“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 apparentlytried 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
42 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
