My body went ice cold, trying to take in the details of this ‘game,’ but my view of things was constrained by Mason’s.
His brother frowned, but he seemed sucked in by the weird ritualistic air of the whole thing. He handed her a muscle-bound GI Joe, but she just grabbed his hand, pulling him closer, not fussed when he dislodged the paraphernalia surrounding the bed, and forced the figure down on top of the Barbie. He was allowed to stay there for a few deafeningly silent moments, the girl staring at the two figures so intensely, Mason was shocked they didn’t go up in flames.
But after some predetermined time, he was pulled off, tossed unceremoniously aside, and Zack was required to hand over another male. She kept going through them, though sometimes she took more than one from him with a hiss of irritation, those big blue eyes searching Zack’s then Mason’s, as if unable to believe they did not know how to play this game. Their incomprehension didn’t stop it from playing out, until something dark occurred to Mason.
“I need to use your toilet,” he said, which was true. Kailee looked up at him with a slight frown, searching his face as if for the veracity of his words. “Can you show me where it is?”
“Up the hall.” She jerked her thumb to the left. “Don’t go downstairs,” she said, her voice somewhat ghostly and hollow. “You won’t like it if you do.”
“Right, OK, I won’t. Zack, stay here.”
“But I need—”
“You just gotta wait your turn. I’ve gotta take a piss.”
Kailee jolted back at that, her nose wrinkling, but in the end, she just shrugged and turned back to her game, holding out her hand for another male figure like a doctor during surgery.
Mason slipped out the door, padded up the hallway in the direction Kailee had shown him, at this point undecided on what he would do. Something was starting to coalesce in his brain, something big, painful, powerful. He went to the bathroom, noted the pristine white tiles and soft towels, and then did what he’d come here for with little fuss. He stared into the mirror, seeing the bruises and the smears of dirt on his face for the first time, wondering what the fuck the alpha thought. Why would he let a bedraggled, disgraced family of shifters move into his territory, into his house? Why would he leave two strange children to play with his only child? Questions just led to more questions, not answers, as he exited the bathroom and walked down the hall.
But it was the sound that drew him forward.
He could hear the shouts and cheers from the upper level, winding their way up through the stairwell. Rough, ragged sounds, they seemed out of place in a house like this. The innate silence of the building tried to smother it, as it seemed to have smothered Kailee and her mother, but not them. His hand came to rest on the wall by Kailee’s playroom, his feet, turned towards the door, ready to go in, when he heard another raucous shout.
We’d been to so many towns, met so many alphas, Mason now told me as his much younger self ran down the stairs. We always worried about being accepted. Bruce always went off with Mum and had a meeting with the alpha and his enforcers. I never questioned why. Needed to look after Zack, see if I could find us some food. There was always something to do, until this time.
He slipped past the living and dining area, all empty and sterile as a furniture showroom. He walked up the hall, passing bedrooms and offices until he found it. That same large door I’d first seen. From behind it, we could hear muffled screams and laughter, then groans and grunts, more animal than human. Mason stood there, hand outstretched, ready to twist the knob.
“Mason.”
He spun around, fists raised, body rigid, only to see his step-father standing there. The man noted this, saw his expression, and nodded slowly.
“It’s not like what you think.”
“What do I think?” Mase snapped back, forcing Bruce’s eyes over his shoulder to the door beyond. He grabbed the boy by the neck, even as Mase twisted and fought to get free, finally cuffing him across the back of the head and stopping midway down the hall.
“Calm the fuck down!” Bruce growled out, giving him a shake. “You can’t be here. The alpha told you to stay upstairs.”
“What? Where his daughter is playing Barbie doll orgies, getting Zack to be her assistant? What the fuck, Bruce?”
His step-father went to reply, to explain, to use that all too reasonable tone they always did when they were about to tell him he didn’t understand.
“Your mother, she’s a nix, Mason, and it’s about time you dealt with that. She’s not normal, not like other women. She doesn’t find her mate and love him. Whatever she felt for your father, for me, it gets lost in the bullshit. I understand you’re upset. I wouldn’t want to hear that about my mum, but…”
Bruce’s hands fell to his side.
“It doesn’t turn off, what’s inside her. Men lose their fucking minds wanting her, and she wants them. She used to tell me she loved me, cry herself to sleep apologising for it, but she’d be up at the alpha’s place the next day, taking on one and all while I was at work, until they got sick of her and shoved her out. That’s why we always had to move, mate, but to be honest, it’s why we always found another spot in a new pack. The alphas, they keep an eye on the nix in the district. Some won’t have a bar of them, and others… I’m sorry, mate, I really fucking am. If
