And then Beck had gone outside and bawled her eyes out in the woods because her heart had been so touched by that tender moment. When she’d claimed Mason, she’d thought she couldn’t love him more than in that moment. But then he’d been patient and tender with her, and she thought she couldn’t love him anymore than in that moment. And then she’d seen him with Ryder…and she fell in love with him all over again, every day.
As they sat down for breakfast, chattering away about plans for the day, there was a commotion outside, and Clinton yelled out, “Mason! Beck!”
“What the hell?” Mason muttered.
“What the hell?” Ryder repeated, sliding off his chair.
“Don’t say ‘hell,’” Mason and Beck both said at the same time.
Mason made it to the door first and muttered a curse at whatever he saw outside. Beck was mighty tempted to repeat said curse the second she saw the patrol car flashing its lights right in the middle of Boarland Mobile Park. The Boarlanders were gathered around a pair of uniformed police officers, and from the looks of it, Ally was giving them hell.
“But it’s against the law to register under crews now,” Ally gritted out, her face a mask of fury as she held a stack of papers folded in her hand. Her short, platinum blond hair was mussed from sleep, and in the morning light her tattoos down her arm were stark against her pale skin.
“Right, so they’ll be registered as lone shifters under no crew,” the taller police officer explained as Beck and Mason approached.
“What’s wrong, Momma?” Ryder asked, slipping his little hand into hers.
“I don’t know, baby.” He was small for his age and fine-boned like all bird shifters were, so she swung him up onto her hip and hugged him close.
“What’s going on?” Mason asked.
“I’m Officer Dunlap, and this is my partner, Officer Moore,” the shorter police officer said. He gestured to Beck. “We got a call from your ex-husband. He outed you as a non-registered shifter, along with your son and your mate. The registration process has begun based on the information he gave the Saratoga police department, but you’ll have to fill out the rest of the paperwork, and the three of you will be fined for disobeying shifter registration laws.”
Beck felt like she’d been slapped. Mason scanned the paperwork. “Mason Croy, Boar shifter,” he read aloud. Eyes blazing, he glared at the officer. “I’ll be the only registered boar shifter in the world. You’ll put a huge target on my back. I didn’t register for a reason.” His horror-filled gaze drifted to Beck and Ryder. “Please. I’ll pay the fines, do whatever you want me to do, but let me keep my animal off the record.”
“I’m sorry. We didn’t make the laws. We’re just supposed to enforce them.”
Ally huffed a furious breath. “I used to say that to justify what I was doing to innocent people. This is so messed up. How would you feel if you had to register your names in some screwed-up database? Your wife’s name, your children’s names. Huh?” Her voice pitched higher. “We’ve done what the government has asked—”
“They haven’t,” Dunlap said, pointing to Mason and Beck.
“Because they couldn’t!”
“Please,” Beck begged. “If I register, can you please give Mason and my son a pass? I’m asking you as a worried mother. As a worried mate. My ex is trying to get back at me for…I don’t know. It shouldn’t affect them, though.”
“You three remaining unregistered is against the law.” Dunlap’s eyes pooled with regret, but he still handed Mason a new stack of paperwork. “Your total fines are three thousand four-hundred-thirty dollars. You can pay them at the courthouse in Saratoga when you fill in the blanks on your paperwork. You have forty-eight hours.”
As the patrol car pulled a U-turn and drove out of Boarland Mobile Park, Mason scrubbed a hand down the three-day scruff on his jaw, then hugged Beck and Ryder up tight as he watched them disappear under the welcome sign.
The crew looked gutted. Harrison chucked a brick that had been sitting in the road as hard as he could into the trees and yelled a loud, resounding, “Shit!”
“I would not share pizza rolls with them,” Bash said as he rubbed Emerson’s belly gingerly. For the first time since Mason had come back to the Boarlanders, Bash wore a frown on his face instead of a smile.
“I need to Change,” Kirk muttered, his eyes blazing gold.
“Me, too,” Clinton said quietly as he followed the giant silverback shifter toward the tree line behind the trailers.
