Emma’s heart was ripping in two. Or three… maybe four. She held her phone in her hand, the cracked screen a reminder of everything that had happened. Where it started. What needed to be done.

The screen lit up . A message from Mason. It even had a heart emoji. Of course it did. She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to do this.

She needed to do this.

Shit.

Mal?

Yes. He was on alert, senses sprawling in all directions.

Emma could tell he was only giving her half his attention. And she knew the last thing he wanted to talk about was the porcupine.

Never mind.

You were going to ask me what to do about Mason.

Mason? Not “the porcupine?” Great.

It’s fine. I am taking care of it.

Mal pulled back, wrapping Emma in his presence. It wasn’t unlike a hug. He changes you.

And?

Mal growled. Not in anger or warning. In surrender? It is a good change.

Emma smiled. Thank you, Mal.

Don’t thank me yet. He is still a porcupine.

I don’t think he will come back.

Dangle a bone in front of his nose.

Emma opened her eyes and blinked. Once. Twice. Then she swiped open her phone and replied to his message.

When she was done, that’s exactly what she would do.

---

The casserole in the oven made his entire house smell like heaven. Mason wasn’t even biased because it was his own cooking. And, it wasn’t burnt. He tapped his thumb impatiently on his phone. Emma hadn’t responded yet. She could be shifted. Or maybe she was still dealing with bear stuff. But she had said that she would be there.

And after yesterday—well, he wanted everything to be perfect. Right down to the candles on the small table. He didn’t know if she was the candlelit dinner type. That was why he had chosen the casserole. It balanced things out.

Mason tapped the side button to light up his screen, checking for a message even though his phone hadn’t buzzed. Sometimes it didn’t. He frowned. The casserole could cook for a while longer before it was overdone. He could even turn off the oven. Yes. He would turn off the oven. And mix the dressing into the salad.

Sliding the phone into his back pocket, he opened the fridge. Then closed it again. The oven had heated up his house, and if he took the salad out, it might wilt. He didn’t know how far away she was.

He pulled his phone back out and reread his last message. Maybe the heart had been too much. But, shit. Last night. Things had changed. Mason knew he wasn’t crazy or imagining things. Bones had felt it too. He didn’t know exactly what that meant, coming from him, but things felt right.

The phone buzzed, and Mason nearly dropped it in the rush to open the message. Bones chittered in a way that could only be laughter.

“Shut up.”

Mason’s stomach dropped. His heart skipped a beat. He reread the message half a dozen times, shaking his head. I need a break. Please don’t call. Sorry, Mason.

Bones rustled beneath Mason’s skin, but he didn’t come out. The fact barely registered in Mason’s thoughts as he stared at the phone without seeing. The words were burned into his vision.

His finger hovered over the call button. Don’t call? How could she even ask that? Something had to be wrong. Unless he had been wrong. Mason didn’t know how to do this shit. He slammed the phone against the fridge, and the whole thing tipped backwards, rocking once before thudding back onto the tile.

Should he even message her back? What would he say? Screw that. He knew exactly what he would say. One word. No.

Mason chucked the phone onto the counter and reached into the oven. He had a hold of the casserole before he realized he hadn’t grabbed the mitts, and he lurched back. The dish slipped after him, bouncing once off the oven door and then falling top down onto the floor. The glass cracked once and then split in half.

“Fuck.” Kicking the dish aside, he bent over the sink and turned on the cold water. The burns weren’t too bad. They stung like a son of a bitch, but they weren’t deep. He would heal in a couple of hours.

Bones flitted around in his conscience, squeaking and chittering in duress. Still, he stayed back. Mason noticed. And hated it. He didn’t feel like himself. Until a couple of weeks ago, Bones would have burst out far enough to shred his clothing. Mason would have scolded the thing and taken away shifting privileges for a week. The same way a father grounds a son.

But Bones had learned. He was trying. And it was all because of Emma. Mason shot a look at the phone on the counter. The light in the top corner was flashing. He suddenly didn’t want to know.

Mason pulled off two paper towels and ran them under the water. Then he wrapped one around each hand, covering the burns. Bones whimpered.

“Chill. We’ll be fine.”

The porcupine wasn’t convinced.

Leaving his phone on the counter, Mason grabbed his car keys. Emma’d told him of a shifter bar, and he needed a drink.

He almost turned around twice to get his phone. He even went around the block once before he parked in front of the Fox Hole. A shifter bar. One of the many anomalies that came with living in a shifter community. A woman named Ripley ran it. And she was in a relationship with Emma’s brother. The reason he had been kicked out of the clan. Apparently.

Maybe that was what happened. Emma decided she couldn’t be with him because he wasn’t a bear. She had made him think it didn’t matter.

There weren’t a ton of other cars in the parking lot, and Mason didn’t recognize any of them. Not that he knew many cars to recognize, except for Emma’s. It wasn’t there. He didn’t expect it to be.

