Chapter Two
Mason
Roark lifted his head sharply and gave me an eat-shit-and-die look, and I laughed out loud. Valerian smiled too, but made a little tsking sound in my ear.
Finn ignored me though, and turned back to at Roark suspiciously. “How did you find us here?”
“We…uh…well, after you left, the pack reported the car stolen. The police called yesterday and said they found it and impounded it. They said it had been abandoned in a parking lot on a mountain trail down here and wanted us to come pick it up.”
“Goddamn it!” I yelled and tried to get at him again, but Finn still had that death grip on my arms. I’d have to break a few of his fingers to get free, and I was about ready to do it to get to Roark. Finn and I were going to have to have a talk about this kind of shit pretty damn soon.
“Damn it, I told you not to leave it up there.” We had left the car we had traveled in from Virginia at a small car park on Highway 64, near Franklin, beside a trailhead for the Appalachian Trail. We left the car there near some others, then hiked in to our campsite about ten miles away. I hadn’t wanted to leave the car, but Finn had argued that people leave cars there all the time while they hike the AT and it would be fine. Apparently, he hadn’t figured on his treacherous former pack reporting it stolen.
“Now how are we going to get our car back?”
“I brought the title,” Roark said, trying to be all helpful.
I looked at Finn with my eyebrows raised. “You mean to tell me you left the damn title!” Finn was still ignoring me. I started looking around for a rock to throw at him.
“All you have to do is go to the station, show them the title with your name on it and tell them it was all a mistake,” Roark said, beginning to look hopeful.
Finn started muttering under his breath, maybe not quite so calm as he wanted me to think. He started pacing up and down like he did when he was trying to figure things out but he was out of his depth. Alphas were all about strength and determination, but not so much with the brainpower. Finn was far from unintelligent, but he’d never had to use his brain much in the past when his brawn worked so well to get whatever he wanted. I could see he was trying to figure out whether or not he should risk going to the cops for that old hunk of junk he called a car.
It was a pain in the ass, and besides, I had been taught by Jax it was better to stay away from police no matter what. He said they were way too nosey and asked too many questions, so it was best not to get involved with them in the first place. Of course, he had a bad history with the cops in Alabama, where we were from, with them taking our abusive father’s word over his, so it was easy to see why he still didn’t trust them. It was the reason we’d run away rather than try to get anybody back home to believe us. Who would take the word of a couple of kids over that of a trusted pillar of the community?
Finn’s eyebrows came together suspiciously. “You still haven’t said how you found us here. We’re miles off the main highway.”
“We followed your trail from the car to this campsite. You didn’t seem to be trying to hide it.”
“Because we had no idea you lunatics would try to follow us,” I said. I finally took a good look at the others with him. Typical wolves. Tall, dark and arrogant. They were doing their share of looking back at me and I realized I was still naked, but they were scared enough of Valerian and Finn not to touch me. That didn’t mean they weren’t doing their share of staring. I would have thought they’d be used to nudity—they were shifters, after all. But I was a lot blonder than any wolf, with paler skin than the others, I guess, so maybe I was a novelty. Anyway, they kept stealing glances at me so I stared defiantly back at them.
Wolf shifters didn’t seem to have any sexual preferences when it came to gender. Like vampires, sexual gratification was wherever and whenever they could find it. Power was the most important thing and far outweighed any other considerations.
I recognized these wolves from Finn’s old pack, though none of them had ever been exactly friendly. Then again, Finn had been so jealous of me when I first arrived he rarely let any other pack members near me so most of them didn’t have a clear idea of who I was or what I was like. Finn gestured toward these others now.
“You brought your brothers with you?”
“Four of them. Seth and Amos wouldn’t come. They’re too afraid of…” he jerked his head toward Valerian who gazed serenely back at him. Wolves and nightstalkers were traditional enemies, and if I hadn’t met Valerian the way I had, I probably would have been terrified of him too. He just exuded menace from every pore when he wanted to and though he was absolutely gorgeous, it was obvious that he wasn’t human or even close to it. I don’t know how I didn’t see it for so long, but I guess it was because he had compelled me not to notice. The more that influence wore off, the more I really saw him.
