Beaston lifted those wild green eyes to Mason as a sly grin spread across his face. “Everyone.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mason stood leaned against Ryder’s open doorframe, arms crossed over his chest as he watched him sleep. The little boy’s lips were parted, and his face was completely relaxed. He used to think boar offspring were the cutest, but now that seemed ridiculous. Ryder was the cutest. Little fluffy owlet, always wanting Mason or Beck to hold him when he Changed. Mason had tucked one of his downy gray and white feathers into an empty matchbox for safekeeping since Ryder wouldn’t be this little forever.
Beaston’s dream proved that. Someday he would grow up, and Mason wouldn’t get to cuddle the little owl anymore. He would get manly hugs and back slaps. Son of the Beast Boar. Mason gritted his teeth against the urge to fall apart. He sure didn’t feel like The Barrow anymore.
Beck was in the living room folding laundry and watching some reality show she roped him into sitting through after Ryder went to bed at night. Any other woman, he would’ve fought it, but Beck liked snuggling and talking about the characters, and damn, he would watch a documentary about water boiling if it made her happy.
She’d been on the warpath since they’d been forced to register. Her days were filled with balancing motherhood and being a champion for the shifters. She had meetings and conference calls, organized events, and bullied the crews into community service with a relentless tenacity. Cora Keller had called Harrison and told him to keep her happy because the work Beck was doing for shifter public relationships was making a huge difference. Even Cora was back to joking on her phone calls, where for a while, she’d been so stressed, like the weight of their future was on her shoulders.
Mason was so fucking proud of Beck for stepping up. She had everyone doing a job, visiting the websites, answering questions, doing community outreach, and volunteering at Parks and Rec events down in Saratoga. At her direction, the girls of the Ashe Crew had built a huge rapport with the surrounding areas at the flea market where they sold their shabby chic furniture and décor. Willa’s Worms were now a staple at every bait shop from here to Kansas, and every one of the crews spent more time in town and signed autographs whenever anyone asked.
Beck had her hand in so many pots, and she was the epitome of grace under fire. None of the negativity seemed to get to her. She brushed off the protesters in Saratoga like they were no more than annoying gnats, and yesterday, at a meeting at City Hall, she’d been called out for the first time for her animal. Her cheeks had flushed for a moment, but then she’d lifted her chin proudly in the air and told them, “Damn straight, I’m a snowy owl shifter. I’m proud of where I come from.”
She’d stared down that committee, eyes bright yellow and daring them to look away, like some warrior woman ready for battle. Mason had sat there beside her, completely stunned that he’d landed a tough-as-nails woman like her. Just the memory of the fierceness on her face drew up Mason’s boar.
Mason tucked the covers around Ryder’s little body, wrapping him up like a burrito before he strode into the living room. They’d moved out of 1010 and into his trailer the day after floating the river, and over the last week, Beck and Ryder had fit in easily here. And now, he could barely remember this place without them. They’d stamped their presence here so completely that every room, wall, and floorboard now held a memory of his little family.
Bash had once said Emerson was his air, and Mason hadn’t understood the sentiment at the time. But now he did. Beck and Ryder were the oxygen that made him breathe easy and feel normal.
“Let me do the rest,” he murmured, gesturing to the laundry basket. Ryder only had what he’d packed for Robbie’s, and since the boy loved playing in the dirt, he and Beck were doing laundry constantly now. They soon would need to go back to Douglas and pick up her car and move her out here officially. She hadn’t been keen on going back to a place where she’d been cut so deeply, and he understood that.
He could never go back to his first home either.
But looking at Beck now as she smiled up at him from the couch, he didn’t have the urge to anymore. Home was where she and Ryder were. Home was here, with the Boarlanders.
Boar-lander. He should’ve known he was destined for this crew.
Beck opened her mouth to say something, but her attention landed somewhere behind him, and her face transformed into one of horror. Her eyes turned from green to yellow in an instant.
Mason’s skin prickled with the cool breeze of wrongness against the back of his neck. He didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to see her, but Esmerelda was here, and he couldn’t make Beck witness her alone.