The Fox Hole’s interior reminded Mason of the dive bars he had been to in DC. Dimly lit, old as hell jukebox playing modern pop hits that didn’t fit the crowd. There was a scattering of scratched up round tables. Green glass lamps hung over each of them, casting the entire place in a murky, sick pallor. Most of the occupants sat around the bar, served by a single bartender who looked like he had been around a while.

Bones peeked forward, reaching out to sense the people in the room like they had been doing in every public place they went into for the last week. Shifters. All of them.

Mason considered taking a seat at one of the tables, but decided immediately that the only way he was going to get a drink would be at the bar. He at least managed to find a place with an empty stool on either side of him.

“Haven’t seen you before. I’m Toot.” The burly man reached across the counter, the rolled-up cuff of his flannel dragging through a damp spot on the bar. He had the most impressive beard Mason had ever seen. Enough so that it made Mason reconsider his standard five o’clock shadow.

They shook hands. How the hell had this guy been named Toot. Really? The guy was the size of a bear with the grip of one.

“Mason Covey. I teach at the school.”

“You do? Well, shit. You probably know my Babs.”

“Babs?” Mason had no idea who he was talking about.

“Babs Jolene. Little phoenix shifter about yay big.” He held his hand palm down over the bar, about half the height of a normal kid.

Mason still knew exactly who he was talking about. “Oh. Jo. Yes. She’s a firecracker.”

Toot’s face fell a little as he said Jo, but the man shook it off and smiled. “That she is. What are you drinking?”

Mason settled onto the stool. “What’s good?”

“How about some raspberry pie?”

“I thought you said drink.”

Toot leaned in conspiratorially. “It’s Elliot moonshine. It will knock you on your ass.”

Elliot moonshine. Of course. Mason cringed, and then held out a thumbs up. He kind of wanted to be knocked on his ass. Toot ducked below the counter and emerged with a fucking mason jar sloshing with amber liquid and a jam jar like what his grandmother used to use for her homemade spreads. Toot spun the ring off the mason jar and popped the sealed metal lid with a bottle opener. He filled the smaller jar half way and slid it across the counter.

“Give it a taste and see what you think.”

Mason took a deep, steadying breath. He didn’t drink much. Lifting the jar to his nose, Mason inhaled. And raised his eyebrows to Toot. It smelled just like a homemade raspberry pie. Toot nodded and pulled up another of the small jars. He only filled it a quarter of the way and lifted it up to Mason in a toast. “To new friends.”

Friends might be going a little too far, but Mason clinked his glass with Toot’s and took a hesitant swallow. It was kind of like someone had taken the world’s most epic raspberry pie, tossed it in a blender, and spiked it with vodka. And it was delicious, burning down his throat just like a pie that was still hot from the oven.

Toot downed his small cup in one shot, tipping his head back and emptying the small glass with a satisfied groan. “I stay away from this, usually. Gets me in trouble every time. But you seemed liked you could use a pick-me-up.”

Mason had thought he was holding it together pretty well, all things considered. Apparently not. He shrugged. “Long day. Thank you.”

“Hey, Toot,” a man yelled from the other end of the bar, waving an empty bottle in the air.

Toot pushed the jar of raspberry pie towards Mason. “Duty calls. I’ll leave this here. Just take it easy. I wasn’t lying. It’ll knock you on your ass.”

Mason nodded and watched as Toot walked away. He could already feel the alcohol doing its job, a little bit of heat building along his cheek bones. He believed the man. Mason toasted to no one and refilled his glass—only half way.

The volume in the bar increased as more people filtered in. Mason hadn’t planned to pay that much attention, but a mirror lined the entire wall behind the bar, and looking at everyone else was way better than staring at himself. The majority of the volume came from a single group of men that had gathered around one of the tables behind Mason. He recognized two of them. What were their names? Evan and… Frank? They helped around the school on occasion.

Bones balked, curling up against the back of Mason’s conscience. What’s up, dude? Mason wasn’t about to talk out loud to Bones, even if they were in a shifter bar.

Bones growled, tipping his head towards the table.

They’re not hurting anyone. They’re just loud.

Bones didn’t respond, and Mason shrugged, watching the group through the mirror. They really were loud. He sipped at the drink, the heat of the liquor in his cheeks moving to numbness. Shit, that stuff was strong.

Mason didn’t realize how badly he’d been staring until the one called Evan looked up and met his gaze. Then sneered. Mason looked away immediately, but he could still see Evan watching him from the corner of his eye. Fucking mirror. Who had the genius idea to put mirrors in a bar?

Evan’s voice rose behind him. “It’s a shame she didn’t at least pick a bear if she was going to sleep around. I’d have fucked her without a thought. Have you seen her ass?”