Werewolves could pass as human and did it all the time. They walked among humans every day and people noticed their size and maybe even got an odd vibe from them, but mostly they didn’t catch on. And even if they did, their first thought was not going to be, “Oh yeah, he must be a werewolf.” They just knew they were dangerous, moved aside to give them plenty of room as they passed and minded their own business.
Not so with a nightstalker and especially not one as old and powerful as Valerian. For one thing, he didn’t move right. He never blinked his eyes, and sometimes when he walked, unless he was really concentrating, he almost seemed to glide. There was just this stillness about him, and his features were too pale and too perfect. Occasionally, since he knew the inactivity freaked me out a little, he pretended to breathe or blink or even sleep. But it was never real. Since he now had Finn’s werewolf blood coursing through his veins, his skin tone had changed a little and he’d pinkened up a bit. But he was still far from normal looking.
“Afraid of the nightstalker? Hell, they should have been afraid of me!” Finn yelled. “Bastards trying to ambush me after all I did for all of you.” He ranted and raved at them and kicked some more dirt for a while, but I knew he had decided to take them back. I turned to Valerian and rolled my eyes.
“How much longer is this going to take, do you think?”
His lips twitched a little. “I think he’s winding it down,” he said as Finn continued to rant and rave at them. “Who are these wolves? Can we trust them?”
“Roark was his beta and an old friend. The Nightslayers killed both of Finn’s parents when he was a kid and Roark’s folks took him in. He always said Roark was like a brother to him. These boys too, I guess, but they’re all younger, I think. The big one is Tate, the one next to him is Garth. And I think the other two are Kirk and Conrad.” They must have heard their names—the aforementioned werewolf hearing thing, and then too, I didn’t bother to lower my voice much—because all four of them glanced over at us curiously. They looked a little scared of Valerian, and even of me, but I couldn’t sense any malice in them at all.
“As for trusting them, I don’t. But it’s pretty obvious Finn is willing to. Remains to be seen, I guess. But if they fuck up again, we’ll kill ‘em.”
Roark raised his head and gave me another dirty look. “We can all hear you, you know.”
“I know,” I said and smiled at him.
Finn cuffed him on the shoulder. “Don’t smart off to Mason. Or to Valerian either if you know what’s good for you. I’ll let you stay for a while and see how it works out. I’m not sure if we can be a pack again, but I’ll think about it. The three of us are going to visit Mason’s family today, so you stay here till we get back. I expect you all to make yourself useful while we’re gone, and you can start by cooking us some breakfast. I assume you’re hungry.”
That was a safe bet. Werewolves, and Finn in particular, were always either planning their next meal, eating that meal, or cleaning up after it. Except for when they were having sex, and if Finn could have figured out a way to get a snack in then, he would have. I still didn’t rule it out.
“I’m going to get dressed,” I announced and all of them looked at me as I turned to go back to the cave. I put a little something extra in the swing of my ass because I could feel all their gazes on me and in Valerian and Finn’s cases, at least, I wanted them to suffer a little. I still hadn’t forgiven either of them for lying to me for so long and it would probably be a while before I did. Anyway, I left the wolves arguing with Finn and got my clothes on, trying to find something that didn’t look too shabby to put on to go see my brother. I had bought myself a decent pair of jeans and boots to replace the things I’d outgrown, but I didn’t have much in the way of shirts. I tried on a few of Finn’s but they were still way too big on me, and Valerian’s had too many ruffles. He could rock those pirate shirts like nobody’s business, but on me they just looked stupid. I finally settled on the only clean t-shirt I had left that wasn’t too tight or too full of holes, finger combed my hair and went back outside.
“It’s a few miles hike across the mountains to Cade and Jax’s lodge. We’d better get started before it gets too hot.”
In my absence, one of Roark’s brothers had started cooking bacon. He had one pack done already, so I ambled over to snag a few pieces, along with a few slices of bread. I was glad to see that Finn had pulled on some pants while I’d been gone—that ass still belonged to me whether I wanted it right now or not. I had plans for it later, and I hadn’t liked the way Roark had been ogling him. Truthfully, there wasn’t anything I did like about Roark, come to think of it. I threw Finn a shirt and jerked my head toward the trail. “Let’s get going.”