The others murmured their regret as they drifted off one by one, but Beck couldn’t move. Couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think straight. The world would know she and Ryder were snowy owls now, some of the last of their kind. The world would know about Mason and assume he was the last of the boars since none of the others had registered. She’d felt safe for the first time in her life up in these mountains, and now Robbie had stripped that away from her.
Beck blinked hard and looked down at Ryder’s sweet, frightened face. “It’s okay,” she murmured. God, she wished she could believe what she’d said, but when she looked up into Mason’s somber eyes, something deep inside of her said that nothing was okay.
Before, Ryder had a right to marry who he wanted when he grew up. He could’ve chosen a mate and avoided the bullshit laws that were forced upon shifters, but now, he was just as affected as the rest. He was on the list. He was a target.
Mason pressed his lips to her forehead, but his attention was still on the woods where the cop car had disappeared. They weren’t there yet, but now she and Mason could never legally wed. They couldn’t even register to the same crew. Claiming a human mate was illegal, but what about the mark she’d left on him? Was that punishable by jail time like it was with humans?
Their only chance at being anything more than they were right now, in this moment, depended solely on humans voting to reinstate their rights.
Beck wasn’t just building public relations for the shifters of Damon’s mountains anymore.
Now she was fighting for her son, and her mate.
Chapter Twenty
The papers in Beck’s shaking hands made a pathetic shuffling noise. To escape the sound of her weakness, she inhaled deeply, held the air in her lungs for a three-count, then hugged the paperwork to her chest.
Beside her, Mason swung Ryder up on his shoulders, held his legs in place with one arm and pulled her against his side with the other. “I know you’re worried.”
“Mason, I just signed my kid’s rights away. I just signed mine away.” The morning sun peeked over the top of the courthouse. “Up until now, the shifter stuff worried me, but it didn’t affect me. I was good at hiding. I was good at keeping us protected, and now I feel completely naked.”
“You ain’t naked, Momma,” Ryder said from way up high on Mason’s shoulders. “You got lots of clothes on.”
Beck looked down at her power pants and matching charcoal-gray jacket. She smiled at Ryder. “It was just a metaphor. I meant vulnerable.”
Ryder scrunched up his nose. “Huh. I’m hungry.”
The worry didn’t leave Mason’s eyes, but he pulled her to a stop and squared up to her. “Beck, I swear I won’t let anything happen to you and Ryder. You’re mine to protect now. You aren’t alone.”
Her eyes burned with those damn traitorous tears that she’d been trying so hard to hide from Ryder. She shook her head for a long time and admitted low, “It would’ve been different if we could register to the Boarlanders. It would’ve taken the sting off this, but we’re listed as rogue.”
Mason pulled the paperwork from her hands and rifled through to page three as Ryder clung like a barnacle to his forehead. “I’m not a rogue, and neither are you. Neither is Ryder.” Mason jammed his finger at the box on his paperwork that said Mate. He’d written her name in bold, dark capital letters. Rebecca Anderson. “It sucks we had to register, but even if we can’t marry, or claim each other legally yet, we’re bound right here on this legal document.”
Stunned, Beck took the stack from him and stared at her name written proudly in the box. Fumbling, she rifled through her paperwork and held up page three. Mason looked up from where she’d printed his name neatly, and a slow smile transformed his face. “So, I was thinking. Today wasn’t our choice, and it was a forced, raw deal, sure. But it’s also kind of important for you and me and Ryder, so I planned something.”
“Planned what?” Ryder asked in that cute little voice of his.
Mason pulled him from his shoulders and settled Ryder on his feet next to Beck. “I planned a surprise adventure, but we have to go back home to do it. And it means we can’t be fiddlefuckin’ around town too long because we need daylight.”
Ryder formed his mouth into a F shape, but Mason said, “Don’t say fiddlefuckin’. That’s an adult word.”
Ryder clacked his mouth closed. Then excitedly, he said, “I never been on a surprise adventure before.” He bounced beside Beck, clutching her power pants in his little fists.