by Marcy Jacks
The pups were still chasing each other around, and the omegas looked like they were carrying laundry baskets or the small game they’d hunted.
It wasn’t uncommon for an old truck to come driving onto the property, so no one looked twice at it until he slowed down and came just a little bit closer, and the people who were outside noticed that the man driving was not someone they recognized.
Mason didn’t recognize all of them either. That was to be expected. New alphas and omegas would have come. Pups would be born.
The one strange thing he noticed was that all the cabins seemed to be getting a much needed upgrade. The last time he was here, some of these places looked ready to fall down. He could smell new wood and sawdust. There were new windows on most of the cabins, too, and
some even had extensions built into them. There were two brand new
cabins that hadn’t been there before either, and the trailers were gone.
Had James won the lottery or something?
For the first time it occurred to Mason that James might not even be the alpha anymore. Ten years had passed. Another wolf could have come and fought him for leadership and won, forcing James to leave,
26 Marcy Jacks
much the same way Mason did.
He pulled up to the house that the alpha and wise woman always occupied. It was the largest, and the nicest as far as Mason was concerned, but now with the addition of the new cabins and the
renovations to the rest, it looked old and tired.
Mason felt pretty old and tired as he turned off the ignition, parked the truck, and let his head fall back against his seat.
He was bleeding all over the place. His skin was sticky with drying blood. That sucked.
Mason looked out the side mirror and noted the way the kids were crowding around the truck, trying to see who was inside without getting too close. The scent of blood was probably what kept even the bravest of them from coming forward.
He watched as another adult, an omega judging by the size of him, worked his way through the group of pups.
Mason squinted at him as he came closer. Was that―?
The omega with shaggy blond hair rapped on the window of his truck. Mason grabbed the roller and lowered it.
Green eyes widened at him in surprise, and Mason recognized who it was.
“Tristan?”
“Mason?”
Mason laughed. “Jesus Christ, I didn’t recognize you there for a
sec.”
Tristan had just turned seventeen when Mason left, and it wasn’t like he and the other man hung out a lot, but there was no mistaking that hair or those eyes. The guy was probably still wearing flip-flops.
Tristan hardly looked in the mood for a happy reunion as he surveyed the inside of Mason’s truck. “You either, especially with all the blood. Fuck, what happened?”
“I’m not that badly hurt. Ran into a couple of hunters with shotguns.”
“Let’s get you inside,” Tristan said, opening the door and helping
Mason Returns to His Mate 27
Mason to get out.
His legs were fine, so he had no trouble walking, but Tristan kept his hand on Mason’s good arm anyway.
Yup, he was still wearing flip-flops, Mason realized when he looked down at the man’s feet.
“Is James here?”
“He’s out hunting. I’ll send someone to get him. Just take it easy until we can get you cleaned up.”
Mason laughed a little, calmer now that he was in familiar hands. “Not used to handling hunters anymore.”
“I can see that.”
Tristan didn’t so much as knock on the front door to request permission to enter the leading alpha’s domain. Mason was kind of flattered that Tristan felt the situation was deserving of overlooking the basic forms of respect.
“Is he still alpha?” Mason asked.
Tristan looked at him, and it occurred to Mason that not everyone in the pack was going to be aware that Mason hadn’t kept in touch with his brother. James must have left that private.
“He is. He’ll look different from the last time you saw him, though, and he has a mate.”
“Really?”
Tristan nodded, moving the both of them to one of the spare bedrooms.
“Oh, that’s good. Good for him,” Mason said as they went inside.
When Tristan flicked on the light, Mason realized that this room was no longer the spare bedroom he recalled it as being. There were now six beds in here, and all of them looked like hospital beds from the forties. The spare room had been turned into a medical room.
It made Mason wonder what had been happening over the years for the pack to need it.
Tristan helped him onto the bed, not that Mason needed it, and then pulled out some cotton swabs and alcohol from out of a drawer.
28 Marcy Jacks
“Soak and clean your wounds. I’ll go get Old Maggie, and she can help clean you up.”
“There any water in this house?”
“I’ll bring you something. Just sit tight,” Tristan said, rushing off.
Mason felt strangely alone when the other man was gone. He looked around the room as he swabbed the holes in his chest and arm,
and then thought about all the changes he’d seen around the pack.
He wasn’t sure why, but it was almost as if he expected to come back and see that no one had aged and nothing had changed with him
gone.
Nope. People were older. Some of the pups he remembered were now adults and either out hunting with the other alphas or gone somewhere to make their own packs.
Seeing Tristan had really hit it home for him. This place was no longer his home. It hadn’t been since the day he was shamed and forced to leave.
Mason had no idea what he was doing there, and never felt more out of place. At this point, he was relying on the kindness of strangers to not kick him out of the pack and allow him to stay long enough to see his brother and let his wounds heal.