I took off up the trail and waited for them to catch up. Finn had brought along the rest of the bacon and a loaf of bread for a light snack on the way. It was about eight miles along this old trail to Cade’s lodge, if I remembered correctly. We could have made it more quickly if Finn and I had shifted, but I didn’t want to show up naked after all this time and if they caught our scent before we got there, which they almost certainly would, we might be less alarming in our human forms.
Then again, Valerian was with us, so all bets were off. I had no idea what the Dark Hollows packs knew about nightstalkers. I’d never heard them mentioned before, though Valerian had been familiar with the pack and had actually followed Finn to Dark Hollows pack land the night he found me on the trail.
“Valerian,” I said softly and he came up beside me and leaned in. His sweet scent assailed me and my knees went weak for a second like they always did when I was around him, but when I stumbled he caught my arm and steadied me.
“Be careful, darling.”
“Darling” was what he called me most of the time. It was sappy, but old fashioned and kind of sweet, like he was. I leaned on him a little more than was absolutely necessary just because I could. “Did you ever hunt this far south?”
“Not as a rule,” he replied. “Though I can’t say it never happened. We knew about the wolves here, of course, and stayed out of their way when we could. Not out of fear, but because we already had our hands full with Finn’s pack. We probably would have gotten around to them sooner or later.”
“But do Marco and Cade, their alphas, know about you?”
“They know we exist, of course. I can’t say how much else they’re aware of.”
“I don’t want any trouble. These people are my family.” I turned to include Finn in the lecture and he nodded, already unhappy about the idea of being around strange wolves and other alphas.
“You could have stayed in camp, you know,” I called to him softly.
“And let my mates go without me? Not likely.”
“I’m not your mate,” Valerian and I both said at the same time.
“Are too,” Finn said, mostly under his breath with that stubborn, pouty look on his face I hated so much. He could be such a child sometimes, but I just ignored him and kept walking. I noticed Valerian couldn’t quite stare him down either and shifted his gaze like he felt guilty about something. Mm-hmm. I had heard them going at it the night before when they thought I was asleep. I also knew that Valerian lay with Finn some nights. Not sleeping, because he didn’t need to, but just resting in his arms, like he used to do with me. And then there were the marks Finn left on Valerian’s skin. They faded quickly because Valerian’s vampire skin wouldn’t hold a mark for long, but Finn was a voracious and possessive lover and liked to mark his territory. He’s put them all over me too if I let him.
And had they really thought they were being quiet? I didn’t mind them being together, like I had already told them both. They were supposed to be together and I knew that. Just like I was supposed to be with both of them too. The air almost sizzled between Finn and Valerian sometimes when they looked at each other. But they both felt guilty about not including me, even though I’d told them I wasn’t ready yet. I felt no jealousy. Why should I? I knew they both belonged to me, and I was crazy about both of them. Why wouldn’t I want two sexy, drop dead gorgeous men in my bed, doing everything they could to take care of me and make me happy? When the time came, I’d be all over that. If they got a little side action with each other in the meantime, I was fine with it. When I got good and ready and when I thought they’d suffered enough, I would claim them again. Until then, they could enjoy each other with my blessing. Especially if I got to watch—and make suggestions.
It took us until almost midday to get to the ridge overlooking Cade and Jax’s lodge. It was the home built on the highest elevation at Mountainwood, which was the name for the pack land of the Dark Hollows wolves. Since we’d come across the ridge instead of going by the road, we got to Cade’s lodge first, as it was higher on the mountain than Marco’s lodge. It surprised me that when we crossed over the border I immediately scented wolves and knew the perimeter guards had been through that way just about thirty minutes or so before. I still hadn’t gotten used to my new abilities yet so stuff like that still had the power to take me off guard. I could even tell exactly who it had been. I thought one of them was Casey, who lived down the mountain at Marco’s lodge and acted as his beta or second, so to speak, now that Ian and his mate Logan had moved on. The other was a young gamma wolf named Connor. He was Cade’s younger brother, and his mate had been murdered by some rebellious members of Marco’s pack not too long before I was attacked and taken to Virginia.
