“No… No…!” the kid pleaded, but he wasn’t giving up now, wasn’t going to let this slide. Why the hell had he done so before when he could do this? His jaws opened in a wolfish smile when he smelt the pungent stink of urine flood the boy’s pants and then—
“Get away from my son, mutt.” His wolf eyes slid upwards to see teachers, students, the principal, and even the alpha himself standing around him, their censure plain. “Get. Away. From. My. Son.”
The alpha’s words felt like throbbing, living things, pushing at him, trying to move him away from his prey, but there was a series of gasps and mutters when Mason held his ground and the alpha’s stare. Instead of kowtowing to the usual bullshit everyone told him was important, the sheer exhilaration that came from doing what he knew was right burned through him, meeting the alpha’s will with an equal and opposite energy. He watched the man step forward, his muscles rippling with tension, and in response, Mason’s jaws opened slowly wider, dropping closer to the kid’s neck.
“Dad, don’t…” the boy pleaded, but it became apparent why he was completely without compassion when his father ignored his frantic pleas, the bucks of his body as Mase fit his fangs around the boy’s throat. The alpha had a choice to make—to protect his son, or maintain his power base. He chose power.
He saved his son in the end, though that seemed to be a consequence not an aim. The alpha’s wolf form collided with Mason’s, throwing him off his child and into a scrambling, biting, clawing mess of fur.
Mason had learned how to fight, could use his human body to his best advantage in any kind of conflict, but this one? Instincts kicked in, but they were slow, too slow. He had pitted himself against a bigger, stronger, more experienced wolf, and he was tearing Mason apart.
I was dimly aware of the sounds of distress coming from my throat, but the connection didn’t break. I’d asked Mase to let me in, and well, I was all the way in now.
Things jumped forward again, being ripped away from the brutal scene a relief, but of course it was replaced by another. Mase was locked up now in some kind of cage, the bars made from a heavy steel, each one perfectly welded tight. Two sets of boots walked inside, and when he looked up in human form, he saw the two of them—Bruce and the alpha.
“I’ve organised for the woman and her kids to go to Alpha Martin’s territory. You don’t have to go, Bruce,” the alpha told his step-father. “You’re a hard worker. The community’s seen you trying to keep a lid on things here. Bloody difficult with a mate like—”
“Don’t,” was Bruce’s only reply, but there was a note of warning in his voice. “We’ll go, be packed up and gone before sundown.”
“That’d be for the best. The town called for Mason to be put down, you know.”
Somehow, that was evidence for the alpha, to show what kind of benevolent dictator he was.
“I know,” he replied, then waited as the alpha bent down to unlock his cage.
Chapter 43
I saw the blackness return, staring into the void, wondering what the fuck was the point of all of this. I knew Zack and Mason had had it rough growing up, but I’d underestimated the one-two punch of their memories. I hurt, for them, for their mother, for everyone in this fucking mess. But why?
Why are you showing me this? I asked the darkness, and it came out more of a snap than I thought. Why?
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him emerge out of the gloom, not Mason, that long fall of dark hair half across his face, obscuring that twist of a smile. Ulfric.
You again, I growled.
You’ll find I’m at the heart of everything. His eyes slid upwards. Let her in. You’ve been vigilant, protective. You’ve set things on a different path, but now she needs to know.
Let her in… A hiss on the wind, the whisper of leaves, the sound grew larger as the darkness fell away.
Bruce and Jennifer sat in the front seat of the car. She couldn’t sit still, obsessively smoothing the cotton of her dress, pushing her hair behind her ears over and over.
“I need a drink,” she said.
“Not until we get there. We have to settle things first.”
“I need a drink. If I’m going to—” Her voice rose, and Bruce chanced a look over his shoulder at the boys in the backseat.
“They’ll give you plenty to drink if we’re accepted,” Bruce replied, a crack of dominance in his voice. “We’re almost there.”
The car pulled up in front of the alpha residence of this new town, men filing out of the big double doors, arms crossed. Mason watched his parents get out of the car with a growing sense of trepidation.
“Stay here, Zack,” he told his brother, opening his own door with a quiet snick.
“Alpha Johnson says you’re a good worker, an excellent welder. We need more men that’re good with their hands,” the alpha was saying to Bruce. “And who’s this?”
“My mate, Jenny,” Bruce relied, putting an awkward arm around her waist. That stopped Mason in his tracks. They never touched anymore, his mother and step-dad, but sure enough, she leaned into him as if this was the most natural thing in the world. But as he drew closer, he wasn’t sure if everyone was buying it.
Several enforcers stepped forward, eyes shining silver as they took Jenny in, her bedraggled appearance not seeming to deter their attention. A dark-haired man with cold blue eyes smiled at her, and she responded on automatic. The two men took a deep breath in, the other enforcers’ focus drawn at that, the lot of them almost clustering around his mother.
“Well, come