He wondered how Derek was doing.
* * * *
Derek had flipped the Closed sign around more than an hour ago and was really just dallying around the shop, sweeping this, adjusting that, to stall before going home.
He was hoping against hope that Mason would come back, despite how he was still pissed off at the man.
He flicked the lights off just as the sky outside went full dark. That was happening earlier and earlier now, and he was just getting ready to grab his messenger bag and pack it in when the door jingled.
He stopped, his heart coming into his throat with hope. The door
Mason Returns to His Mate 29
was locked, so it didn’t open, but the person on the other side had tried to open it so roughly, as though they’d walked right into the door expecting it to open for them at this hour, that the bell tinkled anyway.
“Mason?” he asked when the door jingled again. Derek walked to the door with an inflated heart and a smile on his face, just to stop at the dark shadow that loomed on the other side of the glass.
Not Mason. “Sorry, we’re closed,” Derek said.
The door rattled again. Derek had to tell himself to stop being such a pussy and just go over there and tell the guy.
“Sir, we’re clo―oh.”
It was the old man was before. His face was serious as he stared at
Derek through the glass and bars of the door. The kind of serious someone had before they killed a man.
The deep frown on his mouth and black shadows under his eyes
wasn’t helping that either, nor was the handgun he had. He put it to the glass and pointed it at Derek.
“Open the door, son,” the man said, his voice muffled through the glass, but Derek still understood him perfectly.
He wished he couldn’t, but he had no choice in the matter with a
deadly weapon pointed at him. Not even his dad pointed a gun at him when he came out to his family, and they were heavily again
st his way of life.
Derek moved slowly, fearful that anything too quick would spook the guy into firing. They kept their eyes locked as Derek twisted the latch that bolted the door and then turned off the alarm.
The old man stepped inside, and with his eyes, and the gun, still on Derek, he signaled to the others he had waiting for him outside.
Great. All three were still together.
“Listen, if it’s the guns you want, I don’t care, you can have them.”
“Be quiet, boy,” said the older man, and he turned to one of his
younger companions.
“You sure ’bout this, Billy?”
30 Marcy Jacks
Billy stepped forward, his eyes scrutinizing Derek. “Yeah, positive. Those tire tracks came from that truck that was parked out in front of this shop before we came in. He and that wolf were talking.”
Derek’s eyes just about popped out of his head. Holy shit, these guys were actually hunters. They were out to kill Mason and the rest of his pack.
Derek had never met hunters in real life before. Now that he had,
he was wishing with everything inside him that he wasn’t. There was definitely no thrill to this.
The fact that they spoke so openly right in front of Derek couldn’t be a good thing either.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ve had barely any customers all day and none of them were regulars. If you’re looking for someone, then I can promise you I don’t know them.”
He’d promise that the sun revolved around the earth, too, if that was what would make these guys happy.
Billy shook his head. “No. I came here earlier after that guy entered this building. You had the door locked and the ‘Closed’ sign up until your friend left and we came back. Those were his tire tracks, sir. This guy’s a supporter.”
“A supporter of what? I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Derek said, starting to panic now as it looked more and more like these guys weren’t about to let him off the hook.
Their leader nodded, and then he reached behind his back and
pulled out a set of very official-looking handcuffs.
Derek lost it at the sight of them. He remembered the stories Mason had told him about when a hunter thought someone might have information they wanted. There was no way in hell Derek was going to let these guys strap him to a table somewhere and strip the skin from his body.
Pushing the old man’s hand out of the way, the one that had been holding the gun, Derek shoved him back.
Mason Returns to His Mate 31
The gun fired, and the old man went down, falling against a stack of display boxes that Derek had kept near the door.
The old man swore loudly, and Derek turned tail and ran for his life.
“You mother fucking son of a bitch!” Billy yelled, chasing after
him as the old man screamed and cried out.
Good. Derek hoped he broke the old guy’s hip.
He jumped over the counter like he was still nineteen or something, fleeing to his back room. To the heavy door that was there.
“I’ll get you, you fucking faggot!”
Derek was so happy he got into running.
The door to his back room was left open for him, and with the momentum he was running at, as he ran into his storage room, he grabbed the door handle and pulled it shut behind him just as that kid reached his hand out to grab hold of the door.
He got his fingers caught and shrieked instead when Derek slammed the door on them. He winced at the gross crunch and highpitched shrieking but didn’t stop trying to pull the door shut.
Billy had to grab the door handle, and Derek watched him stick his foot on the wall in the most desperate of acts and pull back on the door just enough to free his hand, allowing Derek to shut and lock himself in without taking Billy’s fingers with him.
The door was heavy and a good three inches of metal. It was as good as a panic room and was where Derek kept all the ammunition and other assorted items that hadn’t been priced to sell yet.
