the broken glass
and blood all over the place.
He was more concerned with just getting to Mason.
“Where―?”
“Upstairs, second door on the right,” James replied.
Derek bolted up, knowing James was slowly following him, but
he didn’t mind. The closer he got to his lover, the better he could feel
the other man, the more he knew that what had happened to him
wouldn’t seriously affect him for the rest of his life.
He opened the door, and there he was. He was lying on the bed,
the covers pulled up to his chest but under his hands. Derek had never
seen anyone tucked into bed like that in real life before.
The blue covers weren’t exactly thick, though, and Derek could
clearly see the easy way in which Mason’s chest rose and fell. No
trouble breathing, that was good.
Derek entered the room quietly, practically tiptoeing toward the
bed. He was hardly dripping wet at this point. He’d been put in the
water wearing only the boxers he had on from earlier this morning,
and they were slightly damp after his run in the woods, so he took a
seat in the chair next to the bed and looked over the medications and
swabs that were on the nightstand.
All regular-looking stuff. Derek didn’t know much about
medication or anything, but he could swear that there was nothing
stronger on that nightstand than some basic over-the-counter Tylenol
painkillers.
Maybe it was more of that werewolf healing in effect. That could
Mason Returns to His Mate
117
be the reason why Mason didn’t need anything stronger than this.
That and that magical pond that was on this land. Derek was going to
have to ask about that when he had the time.
“You can stay here as long as you like.”
Derek whipped his head to the door. He hadn’t heard James come
in.
The leading alpha was looking at his brother in bed with sad eyes.
“Maybe you being here will help him to wake up.”
Then James’s eyes went down to Derek’s hand on the bed.
Derek blushed when he noticed what James was looking at. He
hadn’t even been aware of when he’d reached out and took hold of
one of Mason’s hands. But now he was holding onto it in both of his
hands, cupping it gently, and comforting himself with the feel of
Mason’s warm skin.
Derek cleared his throat. “Thank you.”
James nodded. “There are others in this house who are being
tended to, so myself, Corey, or Old Maggie might be coming in here
once in a while just to check on things. If you think you can handle it
by yourself, just let us know.”
James was asking him because of the territorial way werewolves
were with their mates. He was gently making sure that Derek didn’t
have a problem with anyone else in here touching his lover, even if it
was for medical reasons, without his say so.
Derek didn’t know nearly enough about medicine to be given
complete control over anyone like that, and even if he was skilled, he
would still feel better with someone else coming in and taking a look
once in a while.
“I know everyone must be busy, but it would be great if Maggie
or yourself or Corey could come in and take a look once in a while.”
James nodded, and the door shut with a quiet click behind him as
he left.
The room was dark and quiet once he was gone. The window
drapes were shut tightly, and hardly any light came in from the
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outside. Derek felt so helpless doing nothing but sitting there and
waiting for Mason to open his blue eyes so that he could see them one
more time.
Just to check and make sure everything was okay, Derek reached
out and touched the back of Mason’s head, gently sliding his fingers
over the shaved skin.
He was due to do it again soon. There was a soft fuzz already
growing there but definitely not enough hair to have protected his
skull from silver shotgun pellets.
He jerked his fingers back as he felt the horrible indents. He half
expected to see blood on his fingertips when he pulled them away, but
there was nothing there. His hands were dry.
His face was all right, only slight scarring from that prick’s silver
rings. Derek didn’t know what the werewolves would do with all the
silver, but he hoped it involved fire.
He’d never hated silver before in all his life.
He checked the back of Mason’s head one more time, finding
more of those small craters in the back. He’d not only taken the
shotgun blast for him, but he’d also taken pellets right to the head.
The fact that he was alive was a miracle in and of itself.
Derek couldn’t help himself. The situation was so morbid that he
had to laugh.
“I figured you had a hard head but didn’t think it extended to the
literal definition of it.”
