Walking might have been a bad idea. Emma hated the fact that she couldn’t see Mason’s face without staring blatantly at him. She had no idea how he was going to react to what she had to tell him, but at least he’d been willing to come with her. She would have felt better about it if she could gauge his reactions head-on. But… she couldn’t have everything.

Mason walked beside her with his hands in his pockets. He hadn’t said anything since they left his house, and once they were outside, Emma hadn’t felt particularly inspired to lay everything out on the line, despite her decision to do so. How was she even supposed to start? Did she explain about the clan? Her mother? The fact that she was alpha? Did she explain her and Jordan? In the grand scheme of things, that was minor, but she wasn’t sure how that translated to the Mason situation.

Why the hell was there even a Mason situation? She didn’t owe him anything. If anything, he’d been a pain since the first time he walked into the bakery.

Still, what she had said to him was true. She liked him. He was—when they weren’t stuck in whatever this was—easy to talk to. He made her laugh, forget momentarily about the chaos. At least he was a shifter. Even if he was an ignorant one.

Please tell me we aren’t with the porcupine. Mal’s voice in her head wreaked of derision.

Mal, get over yourself. Please.

But he’s a porcupine.

And you’re a grizzly. So, what?

“Emma?”

She jumped at the sound of Mason’s voice. “Yeah?”

“You stopped walking.”

She had? Maybe she wasn’t as on top of the shit storm of the last few days as much as she thought she was. “Sorry. I was… distracted.”

Mason turned toward her, studying her face. “You were talking to your bear, weren’t you?”

Well, wasn’t he observant? She nodded. “He was being judgy.”

Mason kicked at a clump of dirt edging the sidewalk. “Judgy.”

They really didn’t need to head down that rabbit hole. Emma shrugged. “Mal isn’t used to hanging out with anyone who isn’t a bear, a wolf, or a mundane. He doesn’t like change.” Emma tried to keep her voice level while conveying her irritation to Mal.

Mason looked up at her, his green eyes full of question. “How long have you been talking to him?”

“Today? He won’t shut up.”

Mason let out a short laugh. “No. For real. Since you were a kid? The whole time?”

Emma looked around, taking stock of where they had ended up on their walk. They really hadn’t gone far, but there was a park about a block away. At least there, they could sit at a picnic table or something. She shrugged and started walking in that direction. “As long as I can remember. Mal and I are different though. Not everyone can talk to their spirit animals. Most can’t hold an entire conversation. Like my brother, for instance. Joe and his bear communicate, but I have never heard of them speaking words to one another, if that makes sense.”

“That makes a little sense, I guess.” Mason’s demeanor had changed from the withdrawn, almost dejected slouch he had carried since she walked into his parents’ house to a more erect curiosity.

Emma allowed herself a smile. Progress. “How do you communicate with your porcupine?”

“Very poorly, obviously.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

Sighing, Mason quirked his lips to the side, thinking. “Well, I talk to it, I guess. In my mind. But it only responds with chitters, purrs, or by shooting around under my skin like he’s going to burst out any minute.”

“It or him?”

“What?”

“That is your first problem. You haven’t consistently recognized your spirit animal as a being. Most animals are either male or female, even the spirit kind. You’ve lived with your porcupine long enough by now, you should’ve figured out if it if is a he or she. I am guessing a he because you let that slip, but you have to commit to it.”

“What?”

Emma took in a deep breath. “We call the bench an ‘it’ because it’s a thing. We call a dog a ‘she’ because she’s a part of the family. Right now, you’re fighting to figure out if your porcupine is a thing or a living part of you. He’s a person, Mason. Don’t ever think he isn’t.”

Mason frowned. “Huh.”

“It’ll help build your bond.”

“Now who’s the teacher?” Mason shook his head, but he was smiling.

They reached the park, and Emma turned her gaze between the picnic table and the pair of swings. They were the only two things to sit on, and both were lit by a pair of street lights.

Mason appraised the seating arrangements.

“Swings. They’re more fun.”

He tipped his head, a quizzical expression on his face. “I didn’t realize we were going for fun.”

