Mason's Mate

by Abigail Raines

  I think a lot about how Luna is a girl from Hardwidge. She got away. When I first heard about her, I kept her in my mind as somebody I could be like. I could run away like Luna.

  I shut my eyes now and lean back against the cave wall. I try not to think about food. Instead I think about Mason Tremblay’s voice on the phone. He kept saying I was brave to help. He kept saying they wouldn’t forget. I don’t really blame them if they assume I’m dead after an entire month. But I like to remember that they said that. Mason Tremblay’s voice had sounded so calm. He had a low voice. I like to remember just how it sounded over the phone. I like it because I’d imagined that he’d be panicked or angry because his brother was in danger. Instead he’d been so grounded. He made me feel calmer. He told me they were going to come for me and I believed him because his voice sounded kind and because Micah Tremblay had seemed like a good person too.

  When I’m the most scared, I think of Mason Tremblay’s voice low and calming in my ear.

  “Alice, it’s going to be okay. Sit tight. We’ll be there soon.”

  We’ll be there soon.

  I tremble and hug my knees. I can hear Jason and Kyle coming. I wish they’d just leave me alone. They’ve probably been out hunting. At best, they’ll flaunt their meat in front of me while they eat and the smell will make me want to die. Or worse, Jason will get mad again because I can’t shift and when Jason gets mad, I get hurt. I don’t know why he cares. It’s a lot easier for him to keep me his prisoner when I’m stuck in human form.

  I hear the two wolves coming and I hear the moment they shift and their footsteps change. I can hear them laughing. Sometimes my brother reminds me more of a hyena than a wolf the way he laughs.

  Oh God, I can smell the meat. My mouth waters and I make myself smaller. But I can hear them splashing through the water going into the cave. They like to throw their kill in my face.

  “Ali! Ho ho! Still stuck, huh?” That’s Kyle, hooting.

  It’s so childish but I’m pretending I’m invisible. I might be making myself a little crazy. I almost think I can be invisible if I will it. Then they won’t bother me anymore. But now Jason is pulling my hands away from my face and he slaps my cheek.

  “Hey idiot,” Jason says. “When are ya gonna shift, huh?”

  I open my eyes reluctantly, the strong smell of a fresh kill driving me mad, and I almost pass out because I am so hungry and Jason is tangling a hunk of deer flesh in front of me, dripping blood. We haven’t seen anything as big as a deer in probably two weeks. My eyes glaze over and I lurch forward, attempting to get a bite. Jason laughs and yanks it away. I know better, honestly, but I’m not thinking clearly. I’m dizzy and faint. My brain works but I feel like it’s not quite connecting to my body right now.

  It’s only been a few days, I think. Maybe more. It takes a lot longer to starve. I could go on starving and miserable for weeks, as long as I have water.

  I’m going to die, I tell myself. I just have to come to terms with that. I was supposed to get away...I was supposed to get away…

  I don’t think I’ve spoken in a while. I don’t remember the last time I did. Every time I say nearly anything, Jason finds a way to use it against me or he just gets mad. It’s easier to stay silent. I hug my knees tighter and hide my eyes, trying to curl up in a ball but I’m tied and I can’t.

  Sometimes I feel like things make sense in my head but then they race around. And everything feels disconnected from my body. Like I can’t stop shaking but then when I realize I’m shaking, I’m surprised.

  “You’re a useless bitch of a wolf, Ali,” my brother spits. “You know why mom left? Because she couldn’t stand the sight of you! Look at you! Can’t shift! Can’t hunt!” He hits my head and I tried to crouch up tighter. It’s making him mad. I should just go limp and let him get his anger out. It’s faster when I just go limp. But my body isn’t listening to me.

  My mind starts to race.

  What if I’m going crazy? What if I can’t remember how to tell my body to do other things besides shift?

  “We should just leave her,” Kyle says.

  “No dumbass,” Jason says. “We need women to breed, don’t we? After we rebuild the pack. She could be your mate, right?”