Then he started to cry. He sat there for a few minutes, his messed-
up hand over his eyes, just wishing that the life of a werewolf didn’t
require so much uncertainty and danger.
Mason was going to be fine, Derek was sure of that, and now that
the hunters were all dead, Derek had a decision to make that he
wasn’t sure he could handle.
He loved Mason. He had ever since he was twenty years old.
Since the minute he first laid eyes on the man, and apparently they
were mated.
Mason Returns to His Mate
119
Derek had a life that he’d struggled to build for himself in
Brampton, though. He wasn’t wildly successful by any means, but he
considered himself a success considering the way his story started out.
He’d bought that run-down pawn shop, and in a town of less than
eight thousand people, he’d turned it around completely. He even had
the respect of the townsfolk, despite the fact that he was openly gay in
such a small area.
Now he was going to have to decide if he wanted to go back to
that life, where everything was safer and no one came after him with a
shotgun, or stay with the man he loved and practically vanish from the
grid, starting over completely.
If only Mason would just open his eyes, then he wouldn’t be
having these doubts.
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Marcy Jacks
Chapter Twelve
Blasius could hardly believe his luck. His mate, his Rhyan, was
here, alive, and in front of him.
And he’d thought fate had been cruelly laughing in his face for
centuries, but no. Not only a new life in a new body, but also his lover
returned to him in the form of this human.
Human no longer, he supposed. With his injuries, Blasius had no
choice but to take the man away from the battle raging
outside―hunters in this time were so much more pathetic than in his.
At least the hunters in his day had the stones to fight up close, using
their muscles and brawn instead of these strange new weapons of
today.
Guns, he’d heard the term now and again but was still becoming
used to the word on his tongue. One of those cowardly hunters had
escaped thanks to such a weapon, which only infuriated Blasius more,
knowing that the man who escaped might just be responsible for his
mate’s current condition.
Regardless, Rhyan had been injured with one such weapon, and
was clearly dying of it. Blasius would not allow the man to die on
him, not again. So he’d taken him away, locked himself inside of one
of the cabins, and then proceeded to dig the bullet out of the gut of his
lover.
He’d tried to comfort him, but Rhyan had screamed something
terrible as Blasius’s fingers dug into the wound, and Blasius prayed
that Rhyan survived the operation.
Even with Blasius digging his claws into the man, infecting him
with his werewolf venom, there was still no guaranteeing he would
Mason Returns to His Mate
121
live.
He did live, and now he was resting, in bed, his outer clothing
folded on the chair at his side. He was pale but sleeping peacefully.
The odd thing was how Rhyan did not seem to recognize him.
That would change once the man woke up. He would tell him who
they were to each other, and he and Rhyan would finally be together
after all these centuries apart.
* * * *
Mason’s eyes hurt when he opened them. The room was so
fucking bright he could barely see, and he had to turn his eyes away
from the offending light just to be able to think.
He put his hand to his eyes and groaned.
“Mason,” Derek said.
His name on the other man’s lips sounded like a relieved sigh, and
then Derek’s shadow was over him as his face was gripped between
Derek’s gentle hands and he was kissed, every last inch of his face.
Mason pressed his lips back wherever he could, but Derek was too
quick for him.
His mate was alive. He’d survived the gunshot that Mason had
taken for him. Thank God. His eyes burned, and not because of the
light in the room, though he pretended that was what it was.
“Sorry,” Derek said when Mason told him what the problem was,
and then the light from the bedside lamp clicked off, and they were
left in the dark. “I put one of Maggie’s scarves over it. I didn’t think it
would be too bright.”
Mason looked down at his side where Derek had put the book
he’d been reading by faded lamplight. “How long have I been out?”
When he was able to adjust his eyes in the dark, he saw the way
Derek rubbed his cheeks with the sleeve of the shirt he wore. “Couple
of days. You had me so fucking worried. People were starting to say
you were in a coma or something.”
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Mason didn’t know what being in a coma felt like, so he couldn’t
confirm or deny that that was what his long sleep had been.
