by Dena Christy
“It’s just an old nightmare, one I’ve had off and on for years. You know the ones. You’re being chased by something and you don’t know who or what it is. I don’t really want to rehash it, otherwise I’ll never sleep.”
There was a lot more to it than that. She didn’t want to talk about it because she knew what had been chasing her, or rather, who. Titus Parr had stalked her in her nightmares for fifteen years, and if she told Mason that, he would want to know why. That would only open a painful and ugly can of worms that she was not equipped to deal with. She hoped that her answer would satisfy him.
“Well you don’t have to talk about it then.” He stroked his hand over her hair and she brought her hand up to rest on the hard muscle of his chest. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” It wasn’t his fault she’d had a nightmare, and if he hadn’t come in when he did, she would most likely still be terrified. And trying to sleep with the light on, as she had for so many years when the old nightmare had flared up.
“For the way I acted when we got here. I shouldn’t have implied that you were untrustworthy. I’m trying to put the past behind me, I am. It’s just going to take me some time. So if I act like a jealous, possessive idiot, just remind me that I’m being stupid. I don’t want to spend the next year fighting with you.”
“I don’t want that either.” She rubbed a soothing hand over his skin. “We just have to focus on each moment as it comes. And don’t worry, you know I have no problem telling you when you’re being an idiot.”
Her words lightened the mood in the room and drew a chuckle from him.
“That I know.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and settled her tighter against him. “Go to sleep. Just remember that you’re here with me and as long as we’re together I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”
She closed her eyes, and for the first time in years, she wasn’t afraid that the nightmare would come back. It was like his words had cast a protective cocoon around her, that nothing could penetrate. As long as he was holding her, he could keep the monsters at bay.
It was a few days later, and Mason was still no closer to finding out who had been watching his home on the night of Grace’s nightmare. It was someone he knew he would recognize by scent, but was also someone he’d never met before. There were no strangers in town, and as he went about his day to day business, he never caught the scent again. He was certain that he hadn’t imagined it.
And although he and Grace shared a bed every night they were still no closer to each other. Holding her was what she appeared to need, and he wanted to give that to her without condition. But she stirred up an ache inside him, one that would only be satisfied by possessing her completely. He knew that he needed to be patient with her, that although they’d slept together in the past didn’t mean that she was necessarily ready to do so again.
And there was something lurking beneath the surface with her, a shadow that lurked behind her eyes. He knew it was tied up in the nightmare that she had somehow, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what it was. He wanted to ask her about it, but she seemed reluctant to talk about what scared her and he didn’t want to push her. They were slowly building a fragile peace between them and he didn’t want to do anything that would set them back.
He prowled around his office with restless energy. The full moon was tonight, so that certainly didn’t help the tension that was churning inside him. It would only get worse until the need to change consumed him and he let it rip by running through the woods as a wolf.
He walked out of his office, and noticed that the gym was a little busier than usual. It was always like this on the full moon, as the male members of the pack needed to do something to get rid of the aggression that always stirred itself up with the fullness of the moon.
He had a word with Don, asking him to hold down the fort for a while and left the gym.
Something nagged at him, about the night of the binding. Logan had said something to Grace, something other than to ask her if she wanted to go through with the ceremony. He was certain of it. There was nothing going on between them, he knew that but something had been said. Could that have been what had caused her to be frightened enough to have an old nightmare? When they were together before, she’d never told him about having bad dreams, so it had to be something that had cropped up in the past fifteen years.
Maybe he was just chasing his tail over this, but he wanted to talk to Logan just to be sure. It could be nothing but him getting gun shy about getting close to her again. He could be looking for a reason for there to be a problem, but he wouldn’t know for sure unless he knew exactly what Logan had said to her that night.
He walked into Logan’s bar and unlike the gym, there wasn’t a wolf in sight, just a few of the human residence having a late lunch. Wolves steered clear of this place until after they’d had their run on this one night a month. It was better for everyone in town if the hairier citizens weren’t mixing alcohol and extreme aggression. When Logan had taken over as alpha he’d instituted a ban on wolves being served alcohol on the day leading up to the full moon.
Alex was behind the bar, scowling at the wooden surface. Apparently Mason wasn’t the only one who was feeling the moon’s pull. Alex looked up.
“Hope you aren’t looking for booze. You know the rules.” Alex put the cloth he was holding over the hook behind the bar as Mason approached.
“I’m not here to drink. Is the alpha in his office?”
Alex nodded and Mason turned away to walk to Logan’s office. He knocked on the door and when Logan bid him to enter he walked in. Logan looked surprised to see him.
“I would think your place would be too busy today to think about leaving it.” Logan shoved aside the papers he was working on and motioned for Mason to take a seat. “Are you running with the pack tonight?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Mason sat down across from Logan, and frowned at him. He always ran with the pack on the night of the full moon.
“I don’t know. I thought maybe you might want to run with your mate alone tonight.”