I’d known Connor since Jax and I ran away from home and we first met Cade’s wolf pack on the road. Jax and I had been running west, trying to put as much distance as we could between us and my father, who was Jax’s stepfather, in Alabama. Cade and his pack were traveling from Louisiana to their new home in North Carolina. As a matter of fact, after they found us and took us with them, I had ridden part of the way on the back of Connor’s motorcycle. Come to think of it, they’d more or less kidnapped me and Jax back then too. At least at first. Cade had recognized Jax as his mate and said he had a bloodlust for him so that was apparently that. Any plans we might have had flew right out the window.
Not that I had any plans personally—I was only eight years old—but Jax had some. He dreamed of going west and getting a job somewhere and an apartment for the two of us. But all that changed drastically when Cade saw us eating breakfast in a roadside diner. He swooped in, gathered us up and took us to North Carolina, where he built a huge, beautiful lodge for Jax and gave us both everything we’d ever wanted. I knew Jax loved him and was happy with him. Still, it was the principle of the thing. So considering the shit they got up to with their own mates, I didn’t see how the wolves would have any moral ground to stand on with me and mine.
Anyway, Connor, Cade’s brother, had always been really nice to me. He was a great guy all the way around and when his mate was killed, I was really afraid it would kill him too. He had been wild with grief. Wolves are like that—if their mates die, they have a hard time recovering and some never do. He made it though and the entire pack had been really relieved. It had been hard on all of us to see him suffer so much. As much as I like to tease Finn that I wasn’t his mate, in my heart I knew I really was. And it would have killed me if something had happened to him or Valerian. I don’t think I would have been as strong as Connor, and I admired him.
I stopped and held up a hand to Finn and Valerian. “The guards have been through here recently, so they’re probably not too far away. Stay close to me as we go down to the lodge. I don’t want anybody jumping on you first and asking questions later.”
They nodded, though Finn was clearly not liking the idea of me taking the lead. We made our way down the hill to the huge, log-built lodge that I had already spotted through the trees. We were a couple hundred yards away when I saw Rayce, Cade’s beta, step out on the wide front porch with a couple of gammas behind him. They were bulked up and about half-shifted so that answered the question of whether or not they’d already scented us coming. Rayce lifted his face in the air and sniffed again, long and hard. I could hear his menacing growl all the way over where I was standing. I raised my hand in the air and called to him.
“Rayce! Hold on a minute. It’s me—Mason! I’m home.”
He didn’t react any way at all. Just kept staring at me. Funny how I never realized before how truly scary my former pack was. I’d grown up with these guys, and they had all been my friends and protectors. Now I knew what their enemies must have seen when they looked at them, and it wasn’t pretty.
A few more of his guys came out on the porch behind him with some jumping down into the yard, just waiting for his signal. “Rayce!” I said again. “It’s me, Mason. At least come out and talk to me first before you get all excited.”
He snarled something at me and then said something over his shoulder to his men. Then he slowly began to saunter my way, three of his big gammas behind him. He managed to look casual, like we were no big deal and he ate guys like us for breakfast every day, but every line of his body was tense. His muscles were bulked up and ready for action.
I heard Finn make a little whining noise—he wanted to fight them so damn bad. Valerian hadn’t made a sound, but he stepped up closer to me. The menacing expression on his face would have stopped me in my tracks, had I been Rayce and his men, but they just kept coming.
“No,” I said as forcefully as I could, talking to both of my men. “Don’t let them provoke you. This is my family, damn it.”
“Somebody needs to tell them that,” Finn grumbled from beside me.
“It’s Mason!” I yelled again. “Damn it, Rayce, don’t you recognize me?”
“Mason est mort,” he said, speaking Cajun, like he always did when he got excited.
“No, I’m not dead, Rayce. I’m right here. Just a little…different. Come closer and really look at me. Smell me again. I’m still in here somewhere.”
He was within about twenty feet now, but he mostly had eyes for Valerian. He had recoiled when he got close enough to realize exactly what he was dealing with. “Vampire,” he’d said in his Cajun accent and made the sign of the cross on his chest, falling back a few steps. He sniffed again. “All of you.”
“No!” I said, really loud and took another step forward. “Just stop right there. You don’t want to do this. Rayce. Now get Cade or my brother out here. Hell—I’ll call him myself. Jax!” I shouted. “Jax are you in there? Come out here.”
