by Sam Hall
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 inside, meet my wife and daughter. You’ll be staying at the park on the outskirts of town?”
“If they have space.”
“Not sure if they do. Might be better to stay here in the alpha residence until we can get you sorted.”
Mason had gone back to get his brother, both of their parents seeming too caught up in what the alpha had to offer to remember their youngest child. Zack’s hand wrapped tight around his as they walked inside to the grandest place they’d ever seen. The soaring ceilings, the subtle colour on the walls, the large framed paintings, the shining marble floor. Mason had brushed his feet extra thoroughly on the mat before they walked in and made Zack do the same.
“So, Mason and Zack?” the alpha said as they entered the main hall, slinking in behind their parents. “They look like good strong boys. Take after their dad, then.”
Bruce stiffened at that, looked over his shoulder at the two kids before facing down the alpha. “Zack’s mine. Mason’s dad was Jenny’s other mate, but I like to think of him as my own.”
“Ah, yes, Johnson said your mate was a nix. An interesting phenomena, nix. Well, come and meet the girls, then we’ll let the kids go and play and discuss your position in the pack.”
Mason learned an important lesson that day—you could always tell a lot about an alpha by looking at the women of the house. He hadn’t known it then, just seeing the alpha’s mate step forward, dressed impeccably, her hands and her voice smooth and polished, but it was her eyes that gave her away. She made very little eye contact, and when she did, it was for only seconds.
Her smile communicated little emotion, seeming like a well-practised thing she slid on when the moment required. When she ushered her daughter forward, a few years younger than him by the look of it, he saw what her mother would have looked like without the façade. Whilst very pretty, that was marred by the wary, caged expression on the child’s face. She didn’t smile, didn’t respond, just eyed everyone with wide blue eyes, only saying hello when prodded.
“She’s obviously over tired and excited about having guests,” the alpha explained with a hint of steel in his voice. “Kailee, take the boys upstairs and show them the playroom. We’ll be down here discussing things with the other adults and mustn’t be disturbed. Do I make myself clear?” The girl nodded. “Cook has made some sandwiches and put out some snacks and drinks in the playroom. Amuse yourselves until we call for you.”
“Yes, Father,” she said with a nod. “C’mon.” She waved to the two boys and then led them upstairs.
The quiet on the second level of the house was somewhat disconcerting. Mason was used to the whistle of the trees, the blare of the TV, something to fill the small space they lived in. Here, the house was huge, so big, it seemed excessive and yet nothing filled it. Like, there was stuff, he saw plenty of that as they passed, but there was something still, almost dead about the house. Kailee opened
the door without making a sound, ushering them in, then closing it behind them.
Mason was sure Zack’s heart sank when he saw the playroom. It was a pink paradise, perfect for a girl. So much so, the two of them felt clumsy, too big by comparison. All across the floor, an elaborate tableau had been created with dolls and action figures, small furniture and plastic dolls’ houses. Kailee gestured to the dining table set off near the large set of French doors that opened out onto a balcony. The boys saw the food and drink and fell upon them with gusto. But as they ate, the girl sat down on the floor, her pretty cotton dress ballooning around her. She picked up her dolls and started to move them around the setup, telling a story.
Initially, Mason thought it was the same kind of princess and the pea bullshit that little girls used to love to play in the yard when he was younger. There were always these elaborate mating rituals conducted between the girls, where some would play the men, while the others fainted and wilted in turns at the sight of their true mates. But as he chewed a ham and cheese sandwich, Zack watching with rapt attention, the game seemed different here.
Kailee held a girl doll in a tight fist, her knuckles white, and with the other, she picked up one of a long line of Ken dolls or action figures or even tiny LEGO dudes. Without too many preliminaries, the couple met, then started to vigorously kiss. OK, kinda truncated, but following the same script of most of the girls Mason knew. But it was when that figure was discarded and another picked up, doing the same thing, over and over, until she’d worked through half the line, that Mason stilled.