Mason’s fingers clenched around his cup, fire scorching the back of his neck.

“Dude, you don’t want that ass. She’s been around. Remember high school?”

“Have any of you heard who it was? It couldn’t have been the porcupine. No way he moved in that fast.”

Bones growled, low and dangerous. His quills pushed forward, covering Mason’s skin in bumps but not quite breaking through. Mason closed his eyes and drew in a long breath. He had hoped it would cool the fire. Instead, the flames raged.

Evan was looking at Mason again, eyes glowing red with his spirit animal. “Jordan said it was him. Pricked her right out of doing her duties. If she’d rather fuck a porcupine, good riddance. I’m not putting my dick where that’s been. Not even wasted.”

The group laughed and clinked their glasses together.

Evan took a long pull of his beer. “Okay, maybe wasted.”

The jar in Mason’s hands shattered, slicing his hands and burning the cuts with alcohol. Then he was at their table before he realized he had moved. “Fuck you.” He punched Evan square in the face, shifting on the follow through.

Bones skittered across the floor, feet struggling to gain purchase as quills rose on end, doubling their size. They turned back to the table just in time to see it fly across the room as three bears stood up in the middle of the bar. He didn’t know which one was which.

They were all huge, Bones maybe matching the size of one beastly head with his quills extended. Crested porcupines weren’t small.

Bones had quills. Sharp fucking quills.

The porcupine hissed, snapping his jaw in warning. One of the bears approached, Mason guessed probably the one he had punched in the face. Bones sidestepped, the height of the quills aimed at the approaching bear. Then another bear came up behind them. It roared, and Bones spun around. He couldn’t guard all sides at once. He just had to pick the most threatening one. But there were three of them.

A voiced yelled somewhere across the bar, but no one looked. Not a single bear or the outnumbered porcupine. Bones shot to the side, quills flared to the closest bear. He made contact and the bear yelped in pain, rearing back. The other two advanced. Wary, but pissed.

Bones backed up, a bear flanking him on either side. He had nowhere to go.

His hind end bumped into the old jukebox and the music skipped. Bones hissed at the sound, and the largest of the bears swiped at him with a paw the size of a Frisbee. Bones managed to twist around so the bear hit him on the haunches. He felt a bone crack. His bone. The porcupine screeched, backing harder against the jukebox as the quilled bear snarled through drooling lips. The quills hadn’t been enough to deter him.

Mason pushed against Bones. They needed to get out of there, or they were going to be dust. Quills could be removed from flesh. Squashed porcupine would be a lot harder to scrape up off the floor and put back together. More voices yelled from across the room.

This time, the bears looked up.

Mason pushed against Bones once more, and he backed down with a growl. The little shit had no desire to give up the fight. If only they could get the last bear lit up with quills. Bones registered the thought and leapt forward, back leg giving out. He slid across the floor, coming to a stop between the legs of the last grizzly who had risen onto hind legs. It was panting, head turning back and forth to the crowd that had gathered across the room and the porcupine at his feet.

Bones flipped around in a whirl, swiping his quilled tail into the bear’s ankle. The beast dropped down onto all fours over the top of them, and Mason thought they were dead. In a last-ditch effort, Bones kicked up his hind end, squealing with pain but landing a hundred quills into the bear’s underside. It roared.

Mason’s ears rang, the grizzly’s sharp cry echoing around the room. And then something pushed against him. Not from the outside but from within his mind. All sound in the room cut off except for one word.

“Enough.”

The bear standing over Mason and Bones took a step back, shifting down to a man. The one Mason had punched in the face. His nose was bleeding and he had quills sticking out of his stomach and his ankle.

Bones limped backwards, not responding to Mason’s call to shift. He was protecting them. Protecting Mason. They looked around, searching for the source of the voice that had called back the bears. That they had felt in their mind.

A blonde man stepped up to them, shoulders bulked up and covered in hair. He looked like half a gorilla, only with blonde hair instead of black.

Bones hissed.

“I said, enough.” The man’s voice resonated between their ears, commanding and powerful.

Bones pulled back with a growl and Mason shifted forward. He tried to put weight on his left foot and stumbled back. Fuck. Ignoring the blonde man, Mason looked at Evan. He didn’t think a man could look any more pathetic. It gave him a fleeting moment of satisfaction.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Who was this guy?

Evan stepped forward, pointing at Mason. “The porcupine attacked us, Jordan.”

Jordan. Of. Fucking. Course.

Jordan looked at Mason, eyebrows raised.

“I might have tripped and punched him in the face on the way down.” Mason was in no mood to be nice.

Bones chuckled.

Mason shrugged. The room was blurry. He looked around for his glasses. They were probably somewhere by the table the assholes had been sitting at. Except, the table had been toppled and kicked across the room as the bears shifted around it. Ignoring Jordan, who was still staring at him with incredulity, Mason crossed the bar. His keys were also missing. And his wallet.