Jax appeared in the doorway and then came slowly out on the porch. I saw Cade come running across the yard from the treeline of the woods then, and Rayce turned to yell something to him in rapid fire Cajun that I totally missed, but it didn’t sound good. I shouted at Jax again, determined to get through to him. “Jax, for God’s sake, don’t tell me you don’t know your own brother.” I stretched my arms out to the side. “It’s me, Mason. I’ve come home.”
Cade never stopped running—God save me from alphas—and he just surged past Rayce and came running flat out toward me like he was going to snap me in half. I flinched backward and that was all it took. My own big bad alpha had about all he could take. Finn jumped out in front of me to meet him, surging forward as he met Cade’s charge with a ferocious roar. I remember seeing Nature films on tv of two bull mountain rams slamming into each other. They would put down their big old heads with those massive curved horns and just slam into each other with enough force to make the ground shake under their feet. That’s what Cade and Finn looked like when they hit. Finn was bigger and he had enhanced strength since Valerian had shared bodily fluids with him, but Cade was plenty tough too, and they crashed into each other with so much force that both of them fell backward again. Then they jumped back up to their feet and just started whaling on each other.
Rayce and his gammas jumped in to help, so Valerian and I both joined in the fray too, and for a couple of minutes it didn’t look too good for our side. I was trying my best not to hurt anybody, but since they were just as determined to whip my ass, it wasn’t easy to handle them. I was down on my back with two of them on top of me when I heard the report of a shot gun going off right above my head, so damn loud I think I went deaf for a second or two. I looked up and saw Jax standing over me with the gun in his hand. He wasn’t pointing it at me though. He had the business end of the thing pointing right at Valerian who had jumped to his feet after taking out two or three of their guys and was headed toward me to help me out. Aiming that thing at Valerian just wasn’t going to work for me at all, because I knew they kept silver shells in it and one of those to the heart could end him.
I hurled my attackers off me and jumped up right in Jax’s face, tearing the gun out of his hands. “Jax!” I screamed at him. “I said it’s me! Mason! Open your fucking eyes and look at me, damn it. I’m your brother!”
Snarling, he looked me squarely in the eye then and his face just crumpled. “M-Mason?” he asked, his voice breaking. “Mason?”
“Yes—it’s me and I’m home. I know I’m different, but I can explain everything if you stop trying to kill us for a few seconds. We don’t want any trouble, so tell Rayce and Cade to chill the fuck out.”
He took my face in his hands, and he was trembling. “It is you. My God, Mason, I thought you were dead.”
“I know. I know. I kinda was, in a way, but I’m good now. Let me talk to you and explain everything that’s happened. Can we do that?”
He grabbed me up in a bear hug and everybody else stopped trying to kill each other for a second and gaped at us. Finally, he held me at arm’s length and glanced over at Valerian. “Who is that, Mason? What are you doing with this-this…”
“Nightstalker is the term I prefer,” Valerian helpfully supplied. “Though vampire is most commonly used. Valerian Delacroix, at your service, sir,” he said and gave my brother a creditable little bow from the waist. Damn he was so fucking edible. I frowned at him anyway.
“Delacroix? How come I never heard that before?”
“Ah, mon chou, you know everything important.”
“Mon chou? I don’t even know what that means. What is it?”
He shrugged in that adorable Gallic way of his. “A term of endearment. Roughly translated, it means ‘my little cabbage’.”
My mouth dropped open and then I heard more growling behind me and saw that Cade and Finn were going at it again. At the moment, Finn was actively trying to rip Cade’s head off, while Cade had a good chunk of Finn’s calf in his mouth. “Finn!” I yelled. “Leave Cade alone.”
“I will if he’ll leave me alone!” he yelled.
Jax looked alarmed. “Who are these men, Mason? What are they to you?”
I sighed and shrugged. “They’re my…um, my friends. Sort of.”
“Friends, hell!” Finn yelled, and I rolled my eyes.
“Okay,” I huffed out a heavy sigh. I’d been hoping to break it more gently to Jax. “They’re my mates.”
“Both of them?” Jax asked incredulously, his eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, both of them,” I admitted, dropping my head. They both grinned, and Finn got an elbow to the face.