No one talked about situations like that at home. One man, one mate, that was the whole problem with him, with his mother. The fact she’d had two mates always seemed to travel with them, and Mason could never work out why. He didn’t get much of a chance to, having to fight off bullies. But as he watched the couples meet, kiss, then be discarded, a sense of disquiet rose in his belly.
“Can I play?” Zack asked, sitting down on the outskirts of Kailee’s diorama. The little girl gave him a sharp look, then nodded, grabbing all the rejected male suitors and passing them en masse to his brother. Zack started to sort through them, look for superheroes or action figures he was into, but Kailee stopped him.
“No,” she said. “You have to bring them here.”
“Oh, did you want them back?” he asked, then collected them up, ready to hand them over, but she just shook her head. She grabbed an elaborate princess bed, placed it in the middle of the setup, then laid her Barbie down on the sheets. She shoved the doll’s pretty satin dress up, parting her thighs in the awkward scissor motion dolls had. Mason stiffened as she beckoned Zack closer.
My body went ice cold, trying to take in the details of this ‘game,’ but my view of things was constrained by Mason’s.
His brother frowned, but he seemed sucked in by the weird ritualistic air of the whole thing. He handed her a muscle-bound GI Joe, but she just grabbed his hand, pulling him closer, not fussed when he dislodged the paraphernalia surrounding the bed, and forced the figure down on top of the Barbie. He was allowed to stay there for a few deafeningly silent moments, the girl staring at the two figures so intensely, Mason was shocked they didn’t go up in flames.
But after some predetermined time, he was pulled off, tossed unceremoniously aside, and Zack was required to hand over another male. She kept going through them, though sometimes she took more than one from him with a hiss of irritation, those big blue eyes searching Zack’s then Mason’s, as if unable to believe they did not know how to play this game. Their incomprehension didn’t stop it from playing out, until something dark occurred to Mason.
“I need to use your toilet,” he said, which was true. Kailee looked up at him with a slight frown, searching his face as if for the veracity of his words. “Can you show me where it is?”
“Up the hall.” She jerked her thumb to the left. “Don’t go downstairs,” she said, her voice somewhat ghostly and hollow. “You won’t like it if you do.”
“Right, OK, I won’t. Zack, stay here.”
“But I need—”
“You just gotta wait your turn. I’ve gotta take a piss.”
Kailee jolted back at that, her nose wrinkling, but in the end, she just shrugged and turned back to her game, holding out her hand for another male figure like a doctor during surgery.
Mason slipped out the door, padded up the hallway in the direction Kailee had shown him, at this point undecided on what he would do. Something was starting to coalesce in his brain, something big, painful, powerful. He went to the bathroom, noted the pristine white tiles and soft towels, and then did what he’d come here for with little fuss. He stared into the mirror, seeing the bruises and the smears of dirt on his face for the first time, wondering what the fuck the alpha thought. Why would he let a bedraggled, disgraced family of shifters move into his territory, into his house? Why would he leave two strange children to play with his only child? Questions just led to more questions, not answers, as he exited the bathroom and walked down the hall.
But it was the sound that drew him forward.
He could hear the shouts and cheers from the upper level, winding their way up through the stairwell. Rough, ragged sounds, they seemed out of place in a house like this. The innate silence of the building tried to smother it, as it seemed to have smothered Kailee and her mother, but not them. His hand came to rest on the wall by Kailee’s playroom, his feet, turned towards the door, ready to go in, when he heard another raucous shout.
We’d been to so many towns, met so many alphas, Mason now told me as his much younger self ran down the stairs. We always worried about being accepted. Bruce always went off with Mum and had a meeting with the alpha and his enforcers. I never questioned why. Needed to look after Zack, see if I could find us some food. There was always something to do, until this time.
He slipped past the living and dining area, all empty and sterile as a furniture showroom. He walked up the hall, passing bedrooms and offices until he found it. That same large door I’d first seen. From behind it, we could hear muffled screams and laughter, then groans and grunts, more animal than human. Mason stood there, hand outstretched, ready to twist the knob.
