Boarlander Beast Boar(6)

“Don’t,” Audrey gritted out, but Clinton didn’t hear, or didn’t care.

A massive blond grizzly exploded from his skin and then paced ten yards off, eyes never leaving Mason. A challenge if Beck ever saw one, but she’d never been this close to a Changed grizzly shifter, and Mason stood no chance in a fight with Clinton.

Mason sighed, then pulled his sunglasses off and tossed them in the back of his truck.

Panicked, she pleaded, “Mason.”

“Go on inside,” he murmured in a dead voice.

“No, I don’t think you should do this.”

The Boarlanders had scattered, and now a smattering of pops pulled Beck’s attention. A massive white tiger was stalking forward, head lowered, lips curled back over long canines and, holy shit, what was happening?

When she turned around to beg Mason to leave with her, to get in the truck and drive them away from here, he was peeling his shirt over his head. She was stunned to silence. Oh, she’d known he was fit from the way his shoulders filled his T-shirt, but she hadn’t been prepared for him to look like this. Suntanned skin, rippling with muscle, defined abs that flexed with his movement, and two long, raised scars that stretched from his pelvis up his ribs and disappeared under his arm. His biceps bulged as he pulled his shirt right-side out, as though he had all the time in the world.

“Wait, wait, wait. I think we should go,” she whispered, grabbing his hand without thinking.

He flinched away and gave her a warning look. His eyes were glowing blue, and power pulsed from his skin. “That trailer will do for you,” he ground out, jerking his chin at the last trailer on the left. “Get on inside now. This don’t concern you.”

But he was wrong. It sure felt like it concerned her. Like anything that happened to him would hurt her, and she didn’t want this. Didn’t want him fighting against these apex predators. What chance did a little boar shifter stand against them?

“Mason, go easy on him,” Harrison said.

Wait, what?

Harrison crossed his arms over his chest, his arms flexing with the motion. “Let him keep his innards.”

Beck held out her hands in a beseeching gesture to the Boarlander alpha. “I guess I just don’t understand why they need to bleed—”

Pop, pop, pop! A pulse of raw power blasted against her skin, and Beck hunched defensively. The dust had kicked up, but it didn’t hide the enormous beast that rose up from the earth.

“Oh my God,” she murmured, straightening slowly.

She’d imagined Mason’s animal as a two-hundred-pound feral hog, but she’d been so wrong. The muscular hump between Mason’s shoulder blades was taller than the bed of his jacked-up truck. Pitch black, coarse fur covered his body, and longer hair spiked up like a Mohawk down his back. Huge barrel chest, smaller back end, glossy black hooves, and when the dust settled enough and he looked over his shoulder at her, Beck’s breath was sucked straight out of her lungs. He had long, curved, razor-sharp tusks and demon-bright blazing eyes full of undiluted rage.

She’d been so wrong. He absolutely stood a chance against these predator shifters because Mason Croy was a beast. Emerson grabbed her hand and yanked her toward the trailer, and then Alison was there, hand on her back, urging her forward faster.

“They’re gonna fight,” Beck murmured, stunned.

“Yep, that’s what they do.”

“But they’re friends,” Beck argued. “Friends don’t fight.”

Alison and Emerson shared a loaded look, and they all hunched under the deafening roar of a grizzly.

“Shit,” Alison muttered. “Run now. They aren’t careful brawlers.”

In horror, Beck realized what she meant when a loud clash of animals locked in battle swung their way. Panicked, Beck bolted beside the girls and took the porch stairs two at a time. She froze in the doorway as Audrey’s white tiger leapt onto the boar. Bash’s black-furred grizzly burst from him, and he charged with a speed that was dizzying. “Three against one,” she murmured. “That’s not right.” Not fair. She should Change and help, but what difference could she make in a battle like this? Her animal wasn’t like theirs.

“Not three against one,” Emerson rushed out. “Bash and Audrey are trying to keep them from killing each other. Clinton has been on a tear since Mason left. He has no control. And Mason feels…” She shook her head. “He doesn’t feel right.”

Harrison was in the fight now, and Kirk had Changed into a massive silverback, pacing the outskirts on long, powerful arms and legs, his eyes blazing gold.