“I feel like shit. The back of my head hurts,” he complained.
Derek snorted a laugh through his tears. “It would, you idiot. You
were shot in the back of the head.”
Mason reached back to feel the damage. He needed to shave his
head again. His hair was really starting to grow out, but he could still
feel all the little indents and imperfections left behind from the
shotgun.
“Good thing my healing kicked in,” he said. Then he noticed the
watch on his wrist.
Derek glared at him. “That had nothing to do with it. It was the
pond. Maggie made you drink that water for days, and they even
dunked you into it before bringing you back into this room. What’s
wrong? Oh, the watch.”
Mason’s face heated, and he knew he was blushing. “You found
it, huh?”
Derek smiled at him. “In your jacket pocket when I was putting
away your things. I can’t believe you kept it all this time.”
“I almost didn’t.” Then Mason frowned, thinking about what
Derek had said about the water and hardly knowing what the hell
Derek was talking about. He asked him about it.
“Right, I forgot,” Derek said. “James told me you didn’t know.
Said they only just found out about it recently.”
“Found out about what?” Mason demanded.
“Apparently that pond that you took me to, it has some sort of
healing power. You drink the water and bathe in it, and for the most
part, you’re good as new.”
Mason figured the scars on the back of his head, and likely his
back and legs as well, were the mostly part.
It was the look on Derek’s face that had him concerned. “What’s
wrong?”
Mason Returns to His Mate
123
Derek hesitated and then lifted his hands. It took a second before
Mason noticed what his mate was showing him, and sharp pain lanced
into his heart.
He reached out and took hold of one of Derek’s hands and kissed
his knuckles. Derek inhaled a shaky breath when he did that, and
Mason had tears in his eyes for real when he looked up at him.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop that from happening to you.”
Derek fell out of his chair and put his arms around Mason’s
shoulders. Mason squeezed him back just as tightly, and they both
spent minutes just holding each other and saying that nothing was
their fault, that everything had been out of their hands.
“I can’t leave,” Derek said.
“What?” Mason looked at him. Derek’s voice had been so small
he almost hadn’t heard the other man.
Derek’s look was a guilty one. “I–I was mad when I thought that I
would have to stay here because of the hunters, and that wasn’t your
fault, but even a few days ago, when you were still lying right there, I
was still thinking of going back to my old life. It just seemed too
dangerous here, and we haven’t been together for that long.”
Derek shook his head. “I can’t leave. I’m sorry if what I’ve said
was just the wrong thing to say, but that was what I’ve been thinking,
but with you awake and now that you’re going to be fine, I can’t go. I
need to be here with you.”
Derek stopped speaking, and after a minute, Mason realized that
the other man was waiting for him to make his decision, as though
Mason could ever condemn Derek for thinking such things.
If he were a better mate and more of an alpha, he would
encourage the other man to go back, if all the hunters were dealt with.
From the way Derek was speaking, he was assuming that they were.
“Should I go get your brother? Tell him you’re awake?” Derek
asked when Mason didn’t say anything.
Mason reached his hand out and gently gripped Derek’s
arm―gentle was all he could manage, considering his sapped
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strength―and he pulled his mate into bed with him.
“It’s not for that,” he said when Derek protested. “I just want you
to lie with me for a bit before we tell the others. I need you beside
me.”
Derek smiled at him, clearly relieved, and he happily got in bed
with Mason, staying above the covers, the two of them wrapping their
arms around each other.
Mason had just come back home a couple of days ago. Weak or
not, he couldn’t let Derek get away from him either.
THE END
MARCYJACKS.COM
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marcy Jacks lives and works in Ontario, Canada, where she is
fervently pursuing the writer’s life while writing about lots of
gorgeous guys. She loves hearing from readers, and you can reach her
at authormarcyjacks@gmail.com.
For all titles by Marcy Jacks, please visit
www.bookstrand.com/marcy-jacks
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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