“Mason.”
He spun around, fists raised, body rigid, only to see his step-father standing there. The man noted this, saw his expression, and nodded slowly.
“It’s not like what you think.”
“What do I think?” Mase snapped back, forcing Bruce’s eyes over his shoulder to the door beyond. He grabbed the boy by the neck, even as Mase twisted and fought to get free, finally cuffing him across the back of the head and stopping midway down the hall.
“Calm the fuck down!” Bruce growled out, giving him a shake. “You can’t be here. The alpha told you to stay upstairs.”
“What? Where his daughter is playing Barbie doll orgies, getting Zack to be her assistant? What the fuck, Bruce?”
His step-father went to reply, to explain, to use that all too reasonable tone they always did when they were about to tell him he didn’t understand.
“Your mother, she’s a nix, Mason, and it’s about time you dealt with that. She’s not normal, not like other women. She doesn’t find her mate and love him. Whatever she felt for your father, for me, it gets lost in the bullshit. I understand you’re upset. I wouldn’t want to hear that about my mum, but…”
Bruce’s hands fell to his side.
“It doesn’t turn off, what’s inside her. Men lose their fucking minds wanting her, and she wants them. She used to tell me she loved me, cry herself to sleep apologising for it, but she’d be up at the alpha’s place the next day, taking on one and all while I was at work, until they got sick of her and shoved her out. That’s why we always had to move, mate, but to be honest, it’s why we always found another spot in a new pack. The alphas, they keep an eye on the nix in the district. Some won’t have a bar of them, and others… I’m sorry, mate, I really fucking am. If I’d known… If I’d seen what th
is would do to you and to my own son…”
The man’s lips thinned down to a hard line. “I just thank fuck there’s been no other kids dragged into this. It’s fucking cruel, making you boys wear the sins of your mother.”
Mason thrummed like a struck string, energy pulsing through him. His beast was still unpredictable, right on the surface sometimes, not to be seen at others, but with each breath he took, he felt his wolf stretch within him, imbue his limbs with preternatural strength, readying him.
Your mother’s a slut. He’d heard it so often, it barely got a reaction from him anymore. Well, unless Zack was with him. Explaining what that word meant in a way that made sense to a kid was seriously fucking awkward, but this… All those alphas’ sons who seemed to arrow in on him the moment he came to town, those posses of bullies who had him in their sights on the first day of school. His mother drinking herself into oblivion instead of… Those kids’ hands around Zack. When he looked back into Bruce’s eyes, he saw the firm adult mask falter and something much more honest seep through, something terrifying.
“No.” Bruce heard his denial but nothing changed in his demeanour, which just made it all hit harder. “NO!”
I saw the dark wolf shape come together from the shadows on the wall as Mason fought his beast, a low hum buzzing in my ear. But it was a war that was never going to be won. Dark fur prickled over his skin, and Bruce frowned at the sight of it, watching Mase flicker between forms.
“Do we have a problem?”
The alpha came through the doorway bare chested, and to Mason, he moved as if in slow motion, the man’s hands going to his waistband, buttoning up and zipping his pants. Mason’s eyes darted up, saw for a brief second a bacchanal of naked bodies before the door clicked shut.
“Bruce?”
Right then, the alpha wasn’t a man that Mason had met today, wasn’t the power figure they had to placate to find another pack to live in. Another where the boys in the town would get in his face, describing all the shit they knew his mother did. And they’d be right, he only just realised, feeling like a fucking idiot. Another town where Zack would be a target because he was smaller and younger than Mason and hadn’t yet learned to fight. Another town where his mother would drink herself into a stupor, not for the whole day as he thought, but whenever she wasn’t here, servicing the enforcers, paying the rent for their continued existence. His claws burst from his fingertips, his fangs snicking down at the ready, his whole body tensed and ready to strike.