Slowly, Mason turned. Essie stood there in the kitchen, eyes so sad, a rope burn deep in her neck. She was tinted blue, transparent, and her hair and white dress fluttered around her in a stiff wind that didn’t touch him.
“They’re coming.” Her lips moved just after the words reached his ears.
“Essie, I moved on, just like you wanted. You have to let me go. You can’t come here anymore.”
Her eyebrows arched high, and a strangled sound screeched from her throat, as if she wanted to say more but hadn’t the power. Her hair whipped about, and the front door ripped open, slammed against the wall with a crash.
And Esmerelda was gone.
Outside, she whispered it again. “They’re coming.”
She was luring him. He knew it but was powerless to stop his legs from carrying him toward the door.
“Mason,” Beck said in a shaking voice. She pulled his hand but, helplessly, he dragged her with him. What was happening to him? He stared down at his legs in horror, willing them to stop.
“Mason, don’t go out there!” Beck yelled, her bare feet stuttering against the laminate flooring as she struggled to stop him.
The second his boot echoed onto the porch in the evening light, Beck’s hand slipped from his. She stood frozen in the doorway, hair tumbling down her shoulders, eyes round, chest heaving.
Eyes wide with terror, Beck whispered, “I can’t move.”
Enraged that Essie’s power was affecting Beck, Mason looked to the woods and yelled, “I’m here! What do you want from me?”
They’re coming. Coming, coming. They’re coming. The hissed whispers filled his head, each word cluttering the next. Coming, coming. They’re coming.
Mason squatted down and covered his ears. He hated her voice, hated that she was still here haunting him. Hated her. “Gaaah!” he screamed as the volume of her whispers drowned out everything and filled his head.
The noise dipped to nothing so suddenly that Mason opened his eyes, and there she was, right in front of his face. Tears streaming down her translucent cheeks, she said, “Mason, they’re here.” Esmerelda was blasted backward and disappeared in a puff of cerulean smoke.
The ground rattled under his feet like an earthquake.
“Mason,” Clinton said, warning in his voice. He stood on top of his trailer next door, eyes on the woods where trees were shaking. Something awful was coming closer and closer. Shit.
Boom! A gunshot echoed through the valley, and in an instant, Kirk threw his trailer door open. “Ally!” he yelled. His massive silverback ripped out of him, and he charged the woods. Clinton landed hard from where he jumped off his trailer.
“Call the dragon,” Mason barked out, but Clinton was already dialing on his cell phone.
“What’s happening?” Beck asked in a voice that trembled with terror.
The trailer rattled as the vibration grew closer, and Mason held onto the banister to steady himself. “Beck, stay inside. No matter what you hear, you go in Ryder’s closet, and you don’t come out. You protect our boy.”
Everything was so clear now. So bright. So obvious. He’d been wrong about what Esmerelda had been doing here. She hadn’t been telling him to let her go. She’d been warning him against the people who had cut her heart wide open when she’d been alive. She’d been warning him, not b
ecause she couldn’t let go, but because she wanted him to protect what he’d found—Beck and Ryder. The Boarlanders. He ran for the woods, peeling off his shirt as he went.
“Mason,” Beck shrieked. “Is it IESA?”
“No!” He called back at her. He gritted his teeth against the hatred that welled up inside of his chest. “It’s the boars.”
Emerson ran by as Bash and Harrison melted into the woods in front of him, a deep snarl in their throats. She bolted for Mason’s trailer with a gun in her hand. “I’ll take care of them!” she called out. Her eyes were full of terror, but her voice was steady, determined.
Good Emerson. Brave human, knowing just what to do so he could focus on the blood he was about to let. Fuckin’ Robbie for outing him, and fuckin’ Jamison for not being able to let Mason go.
A sick feeling twisted his gut as his boar roared to be set free. Now, he had everything to lose.
Another gunshot boomed through the valley, and the drum of a silverback beating his chest echoed through Boarlander woods. His people were going to war, and their pain would be on him. Their blood would be on his hands.
He could smell them now as he wove through the trees. The thick, dizzying, musty scent of dominant boars tainted the air and filled his senses. The deep-throated squeal of a battle cry blasted through the forest. There would be no talking them down. They weren’t here to negotiate his return. They were here to steal everything he loved.