Mason suppressed the urge to flinch when Logan referred to Grace as his mate. It was all still too new and a little unreal to him to think of her that way.
“We hadn’t discussed what we are doing tonight, so I assumed that we would be running with the pack.”
“And how are things going between you two? You haven’t gotten in any fights with anyone, so I had assumed that things were better, but if you aren’t even talking about where you’re running tonight, maybe I’m wrong.”
“We are slowly coming around. At least we aren’t fighting with each other anymore. There is a reason I came here.” Logan assuming that he and Grace would be running alone tonight, with him not knowing what they were doing, told him just how much of a distance they had left to breach.
“What is it?”
“What did you tell her before the binding ceremony?” Mason watched Logan closely as he asked his question and if he hadn’t been he wouldn’t have seen the brief hesitation in his eyes. He was more certain than ever that something was being hidden from him, some sort of secret that Grace and Logan shared.
“I asked her if she wanted to go through with it. Don’t tell me that my talking to her has put a bug up your ass. You of all people should know that I have no designs on Grace, and she has none on me.”
“I know that. Grace told me that’s what you said when I confronted her about it on the night of the binding. Did you say anything else to her? I’m not accusing you or her of anything, but there has to be more to it than just you asking her if she wanted to go through with it.”
Logan closed his eyes for a second and rubbed his hand over his lower jaw. “There was one other thing. I told her that Titus Parr was out of prison.”
“Titus Parr? Why the hell does that name sound so familiar?” He’d heard that name and recently, but couldn’t put his finger on it.
“He’s the reas
on you are bound to Grace now. He was the one objector to the packs merging.”
Mason remembered now, and he remembered Grace’s reaction to hearing his name. She’d been scared, and he didn’t think he’d ever seen her that frightened of anything before. Could the knowledge that Titus was out of prison be the source of her nightmare? Could learning that he was free on the night of the binding ceremony be what had triggered her bad dreams?
“Would she have any reason to be afraid of him?” He didn’t know if Logan would even know the answer to that, but thought he’d ask.
“I think a lot of East Brook members would have a reason to be afraid of Titus Parr. He was the East Brook enforcer when Grace’s stepfather was alpha. And he took a little too much enjoyment out of meting out punishment to those who needed it. Even my father knew better than to tangle with him.”
If Mike Sawyer, who wasn’t exactly right in the head, knew enough to stay out of Parr’s way, then he must be a seriously bad dude. No wonder Grace had been frightened when she’d heard his name. Could that be why she’d been scared enough to have a nightmare? If this Titus dude was as bad as Logan seemed to believe he was, then he might be the source of Grace’s nightmares.
“Do you know where he is? Is there any chance he’s come back home now that he isn’t in jail?” He didn't think he'd imagined the feeling of eyes watching him when he’d been out for his run. And he was certain that he’d smelled wolf, tucked out of sight behind the trees. Could that have been Titus Parr, and if it was, why the hell was he watching his house?
“All I know is that he’s out of jail. If he was back in the area I would know it. Pack law requires that he check in with me when he gets back into town.”
“And do you think he’s the type to obey pack law?”
Logan’s brows drew together, and he leaned forward in his chair. “What’s going on Mason? Why all these questions about Titus Parr?”
“She’s scared, Logan. When we were meeting here surely you saw it, how scared she was? And she’s having nightmares, ones that leave her screaming in a cold sweat. I want to protect her, but I can’t do that unless I know what the threat is against her. I really wish you’d told me that Parr was out of jail. How the hell am I supposed to protect my mate if I don’t have all the information?” He watched Logan closely, to see if there was anything else that he wasn’t telling him, but all he could see on his face was concern.
“Is that all? Is that the only reason you’re here asking questions about Parr, because she’s having nightmares or is there something else?”
“I couldn’t swear to it, but I think he’s in the area. I was out for a run on the night of the ceremony, and I smelled something. It was a wolf whose scent I didn’t recognize, and whoever it was he didn’t show himself. I haven’t smelled it since, but if there was someone watching my house, I’d lay odds that it was him.”
Logan shot out of his chair, and it crashed back agains the wall. “Why the hell am I just hearing about this now? You should have come to me the second you suspected that someone was watching your house?”
Mason stood, and the aggression that was below the surface today flared to life. “How the fuck was I supposed to know to come to you when you didn’t keep me in the loop? You gave information to my mate, which apparently she didn’t feel it was necessary to share with me and now you’re pissed because I didn’t tell you that this prick might have been watching my house? Anything you have to say to her you can say to me.”
“Fine, whatever. Let’s just get out to Grace’s house.”
It occurred to Mason that Grace was out at her house alone, packing things up to get ready to put it on the market. Damn her for not telling him that Parr was out of jail. If he’d known there would be no way in hell he would have let her go out to East Brook by herself. But why the hell was Logan so hot to get out there?
“I know why I’m going out to Grace’s place to check up on her, but why are you going?”