The only thing it didn’t have compared to a real panic room was a direct line to the police.
But it did have a window.
It was small as all hell, but he could unlock it from where he was
and squeeze through if he tried.
The first thing he did was grab a Glock. He’d lied when he told
that old psychopath out there and his team that he had no handguns. It
32 Marcy Jacks
was his only handgun, and he had only a single clip to go with it, unfortunately, but it was that or nothing. He wasn’t about to toss any of the rifles he had out the window for him to collect when he got outside in case those men would go out there and see that then simply wait for him. He had no time.
Derek put the clip to the gun in his pocket and made sure the gun was empty before he stuck it in the back of his pants and climbed on top of a crate so he could reach the window.
The last thing he needed was to blow himself another ass crack.
He wormed his way out of the window and nearly fell on his face. The wind was pretty much knocked out of him on that clumsy fall on his chest, but he was still alive.
Derek groaned, forced himself to his feet, and started to hobble off. Now that he was outside, he could better hear the wailing of the men inside his shop, as well as the destruction as they tore through the place, knocking over his shelves. He cringed at the sound of glass shattering.
Whatever was going on in there, they were occupied. They thought he was trapped in that room, and they were going to spend a couple hours trying to get the door open before they realized Derek was no longer inside.
Or they would give up and leave right now, walk out of the shop
empty-handed, just to see Derek slinking away.
He picked up the pace, heading down one of the alleys behind the street just to keep himself from being easily seen.
The first place he thought to go was home, but then he stopped, frozen in place.
His bag. His fucking messenger bag with his cell and wallet and everything else he used during the day, it was still inside the shop. Those guys were going to find it for sure. There was no way they were going to mistake it for a piece of merchandise. They were going to find it, open it up, find all his identification, and then they would know where he lived.
Mason Returns to His Mate 33
Derek slammed the side of his fist down on the brick wall behind
him. It hurt, but he did it again. What was he going to do? What the
hell was he supposed to do now?
“Hello?”
Derek jumped. There, just down at the other end of the alley, was another shadowy man. This was different from those three guys Derek had just escaped from, but that didn’t mean they weren’t all working together or something, and that didn’t stop Derek from bolting in the other direction.
Right into the arms of another huge guy.
He flailed, brought his fist up, and caught the guy in the cheek before his wrists were grabbed in a surprisingly strong pair of hands. He wanted to elbow the guy, but he couldn’t, and when that huge hand went over his mouth, he really started to kick and buckle.
This man was strong, though, and even though the other guy came to hold down Derek’s legs, Derek got the feeling that his attacks weren’t really doing anything to the man holding him.
Warm breath wafted over his ear. “It’s me, you idiot.”
Mason’s growling voice was just the thing Derek needed to stop. Had it been anyone else, he would’ve kept on fighting until the death.
“Let him go, James. I got him,” Mason said, and the other man in the alley with them released his feet. Mason then put Derek back on the ground, releasing him.
Derek spun around. “Some guys just tried to kill me. They know about you.”
“Yeah, I figured from the panic in your scent that you weren’t just out for a stroll.” Mason put his arm a
round Derek’s shoulder and led him down the alley. “Come with me. I’ll take you home. You’ll need to lie low for a bit until―”
“I can’t go home,” Derek said.
“You have to. It’s the only―”
“No, you don’t get it. All my ID is back at the shop. There’s no
way they won’t find it and figure out where I live. Those guys are
34 Marcy Jacks
going to come for me. We need to call the cops,” Derek added, almost as an afterthought. Not that it would’ve mattered, considering he had no phone on him, but why it hadn’t occurred to him to contact the police before was something he didn’t quite understand.
“We can’t do that. Not with hunters . The police won’t have
anything on them.”
“Except breaking and entering and trying to kill me!”
“Shh!” James snapped.
Derek couldn’t believe he was being so stupid when they needed to be quiet. “I’m making sure those fucks get put away as long as possible for this.”
Mason lifted a brow at him. “Did they break in?”
“They―” Derek stopped. That was right. Derek had opened the door and let them in. “They still attacked me.”
“And you’ve apparently killed one of them,” said James.
Derek couldn’t have been more stunned in all his life. “What? No
I didn’t.”
“I’m scenting blood and death coming from your store,” James said, looking down at him curiously. Then his nostrils flared as he sniffed again. “Do you have a weapon on you?”
Derek wanted to groan. He pulled out the Glock to show them. “I do, but there’s nothing in the magazine. See?”
He pulled back the slider and showed them. “The clip is in my pocket. I didn’t even get this gun until I got out of there. I didn’t shoot anyone.”
“We heard a gunshot,” Mason said, also looking down at Derek. “You sure you didn’t do anything by accident?”