“It’s been a rough day.” Emma cringed. “Well, a rough week. Come on.”

“You keep mentioning that.” Mason settled onto a swing and kicked back, straightening his legs and walking backwards until he was standing at full height. Then he picked up his feet and swung forward. Emma copied him, though she wasn’t as tall as he was, so her release was less dramatic.

“It has to do with clan politics, unfortunately. I would almost say you’re lucky to not have dealt with that in your life. Though, I imagine it is a little different being the alpha’s daughter versus just a part of the clan. I wouldn’t know.”

“Alpha’s daughter?” Mason skidded his feet on the ground, bringing the swing to a stop. The chains twisted as he turned to look at her.

She kept swinging. “I told you things were complicated.”

“I guess.”

Emma took a deep breath. “I actually wanted to apologize. My behavior has been… a little erratic the last few days. I’m not usually that on edge. In fact, I like to think I’m pretty laid back. And you just happened to end up on the receiving end of my frustrations.”

“I’m pretty sure I deserved at least 98.2 percent of it.”

She chuckled. “Only 98.2?”

“It’s a nice round number.”

Her swing slowed, and she didn’t move to make it go higher, the squeal of the metal lessening. “If you say so.”

“Do I need to list the ways?”

“Probably not.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “Anyway, clan politics. Somewhere along the lines of me challenging my mother for alpha position.” Emma risked a glance at his expression. It told her absolutely nothing, so she barreled on. “I won on Friday. Now I’m clan alpha. To about thirty grizzly bears.”

“Wait. You’re alpha? Like, the alpha.”

“In the flesh.”

Mason raked a hand through his hair. He knocked his glasses askew as he did so and had to adjust them. It was such a practiced movement. So… natural. And weirdly endearing.

Mal snorted in her ear.

Shut up.

“Alpha. Wow. That’s… like president, right? You’re the leader. Commander in Chief.”

Emma smiled. “Yes. Something like that.”

“I had no idea.”

“You really couldn’t have, if we’re honest.”

“Still. Suddenly a lot makes sense.”

“Believe it or not, there’s more.”

“More?”

“The man you saw me with the other night.”

Mason’s expression blanked, his lips drawn into a tight line. “Right.”

Emma sighed. “His name is Jordan. He’s my best friend. Cheryl adopted him when he was thirteen, and then decided a few years later to arrange a marriage between me and him.”

Mason actually laughed.

Bitterness surged in her stomach.

“I didn’t realize arranged marriages existed outside of a medieval monarchy,” he said, twisting on the swing and letting it straighten in a rush.

“Welcome to the Elliot Clan. Cheryl, my mother, has this bigoted, old fashioned view of succession. Bears can only marry bears. They can date other shifters, but they have to be shifters.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. She took it a step further with me and my brothers. Since Joe and Brett made it clear early on that they would marry who they wanted, within reason, Cheryl decided that she would at least guarantee my future. She likes Jordan, and since we were already close, she thought it was easy, I guess.”

“And you didn’t tell her no, like your brothers did?”

Emma paused, surprised in looking back that she hadn’t put up more of a fight. Maybe Cheryl had played it that way on purpose. Back then, Emma really had been interested in Jordan.

Mason nodded and dragged his feet to slow his swing. “Ah.”

She didn’t like that response. “We did date for a little while, but it became clear pretty quickly that we weren’t mates. There would be no bond. If I attempted to share my soul with his, I would overwhelm his will. That is one reason why alphas marry alphas.”

He frowned and shook his head, digging his toes into the gravel and swinging in small circles.

Right. She was basically his first shifter friend. Kind of.

“Unfortunately, it was right around the time Brett brought Juliet home for the first time. She was a bear from a different, stronger clan. But she wasn’t a grizzly bear.”

“That seems a little… extreme. Aren’t they concerned with inbreeding?”