His body broke, bones snapping, muscles stretching, bottom canines elongating into thick, sharp tusks as his body exploded into something monstrous. He hit the ground running on sure-footed hooves. He was fast in this form. Faster than a lightning strike as the trees blurred past him. Harrison and the others had cut them off in the firefly meadow. The raw violence of the bears, the tiger, the silverback, and all the boars pushed fury through his chest. There were too many.
Jamison’s giant red boar stood off to the side, eyes blazing the blue of his people. Mason wanted to gut him. Wanted to run his tusks through his belly and watch him die in his own entrails for trespassing in his mountains. Bash was in trouble, though, under a pile of four razorbacks. None of the boars could touch Mason or Jamison’s size, but frenzied by bloodlust, they had the numbers and single-minded killing instincts that made them bold and relentless. Mason shifted his stride and hit the back of a boar head on, gouging his thick hide with his long tusks.
He shook his powerful neck, stabbing, battling, protecting Bash’s weak side—his back. The air smelled like iron, and the boars grew in number, as if Jamison had called another wave. He lost his mind. Lost his thoughts other than kill. Other than defend them. Other than save them.
Flashes like photographs punctuated brief moments between battling. Kirk slamming a white boar against a tree trunk. Harrison’s massive grizzly clamping over the thick neck of another. Bash’s claws…too close. Audrey’s white tiger leaping onto a boar slashing at Harrison’s back, her canines open and ready, her claws out, her eyes full of fury. Ally, legs splayed over her four-wheeler, tattoos black against her pale skin, lips pulled back in a battle scream, she popped round after round at the boars that surrounded her.
Pain ripped up his back leg, and Mason went down hard, skidding in the dirt. The second he hit earth, Jamison charged him, the coward. He’d watched from the side until Mason was tired. Until he was down and wounded.
Adrenaline surged through his body, and he struggled to his feet, catching Jamison’s full force. The brawler boar had broken off one of his tusks since Mason had last seen him, but his brother was skilled at protecting his weak side, slashing the other like a long blade. Jamison wanted war? He could have his mother fucking war. Mason wasn’t the same broken shifter he was when he’d challenged Jamison before. He wasn’t depleted and weak. In his time away from his people, he’d spent his efforts logging, putting on muscle, and battling for these mountains beside Damon and the other crews. He wasn’t wishing for death anymore. Now, he had so much to survive for. So much to defend.
Jamison hit him like a wrecking ball, but Mason was ready. His legs braced, he skidded through the dirt, locked his tusks with Jamison’s and jerked his neck, throwing his brother off balance. Stupid fucker had been brawling with lesser boars, but Mason was a dominant Croy like him. He was a rip-roaring war machine.
Searing pain flashed up the nerve endings in his side as other boars joined Jamison. Assholes didn’t know how to fight with honor. They didn’t care if it took a hundred of them to kill one, so long as they won. So much ache, so much warmth, but Mason couldn’t unlock with Jamison, or his brother would have him gutted in an instant, just like the first time.
Something white blurred by, and the shriek of a pig sounded from behind him. The weight on Mason’s body lessened, and in an instant, another white streak dove and lifted. Beck. She was going for their faces, keeping the others off his back. Distracting them.
Clinton’s blond bear roared an oath of death and slapped another boar off the pile, then clamped his massive jaws on another. Crazy Clinton was buying him time.
A battle cry sounded as a set of long, curved, black talons raked across Jamison’s left eye. With a grunt of pain, Jamison stumbled, and Mason used his body weight to charge him against a tree.
A hurricane wind broke the trees around the clearing as something massive flew overhead, shadowing the meadow in the promise of flames. Damon.
Beck needed to get out of here because he was about to rain fire. Mason opened his mouth to roar, but Beck wasn’t watching him. She was engaged, clawing at Jamison’s face as he ran away, shaking his head, trying desperately to dislodge her. But she didn’t see what he did. She didn’t see the charging boar with his burning eyes on her. One blow full-stop, and she would be ground to dust. No!