  “Yeah?” Kyle says, sounding happy about the idea. He grabs my hair and forces my chin up so I’m looking at him. “You wanna be my mate, girl?”

  I don’t answer. It wouldn’t matter how I answered anyway. “You gonna give me lots of pups?”

  Kyle is a couple years younger than me and looks even younger. He’s just a gangly teenager and his teeth are gross. The thought of being his mate is disgusting to me. If I could just shift, I could run. Maybe I could find something to eat. If I could just…

  We’ll be there soon.

  Mason Tremblay’s voice echoes in my head. I shut my eyes again. It’s so dark in here I can hardly tell the difference now between when my eyes are open or closed. I’ve seen a picture of Xander Tremblay before. He was huge; one of those big muscle bound type of guys. My brother is pretty muscular. He’s a whole lot bigger and bulkier than Kyle. Jason likes to tell me he can crush my windpipe with one hand if he likes, should I get out of line. It’s probably an empty threat because like he said, a pack will need women. But I don’t particularly want to test him. Xander Tremblay is very handsome. He has a neat beard and dark eyes. His big muscles are always clothed in a nice suit because he runs the big Tremblay company. Micah was cute too when I saw him. Or rather, he looked terrible at that time because they were torturing him, but I could tell how handsome he must be usually. He’s better looking than Xander in my opinion. They’re different types. Micah has sandy blonde hair and gray eyes. He’s also nice and muscular but not as bulky. I have no idea what the other two look like.

  It’s probably silly to try to guess what Mason Tremblay looks like just going by his voice on the phone. But it’s something nice to think about when I want to go somewhere inside myself. I can get out of this cave in my head and picture Mason Tremblay. Going by his voice, I picture somebody tall and leaner than his brothers. He's kind of muscular but he’s not bulky. His muscles come from long runs or swimming. I’ve decided he likes to swim. I don’t know why. I think he’s plainer than his brothers, but still pretty good looking. He sounded quiet on the phone. I think he’s the quiet one. Maybe he’s the brother people don’t notice as much. Or maybe he doesn’t even want to be noticed as much. But he’s very kind and gentle. Especially gentle. His voice sounded that way. That’s my favorite bit to think about. He would never so much as grab me or yell at me. He would appear at the mouth of the cave with the moonlight behind him. He’d be in his wolf form. But he wouldn’t want to worry or scare me so he’d quickly shift back and approach carefully and tell me who he is. Then he’d hold out his hand and wait for me to take it. His touch would be soft and his voice would be low and sure.

  He’d say, “I told you, we wouldn’t forget you, Alice. You’re safe now.”

  It’s a fantasy man I’m picturing when I think about Mason Tremblay, but it helps me survive.

  Chapter Three: Mason

  Somehow I ended up detaching the rabbit’s foot from Alice’s backpack and I’ve started carrying it around in my pocket. It helps me to think. If we find Alice, I’ll give it back to her. Her backpack I haven’t had the stomach to open yet. I put it in the guest room, which is quite optimistic of me. I just imagine that if we do find Alice, she might be in bad shape. Maybe she’ll need somewhere to stay awhile. I’m not assuming either that she’d want to stay in my house in the first place. Besides, it might make more sense for her to stay at the estate if she needs a place. It was just a little thought I had.

  I have to really talk myself out of searching again on Sunday, but the fog is thick again and I know the rain will make the tracking difficult. I know it, but I feel helpless to make good on my promise. Instead, I spend the time working. I follow up on investment opportunities. People send me leads all the time. Most of
the time, they’re terrible. I throw out a lot of the terrible ones right away too because I can usually tell. But since I need something to do right now, I research every little thing today in depth. I even email a bunch of broker friends and venture capitalists who aren’t even my clients and tell them what they should stay away from. I don’t usually bother with that kind of thing.

  When I don’t have a speck of work left to do, I go running on the treadmill. I have a work out room and the treadmill faces the floor to ceiling windows. It’s nice to run looking right out on the mountains. I listen to NPR but I have no idea what anyone’s saying.

