At least Mason’s porcupine knew he was in trouble. Even if Mason wasn’t entirely sure it was his own command that had shrunk the thing into the back of his mind further than he had been since they arrived in Troutdale. It probably had something to do with the grizzly bear sitting in the seat next to him.

Emma had her head leaned back against the head rest, eyes closed, injured arm cradled across her chest. Her breathing was slow and even. Maybe a little heavier and leaning towards a growl than was normal. Mason didn’t blame his porcupine for hiding. The more he thought about it, the more impressed he became at the fact that Emma hadn’t full-on shifted in his parent’s kitchen.

Each day he spent in Troutdale, the more apparent his lack of control and finesse became. Back in DC, he thought he had a pretty good handle on things. He was wrong.

Mason slowed the car and pulled into the driveway of the small house he rented on the edge of town. As the crow flies, it really wouldn’t have been that far to walk, but he was glad Sam had been around to get them back to the cars. He was not glad that Emma explained to him what happened. Not that they had much of a choice in the matter, but it was already bad enough she had witnessed his idiocy first hand. Mason didn’t particularly want it spread around the rest of the community.

“Here we are,” he said, lamely.

Emma leaned forward and peered out the windshield at his house. “How did you manage to find this place?”

“Luck?”

She huffed. “Somehow, I think you and luck don’t get along particularly well.”

“Gee, thanks.” He tried to make it around the other side of the car to open her door for her, but Emma didn’t wait. When he stopped a foot from the door, she looked at him, eyebrow raised.

Mason sighed and swept a hand towards his house. “After you.”

He had a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that Emma was going to be in his house. He never had anyone in his house. The fact that he couldn’t remember if he had left a half-eaten pizza on the coffee table or a pair of underwear on the bathroom floor made his chest ache in anxiety. Not to mention the fact that he was going to spend the next hour pulling his own quills from her perfect flesh. Mason had half a mind to unlock the door, turn around, and drive until he was sure she wouldn’t be able to track him down.

He had never thought himself quite so cowardly, self-proclaimed nerd status notwithstanding. Who would have thought that living in a community of shifters could be so damn complicated?

Mason unlocked the door and only opened it a crack, sliding his hand up the wall until his fingers hit the light switch. He poked his head inside, trying to block Emma’s view. Things were better than he expected them to be, and he couldn’t help but sigh in relief as he let Emma inside. “Sorry for the mess,” he said, stepping to the couch in two strides. He picked up the blanket crumpled into a heap on the floor and cleared his lesson plans off the pizza-free coffee table.

“I grew up in a clan of bears. Don’t worry about it.” Emma plopped down on the couch.

“Right.” Blanket still in his arms, Mason looked around, trying to decide the least in-the-way place to put it down. Finally, he excused himself to get the tools and tossed it onto the floor in his bedroom, to which he closed the door.

“Okay. I have the saw. Hold out your arm.”

Emma’s eyes shot up, and for a second she almost thought he was serious. Then, he came around the corner with a silver tray, bottle of antiseptic, and blue handled pliers, an unsure grin on his face.

The poor guy was a wreck.

She almost felt bad for him. Except she was the one with porcupine quills stuck in her arm.

Still, he was trying.

Emma forced herself to relax and then dramatically flung her good arm over her forehead and held out the quilled arm towards him. It ached and smarted, her skin stretching and reacting to the movement. If she was honest, she’d experienced worse. Friday.

“Do your worst, doctor.” Emma peered out from under her arm and snorted a laugh.

The look on his face was stricken, somewhere between terror and confusion.

“Lighten up.” Maybe she had been a little hard on him over the last week. “I’ve had worse. I promise. Just get the damn quills out of me and all is good.”

Mason frowned.

Seriously? He’d started the joke. Emma drew in a long breath and scooted to the edge of the couch, preparing herself for quill extraction.

He sat down next to her, angling himself so that their knees almost touched. His hands shook. Setting the tray on the coffee table, Mason picked up the pliers and looked at Emma’s arm. “Okay.” He took a deep breath.

Mal bristled in anticipation. You can’t be serious.

I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.

I’m not. He’s as strung out as a damn ferret.

He just needs to relax.

Mal growled. Emma closed her eyes and took a breath. “You know, Mason. I don’t usually go over to a guy’s house until the third date.”

Mason’s fingers slipped on the pliers and they clattered to the ground. When he looked up, his eyes were bugging out. “What?” he stammered, clumsily reaching for the pliers. He tucked his face into his shoulder as he reached, and Emma was sure she saw a tinge of red on his cheeks.

Emma couldn’t hold back a smile. He was just so helpless. She narrowed her eyes. “I’m just kidding. It’s normally date two.”

Recovering quicker than she thought he would, Mason perked up. “Do you let all of your dates stick you with porcupine quills before they bring you home?” His voice cracked on the last word, but he was almost smiling.

“Only if I like them.”

Mal groaned and Emma shushed him.

Mason’s expression darkened, and he fingered the pliers idly. “You’re trying to make me feel better about this. You don’t need to.”

“You have Mal worried about pulling the quills out of us with hands shaking worse than a jackhammer. I was trying to get you to relax.”

His brows furrowed. “Mal?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “He’s my spirit animal. A grizzly bear.”

Mason reached for Emma’s injured arm.

She lifted it towards him.