Bullets were whizzing by him, so close he could feel the draft. “Mason!” Ally screamed.
I see her. Mason bunched his muscles and bolted for the spotted boar bearing down on his Beck. She was focused on holding onto Jamison’s face as he shook his neck and hit a tree, trying to dislodge her. The charging boar was so fast Mason wasn’t going to make it on time. Beck! He pushed his legs harder, faster, desperate to reach her. The sound of a gunshot connecting with the charging boar echoed, and the animal stumbled. It still wasn’t enough—he was already on top of her. Mason hit him hard on the back end, spinning him, but the boar slammed into Beck with the side of his face.
Time slowed to a crawl. His mate spread her snow white wings wide on the impact. Blasting backward in slow motion, she locked her round yellow eyes on Mason and said a million things with a look. I couldn’t keep away. I couldn’t leave you to fight alone. I’m sorry. A tiny dot of red spread onto her white chest feathers, and she opened her beak wide and screamed out a fierce noise.
Behind Beck, the Boarlander woods were alive with roaring, battling bears, and fire. Tagan, Creed, Willa, Beaston, Jason, Matt, Bruiser, Kellen…even Everly’s snow-white grizzly shredded boars beside her mate, Brighton. Skyler’s falcon dive-bombed into the fight, talons outstretched. They were pure power and fury, but his entire life flickered as Beck twisted around and landed hard in the dirt, skidding several feet before she came to a stop.
Mason ran for her, but was barreled into by a boar with fur as black as his.
His ears rang with the sound of the boar war, and as he spun sideways from the force of his attacker, Ally’s voice came over the blaring sirens in his ears. “I’ve got her,” she yelled, running for Beck’s limp body. Kirk was behind her, covering his mate as she risked herself to protect Beck. Was it too late? Was she already gone?
Panic seized Mason. He ran his tusks up the black boar’s neck, and he was down, giving Mason time to search frantically for Jamison. His brother stood off to the side, shaking his head and squealing in pain. Beck had ruined the left side of his face. Mason could stop this if only he could reach Jamison. If he could end him, cut off the life of the alpha, the boar-people would stop the attack. Why? Because then Mason
would lead them. By boar law, they wouldn’t be allowed to attack him anymore. It was why Jamison was here. Mason’s existence would always threaten his position with his people. Mason was the only one who could rival him.
Rip, slash, pain, charge, repeat until he was full of fury and bloodlust. Until he was full of hatred for his brother. Jamison had come here to take his life. To take the life of the people he loved. He came knowing this land was protected by Damon. He came knowing he would sacrifice so many of his people to hurt one—his own brother.
Jamison locked eyes on him from the shadows of the tree line. The enormous red boar lifted his head in a challenge, his broken tusk gleaming red in the fading light, blood streaming down the gouge marks that had taken his left eye. Good Beck. Good mate. She’d known just how to stall his brother and buy him time. Beck, Beck, Beck. He would never be okay again if she didn’t survive. Jamison’s fault. His people had hurt Essie, and now Beck?
Mason dragged a hoof slowly through the dirt and gnashed his teeth. Fuck you, brother.
Jamison huffed an enraged roar and charged, and this was it. Mason hadn’t ever really escaped his destiny. Hadn’t escaped this battle to the death with his brother. Hiding in Damon’s mountains hadn’t saved him from this moment, when he would accept his fate, whether it brought him victory or death. Mason forced himself to forget about the pain in his body as he pushed off the earth and bolted for Jamison, tusks high and proud. Behind Jamison, a line of boars ran toward Mason, but Damon’s massive blue dragon blew a wall of fire across the clearing, cutting them off. The dragon was giving the Croy boars a fair fight this time around. The glow of the flames reflected off Jamison’s coarse red fur and his flexing muscles as he charged, eyes full of hatred.
Mason lowered his head, tusks angled for the monster who had encouraged his people to treat Esmerelda like a pariah and pushed her into that rope. For the monster who had deemed him The Barrow and stripped his pride. For the monster who was trying to take this happy life Mason had eked out. For the monster who brought pain to Damon’s mountains. For the monster who had taken Beck from him.