“You haven’t met Cheryl.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, she got a little intense after that. Joe was avoiding every match Cheryl tried to make for him. Jordan and I decided it was just easier to ride things out for a while. The way she was rolling, she just would have matched me up with someone else anyway.” Emma stopped spinning back and forth on the swing, looking at her feet. “Things hadn’t been going great with Cheryl and me for a while, and I was already considering challenging her for alpha. Neither Brett or Joe wanted to, and I was already at odds with her over the Jordan thing. Then, Brett got sick.”

Mason was shaking his head. “This really is complicated, isn’t it?”

Emma shrugged.

“You don’t have to tell me everything. You don’t owe me anything.”

She looked at him with a look that made Mason want to hug her close. He was starting to understand a lot. Namely, how completely ignorant he was of what being a shifter meant. Thirty years, ninety percent of which had been spent hiding his gift, and he hadn’t even gotten to know his porcupine well enough to decide if it was male or female. Well, to accept that his porcupine was male. Mason shook his head again, trying to flush out the wave of shame that crept up his spine. “I’m sorry, Emma. For being such an ignoramus.”

She snorted. “Oh, Mason. Don’t be sorry. Hell, it’s not like you could’ve known. You just moved here.” She spun sideways on the swing, so she could look at him. “I don’t mind telling you things. It’s whether or not you want to hear it.”

Did he want to know everything? He wasn’t sure he did. But as he sat there, looking at her, taking in the way her long, blonde hair fell, as it always seemed to, just perfectly over her left shoulder, he was almost ashamed for the one thing that kept flashing across his thoughts.

Emma and Jordan. Naked. Snuggled together on a rock in the woods. People who weren’t intimate didn’t do that kind of thing.

Mason pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time. It was getting late. He had to work in the morning. He assumed Emma did too, probably earlier than he did given her position at the bakery. The incident in his parents’ kitchen suddenly seemed like ages ago, and things had shifted again between him and Emma. They weren’t snipping at one another with undercut phrasing. They were having a conversation.

The problem was, he was still trying to process. She was an alpha. Alpha. And here he was, no less than a juvenile porcupine shifter who probably had less control over his shift than most of the kids in the school. Emphasis on the juvenile bit. The only question he could seem to form in his mind was the most petty, immature thing he probably could have come up with.

“You okay, Mason?”

He looked up, realizing that he hadn’t responded to her last statement. But how was he going to respond? What were they doing? Were they acquaintances who had shared an experience and a couple of tiffs? Were they friends? Were they aiming for more than that? He sure as hell didn’t know. Mason took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to get anywhere unless he just came out and said it, petty, juvenile, or not.

Emma nodded, her expression open and inviting.

“The other night.” He tightened his grip on the chains of the swing, already hating how it was going sound. “You and Jordan were—”

“Mason, I told you—”

“Just let me get this out, okay? I already feel like a damn idiot.”

She held up a hand in surrender.

He cleared his throat. “You and Jordan were, well, quite cozy and very naked. You can’t really tell me there’s nothing going on between the two of you. Can you?”

Emma released an exasperated chuckled

That didn’t make Mason feel any better.

“He’s my best friend. Because of Cheryl, we’d just tried to kill each other, and we were having a moment.”

What?

“And we were naked because we’re shifters.”

“Since when is being naked part of being a shifter?”

“Okay, you’re seriously a prude. We live in a shifter community, and if you’re going to tell me that we’re supposed to carry a bag around with us every time we shift so that we can be clothed immediately after—well.” Emma flapped a hand at him in exasperation.

Mason looked away. He couldn’t be the only one, could he?

Emma shook her head and her eyes softened. “Not that you can’t carry a bag if you want to. Don’t get me wrong.”

But he already had.

She rubbed her forehead.

Then, Mason made a decision. “Look. Emma.”

She looked up, putting her hand down.

He made himself meet her eyes—the eyes of an alpha. They gave off an amber glow. “This is probably going to sound stupid.”

She raised an eyebrow.

No, it was stupid. He could already feel his cheeks reddening. “Will you teach me? Show me how to be a real shifter?”

Emma clapped her hands together. “Thank you! That’s what I’ve been trying to get at all night.”

Seriously?

She eyed him sideways. “But I have one condition.”

Did he want to hear it?

“Keep your quills to yourself.”