He settled it onto his knee and traced a finger along the line of quills. “I didn’t know people named their spirit animals.” Repositioning the pliers in his fingers, he tightened his grip on her arm near the first quill. Then he looked up.

Emma nodded, gritting her teeth. “You haven’t named yours?”

“No.” He started pulling on the quill

Emma’s eyes watered. Mal pushed against her skin, irritation and pain driving him forward.

The quill pulled out and Emma let out a rush of air from a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Son of a bitch that hurts.”

Mason cringed. “On the bright side, porcupine quills have natural antibiotics, so you shouldn’t have to worry about infection.”

Emma gripped the couch cushion as Mason moved on to the next quill. “Is that the science nerd or the shifter talking?”

His lip twitched. “A little of both.”

“I figured as much.”

Emma found her desire for conversation slimming exponentially with each quill. As Mason worked his way down her arm, the tenderness from the quill before leeched into the agony of the next quill pulling against and ripping her skin. She tried hard not to hold it against him, but dammit it hurt to get de-quilled. Emma had always felt bad when she saw pictures of dogs with a muzzle full of quills. She never thought she would be on the receiving end, and she now completely understood the look that every single one of those poor creatures had in their eyes before the quills were gone. Fortunately for her, there were only six quills that needed extraction. If there were many more, she might have gone all grizzly in Mason’s living room.

As he finished wrapping her arm in gauze, Mason finally looked up and met her eyes, which he hadn’t done since quill four when Mal might have protested a little too loudly in her thoughts and made an appearance in her voice. “Do all shifters heal quickly?”

“As far as I know, yes. You really don’t know much about us, do you?” Emma cradled her arm against her chest. It ached dully, but now that the quills were gone, she would be almost back to normal by tomorrow. She probably didn’t even need the gauze wrap.

Mason shrugged. “We didn’t have a clan or anything back home. Certainly not a community like there is here. It was always just the three of us.”

“In a huge city like that? Not possible.” Mal was still sitting too close to the surface, and her voice came out a little sharp.

Back off, Mal.

“Just because we didn’t have a community doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. I just didn’t know about it.” Mason picked up the metal tray and dumped the quills into the garbage can.

Emma leaned back into the couch, resting her head on the back cushion and closing her eyes. She listened as Mason moved around the small living area. The clank of metal and pliers, a cabinet, water running. A door closing.

She sat up. Mason was gone, but she could hear him moving around behind her. The bedroom must have shared a wall with the living room. The place really was small, but it was cozy, and Emma liked that. Even with the pile of broken down boxes leaned up against a stack of boxes that hadn’t been unpacked. The space they took up added to the warmth of the place somehow.

“Can I get you anything?” Mason asked, stepping out of the hall. He had changed clothes, trading the quill-torn dress shirt for a simple grey t-shirt and a pair of dark jeans. Even his casual clothes were preppy.

“You know, I kind of liked the torn up look you had going.”

“Funny.” He didn’t sit back down on the couch beside her, instead leaning against the fridge on the opposite side of the room from her. He crossed his arms, and tried to look nonchalant, but he was failing at it. “Water? Soda?”

“I’m alright. Thank you.” Emma pursed her lips. She had thought they were over the weird tension that had sprung up between them. They had been able to talk so easy before… before she had become alpha. Right. But did he even know about that?

“I can give you a ride back to your car then.”

A dismissal. That stung a little bit.

“Sure. Thanks.” Emma stood up and turned to the door. This…wasn’t what she wanted. She’d become alpha so she could have the freedom to make her own decisions, and Mason was one of those she wanted to make.

Well, then that meant she was going to have to try something, to do something because if she did nothing, she was only going to fail.

She turned back. “Mason, wait. I think—” What did she think? That they needed to talk? She hated that phrase. It never led anywhere good. She tried again. “Let me show you how things around here work. I can introduce you to people, show you the places that are safe to shift. Who is in on the secret and who isn’t.” Hopefully that hadn’t come off as horrible as she felt like it did.

Mason pushed away from the refrigerator and straightened up. He could look formidable if he needed too, especially with a t-shirt exposing the his surprisingly muscular forearms. “To keep me out of more trouble?”

There was a bitterness to his words that drew Mal up in defense.

Emma shook him off. I’ve got this.

She cleared her throat. “You don’t have to take me up on the offer. I was just trying to help a friend. Okay? Take it or leave it.” Emma put her hands on her hips, chin raised in challenge.

“And how would your boyfriend feel about that?”

The comment was petty. He knew it. She knew it. But it said everything that needed to be said. She understood. “Mason, what you saw the other night… it isn’t what you think. Jordan and I haven’t been together for years.”

“You were naked.”

There were so many layers, so many things he needed to understand. Emma reached up and pulled on her pony tail, twisting the end of it around her fingers in frustration. She groaned.

But what to say and how? “Look. Come for a walk with me. Let me explain what’s been going on. I like you, Mason. And honestly, it’s refreshing to meet someone who hasn’t been so sucked into clan and pack traditions, even if it does get you into trouble. Don’t take that the wrong way, but if you aren’t careful, the Shadow Sisterhood is going to come down hard on your ass, and you don’t want that. Okay? And I don’t want it either. For about a thousand reasons.”

Mason stared at her. And stared. And stared. He chewed his bottom lip and narrowed his eyes. Blinked. Shook his head. Closed his eyes and drew in a long, deep breath.

Then he looked up. “Fine. Let’s go for a walk.”