Beck couldn’t decipher who was winning. The white gravel road was speckled with blood, and the roaring of the bears rattled the park. They were all so fast, so lethal, their movements blurred, she only got flashes of the battle. Audrey with her claws sunk deep into Clinton’s back. Bash swiping a massive claw at Mason’s front hooves just before he lunged his tusks into Clinton’s exposed belly. Bear slaps echoed through the trailer park and then, in an instant, it was done.

Harrison shrank into his human form and yelled, “Change back. Now!”

The result was instantaneous as Clinton and Bash shrank back into their human skin with pained grunts. Audrey, too, but Mason refused, lifted his tusks higher, and glared down Harrison.

“Please,” the alpha said breathlessly, putting pressure on his bleeding hip.

Mason shrank back but landed hard on his knees.

“Fuck!” Clinton yelled, gripping the underside of his right arm. Red streamed through his fingers as he glared at Mason, then struggled to his feet. “You did this. You made this place Hell, just like I knew it always would be. It wasn’t the girls who screwed us. It was you! You’re the reason Bash can’t smile anymore. You’re the reason Harrison’s so quiet. You’re the reason none of us can look at your damned trailer without feeling empty, why the girls won’t say your name, why Kirk can’t stop his Changes.” He jammed his crimson-soaked finger at Mason. “You’re the reason my chest hurts. I didn’t break the Boarlanders. You did.” Clinton spat red, and with fury in his silver eyes, he strode off toward the trailer across the street with the burns in the yard.

Mason disappeared behind his truck, and when he reappeared, Harrison was following closely behind. Mason wore his jeans, but his shirt was still MIA. He yanked Beck’s belongings out of the back and strode toward the porch she stood on.

“Clinton’s having a hard time,” Harrison said.

“Yeah, and you think I meant for any of this to happen?” Mason barked out, rounding on the alpha. He looked from one face to the other as the Boarlanders gathered around in a loose half-circle, tugging on clothes, averting their gazes, completely silent.

“You think I’m hurting you on purpose? Really? My animal is so fucked up right now I have no control. All I want to do is fight and wash away everything that’s going on in my head, and I’m stuck feeling all this shit I don’t know how to deal with. My time here made that harder. It made me too soft. I wasn’t trying to hurt you!” Mason shook his head and looked like he was about to retch. He lowered his voice. “I was trying to protect you.”

Slowly, Mason set her luggage at the bottom of the stairs and dragged a hollow gaze to Beck. “I can’t be your driver. I’m sorry.”

With that, he spun on his heel and strode back to his truck, then peeled out of Boarland Mobile Park, leaving a trail of dust in his wake. Leaving a trail of friends in his wake. Leaving Beck with a strange hole in her middle that felt as if it would never be filled again.

He didn’t know it, nor would he ever, but her animal had chosen him. And for the millionth time in her life, she hated being a shifter. Hated not having control of her body, of her heart.

Because her animal worked on pure instinct and didn’t understand that Mason Croy, the untouchable beast boar, was the worst decision she could make.





Chapter Five




Mason paced his room. Down to the minutest detail, it looked the same as it had before Damon’s enemy, Marcus, had torched the mansion. Damon was like that, though—thorough, detail oriented, a perfectionist.

He should call Beck. He should apologize and explain, but no. That would require talking about Esmerelda, and he wasn’t there yet. He wouldn’t be able to say what he wanted without Changing and ruining everything. Again.

She shouldn’t have seen his boar that soon. Beck was a classy human not used to the fighting. She wouldn’t understand that he and Clinton had needed to bleed each other. That it was instinct, and that it fixed more than it hurt.

A soft rumble rattled his chest. She shouldn’t have been there. And why the fuck had Cora and Damon thought an unmated human belonged in Boarlander territory anyway? It couldn’t be to tempt the shit out of him because he didn’t even live there. Didn’t visit there.

The heavy double doors to his room swung open, and Damon glided in uninvited. He had a tendency to do that since he wasn’t used to being told “no.” The dragon simply did what he wanted and, apparently, right now, what he wanted was to piss off Mason.

“What happened yesterday?”

“Nothing. I did as you said, got Beck to your mountains safely. I even fed her.”