  The thing is, I haven’t had anyone to worry about in a long time. Outside of a couple crazy scuffles my brothers have been involved in because their romance lives turned out to be far too eventful, my life is quiet and a little bit lonely. I’m happy enough with my work. It’s a shallow kind of business to move money around and find worthwhile places to make more of it, but I’m very good at it. I also much prefer working from home, though it is lonely, but I’m my own boss. I don’t work for a firm or anything. I worked for a short time at a firm in Seattle when I was young and I managed to make my bones there, as well as a lot of important connections. But I didn’t like being so far from the family and the woods I grew up running in.

  It’s Tuesday afternoon when I find myself on the treadmill again, waiting to go out and look. I hear my front door open and shut. That’ll be one or more of my brothers. They know they can just walk in. I step off the machine and towel myself down. I wasn’t running long so I’m not too sweaty. I don’t think I need to shower, since we’re just going to go out on a run anyhow.

  I go to my room and change into jeans and a sweater. Sometimes I imagine what happens if we do find her. I guess it depends on how she is. The truth is, I don’t really know. Would she need a hospital? We’ve found packs for others from Hardwidge and helped them form new ones but they’ve all agreed to that (outside the men we were fighting) , we can’t make a refugee do anything, least of all somebody who’s probably been mistreated her whole life. I'm thinking about this as I go out to the living room to meet my brothers.

  “Hey!” That’s Aaron. His beard is bushier these days. Fatherhood is turning him into more of a bear than wolf. But I’m happy for my brothers who have found their mates. I’ve long wished for a mate of my own; someone I could laugh with and wake up next to who would understand me as much I understand them. It’s actually a desire I feel so intensely, that I never talk about it. That’s the way I often am about my deepest thoughts and wishes. I suppose I’ve always been that way.

  Aaron claps me on the shoulder when I walk in. We’re all going to meet here and then drive up to the mountain, farther up than I’ve searched as of yet. It’s cloudy and gray out but the fog has lifted. And it hasn’t rained again since Sunday morning.

  “Thanks for coming,” I say. I smile just a little, raising my eyebrow. “I know how you hate to be away from the pup for even a minute.”

  Trevor is my nephew. There’s never been a cuter baby.

  “Of course,” Aaron says, with a nod. “I’m hoping for the best. This girl deserves our help.”

  He says it with such an air of finality and it belies his words. He says it like he is really sure she’s dead but he hopes for the best. I don’t like that thought. I let him follow me to the kitchen to get some water just as Micah walks in, tossing me a nod.

  Instead of saying hello, Micah says, “How far up are we going?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admit, taking a swig from a glass water bottle. “But I have an actual scent to follow now, so I thought we’d drive up slow with the windows down for a bit. Maybe I missed something.”

  Micah and Aaron exchange a look that I don’t like. I’ve been getting the feeling lately that they think this is a lost cause after a month of looking and they’re humouring me. I hate that but I don’t want to argue about it. Instead I clench my jaw and sip some more water.

  It doesn’t seem like a lost cause to me. Looking for a person for just a month seems like not that much work to me. I’m not saying my brothers don’t care. But I do think they’re wrong. When Xander arrives, I can absolutely tell he thinks this is a fool’s errand, as much as he’s promised to help. I’m sure there have been conversations where they uncomfortably admitted they thought this was all pointless after so long a time.

  We take Xander’s SUV up to the mountains and inwardly I stew about my suspicions toward my brothers, even though I do appreciate their help. If they think it’s pointless I can’t imagine they’re going to work very hard searching. It’s irritating. I sit there in the back seat and I stew.

  Aaron is babbling about something cute Trevor did because that’s about all Aaron talks about these days when I blurt out, “It’s only been a month.”

  I’m not exactly prone to blurting things. I’m the contained one, the one who’s so measured. Thoughtful Mason is who you go to for advice and wisdom. That’s probably why everybody in the car goes quiet.

  “Yeah we know,” Micah says, just a little defensively. “We’re here, aren’t we, man? We’re gonna look as hard as we can. Aaron’s a really good tracker.”