“Because Faith volunteered to help Grace out at her place, and Grace accepted. My mate and yours are out there alone, and if I’d known that you thought someone was watching you I would never have let them go out there without Rafe or someone to watch out for them. If Parr is in the area, he wouldn’t be watching your house because of you.”
Mason didn’t need to hear any more and he cursed himself for not coming to talk to Logan sooner, or for not insisting that Grace tell him everything that Logan had said to her that night. He hadn’t wanted to rock the boat, to put more resentment between them, but by doing so he’d put his mate in danger.
8
The music was pumping out of the radio as Grace, along with Faith, methodically worked their way through her mother’s house. It was going a lot faster with help, and Grace was grateful that Faith had volunteered to lend a hand. It would only take a couple more days for the house to be ready to put on the market if they kept up this amount of effort.
They were currently starting on what had been Grace’s room when she was a teenager. Grace had hardly been in here when she’d come back, preferring to sleep in the spare room that her mother had set up for guests. Her old bedroom had been untouched, and looked exactly as it had when she’d left if fifteen years ago. Perhaps her mother had kept it that way in the hopes that Grace would come home, but she should have known that was never going to happen.
“God, this room is like a museum.” Faith said as she looked around the bedroom. “Were you a frequent visitor here over the years?”
“The first time I was back in this house was a couple months ago when I came back to mate with Logan.” It felt weird to talk so casually about hooking up with Faith’s mate, but she didn’t seemed bothered by it. “It wasn’t until I came back that I realized that my mother kept it this way.”
Faith must have seen by the look on her face that she didn’t want to talk about it. Her mother had very clearly chosen her stepfather over her, and Grace had been unable to move toward reconciling with her mother in the years that she’d been gone. When her mother and stepfather had died in a car accident five years ago, she’d felt relieved that he was gone. There was some sadness there too, for the loss of her mother but unfortunately it had been too late to mend the rift in their relationship.
“Is there anything you want to keep out of here?”
Grace looked around and knew that she wouldn’t be keeping anything from this room. The girl that had lived in this room no longer existed, and as Grace stood in the middle of it, it was like it belonged to someone else. To a stranger.
“Anything that is in good shape I’ll donate, and anything that is trash can be trashed.” Grace grabbed one of the larger boxes and went over to the closet. She opened the door and saw that all the clothing she’d had still hung on the hangers as if she’d just left the room fifteen minutes ago instead of fifteen years ago.
Faith headed over to the other side of the room, where there was an enormous bookshelf. Grace had been a voracious reader as a teen, and the shelf was full of love stories. She had no interest in such books now, since she knew that it was fiction and not at all like real life. “Make sure that you save any boxes that you fill for me to carry into the other room. I’ve been given strict orders by Logan not to let you lift anything.”
“Yeah, I know. I was given the same lecture when I told him I was coming to help you.” A rueful smile came over Faith’s face as she rubbed her hand over her flat stomach. It wouldn’t stay flat, and the reason that Logan didn’t want her lifting was because of the baby that was growing inside her.
Grace turned back toward the closet and started sorting through the clothes, putting anything that was way too dated into a rag bag and anything that wasn’t went into a box for donation.
She was almost finished with the contents of the closet, and she turned to see how Faith was doing. She’d filled a couple boxes and was almost finished with the book shelf, when something fluttered out of one of the books and she bent to pick it up.
“Grace, come look at this.” Faith turned to her, with a photograph in her hand and Grace came over to look at it.
As soon as she took it from her, memories came flooding back of the day it was taken. It was a picture of her and Mason, taken at the lake about a week before everything went wrong. She sank down on the edge of the bed as she stared at the couple in the photo. They were so young looking, and looked happy and in love as they stood there smiling for the camera with an arm around each other’s waist.
“I didn’t know you and Mason were in item once.” Faith came over to her and the edge of the bed sank down when she sat. “May I?”
Grace handed her the picture. “Mason and I were together a long time ago. It feels like ancient history now.”
Faith looked at the photo for a few more moments before handing it back to Grace. “What happened?”
Grace looked down at the picture and traced her finger over Mason’s face. Looking at him in the picture she saw something that she’d hadn’t seen on his face for a long time. He was so happy in this photo and she hadn’t seen that look on his face since she’d been back. Perhaps he’d looked like this since then, but she didn’t know about it since he certainly didn’t wear this look when he was with her.
“Depends on who you ask. If you ask Mason, it ended because I ran off and left town to be with another man.” Grace set the picture aside. She couldn't look at it anymore, because it only held up for her just how far apart she and Mason were now, and she didn’t think that distance would ever be breached.
“And is that what happened?” Faith’s voice was quiet, and the urge to tell her everything was so strong that Grace had to clamp her teeth together to keep her secret inside. She’d never told anyone the truth of what had happened, and she wasn’t going to now.
“What happened was far worse, and I don’t want to talk about it.” Grace forced a smile on her face to soften the bluntness of her words, and to give Faith credit she didn’t push.