  “I suspect you guys think this is all for nothing,” I say, staring out the window. It’s starting to drizzle again. Damn. I tap on the glass and watch the drops slide down. “Do you know how long a person can survive out on the woods on their own? Much less a wolf?”

  “A wolf could survive indefinitely,” Xander mutters. “Although the woods up here are low on game. But a wolf surviving up here would have no reason not to come down the mountain and be found.”

  “She could be hurt,” I point out. “Injured but still alive.”

  “I know how stubborn you get when you set your mind to something,” Xander starts to say.

  “I’m stubborn?”

  Micah and Aaron chuckle at that. “You’re reasonable,” Aaron points out. “Usually. But when you decide you’re right about something, you get very set on it. Quietly immovable. Versus Xander who’s more of a hothead I mean.”

  “Hey,” Xander grumbles.

  “Oh, like it’s not true?” Micah said, chortling. “Look, we’re sorry if we seem like we don’t believe there’s a chance of finding this girl.” He’s in the back seat with me and now he looks at me, narrowing his eyes. “But honestly, I know very well I owe her my life. It’s not as if I’ve forgotten, Mason. I’m the one who was getting tortured-”

  “I know,” I say, wincing a little. I hate to imagine my brother getting hurt. I know it’s affected him more than he admits. He never wants to seem “weak” in front of Xander but I know that got in his head. “I’m sorry. I just… Yes, I’ve gotten fixated on it, I suppose. Just have this feeling sometimes like I can’t give up. It’s important.” I rub the rabbit’s foot in my pocket again. We all took a good smell of the backpack and it’s stashed in the trunk in case we need it again.

  As we make our way up the mountain, we roll down the windows, even though it’s raining. We all get a bit damp and the smells are a little dulled, but it’s not as bad as it has been.

  Nothing is happening for the longest time. Xander drives slowly up the mountain and then speeds up just a little bit. It’s a strange process of speeding up and slowing down again as we make our way up. I smell other shifters but not female and not the backpack.

  It’s two hours before we’re farther up than I’ve ever been able to search so far for Alice when Aaron says, “Stop! I think I have it…”

  Xander stops the car and immediately says, “Yeah! Holy shit, there it is.”

  The car has barely stopped before I’ve jumped out and sniffed the air and there it is, just beneath the rain, the trees, the dirt, a lot of miscellany, other animals, my brothers, and two unfamiliar male shifter scents, there is Alice’s scent from the backpack faintly on the air like it’s whispering to us to come find her. The drizzle has become a proper downpour but I’ve got the scent now as I trot a few s
teps off the road and into the dirt. Xander pulls over and everybody gets out and stands around for a moment. Xander’s not taking over. He’s looking to me to decide the next move.

  “Well c’mon,” I say, impatient already. “Let’s shift and follow it. Micah, do you have it?”

  Micah nods, looking astonished. “Yeah.”

  We all shift and go running into the woods. I feel more hopeful than I have since I started looking for Alice. We chase the scent, and it’s much stronger once we’ve shifted. Running while chasing a scent is different from running full out. There’s a lot of starting and stopping and changing direction. After a few wrong turns deep in the woods, we catch it stronger again as we all four jump a ravine and climb a muddy hill in the direction of what we used to call “The Pirate Caves” when we were kids. We used to come up here to camp and shift and make up stories about pirates using this part of the forest for burying their treasure, sleeping in the caves at night. It made no sense since we’re not very close to the ocean, but we liked to pretend.

  Xander is up ahead and I see him freeze and look back at us, tipping his snout up. That means there’s somebody up ahead, and we quietly trot up to join him. He leads us behind a big boulder and I catch onto those two unfamiliar male shifter scents. They’d been there all along with Alice’s smell. I assume they’re her companions. Hopefully they’re not her captors. My ears perk up when I hear them. They’ve got something. Fresh meat is in the air. They’re eating rabbit there in the clearing as the rain pours down. Alice is farther away, nearer the caves I think.