“Mason.”

He rolled his eyes.

“You don’t get to just walk away from this.” Jordan stepped towards him.

“It was just a bar fight. Everyone is fine. I’m leaving. Everyone can go back to doing whatever.” Mason spotted the shreds of fabric that used to be his pants. He crouched down, studying the pile and realizing belatedly that he was completely naked. And he didn’t have a spare change of clothes.

“And what if a mundane had walked in the door?”

The guy was really going to lecture him over this? What about the other three? “They would have called the cops. Rampaging bears. Got in through a back door. There are signs everywhere that say Troutdale has a bear problem. It wouldn’t be that far of a stretch.”

A blurred reflection caught his eye a few steps away. His glasses. Mason hope they hadn’t broken. His spares were behind on his prescription. A pair of feet crossed his vision, and Jordan picked up the glasses, handing them to Mason before he turned to the three quill laden men.

“Evan. Frank. Pete. You three help Toot clean up this mess. And leave a good tip.” Jordan looked back at Mason. “There is a stack of sweats in the men’s bathroom. Pick a pair. Then I will walk you out.”

“I don’t need an escort.” Mason adjusted his glasses. They weren’t broken, but one of the ear wires had bent and they sat lopsided on his nose.

Jordan’s eyes narrowed. “I will walk you out.”

Great.

The stack of sweats in the bathroom had obviously been picked up during a clearance sale. Yellow. Orange. Brown. All in extra-large. There was one pair of gray on the bottom of the stack in extra-extra-large. Mason grabbed them. He could cinch them to his hips; he couldn’t change the color of the rest of them. Still, he was pretty sure he could have fit two of himself in them.

When he emerged, Toot and Jordan were standing by the back door. Mason didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. Toot seemed like an alright guy, but Mason had been the one that trashed his bar.

“How’s your leg?”

“What?”

“You’re walking with a limp.” Toot whipped a bar towel over his shoulder.

Was he? Mason couldn’t feel it. “I’ll be fine. Sorry, Toot. Let me know what I owe you for any damages. Okay?”

Toot reached out a hand to Mason and they shook. “They had it coming.”

So Toot, at least, was on Mason’s side. That was something. “Still doesn’t excuse it, but thank you.”

A phone rang behind the bar counter and Toot disappeared with a nod. Mason pointed at the door with a sweeping motion to Jordan. “After you.”

Mason felt like he was being walked to the principal’s office, somehow always the one to get pegged with the fault in whatever happened. Not that he wasn’t at fault for attacking three bears in the middle of a bar, but he had done it out of…what? Honor? Chivalry? The simple need to hit something?

“Picking a fight with a bunch of bears isn’t the smartest thing for a newcomer to do around here,” Jordan said, leaning against the back wall of the building, arms crossed.

Mason’s gaze shot to Jordan. The other man. Ha. “I would like to assume you’d have done the same thing.” Would he? He couldn’t decide if it would be better or worse.

“And how do you figure that?”

“They were slandering Emma.”

A blank mask fell over Jordan’s face. “You’re messing with things you don’t understand.”

So he wouldn’t have. At least now Mason knew where Jordan stood. “I understand things just fine. Look. Just get whatever—” Mason waved a hand at Jordan dismissively, “you have to do over with, so I can go home.”

The blankness on Jordan’s face morphed. Eyes narrowed, lips thin over clenched teeth. “Just because you’re part of this community doesn’t mean you’re part of it. You can’t just walk in here and start changing things.”

What the hell had he changed? Mason went to work. Taught kids. Went home. Mostly. “As far as I know, I have been minding my own business just fine.”

“That’s where you are wrong. You got involved with the Elliots. You’re in over your head.”

Mason bristled, and Bones crept forward, ready for another fight. “Involved with the Elliots or involved with Emma?”

Jordan went taut. So, Emma. Great. He apparently hadn’t heard the news. Mason wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.

“Look, Mason.” Jordan ran a hand through his messy blonde hair. He looked like a fucking Ken doll. “I don’t want there to be issues here, okay? Things are a little…tense. And we need our alpha. She is strong, but only when she isn’t distracted.”

“Well you don’t have to worry about it anymore.” The words were out before he could stop them, and Mason winced, though he wasn’t sure if it was because of the pain in his ankle as he shifted his wait. It was starting to throb. He needed to get off it.

Jordan cocked his head to the side but didn’t comment. He studied Mason for a moment and then his body relaxed. “Don’t take it too hard. You were only a rebound anyway.”

A flash of anger shot through Mason, and he clenched his fists, grabbing at the bellowing folds of the sweat pants to keep from hitting Jordan. Bones pulled back and Mason paused. He closed his eyes in a long blink. Relax. Take a beat.

He loosened his grip on the sweatpants. “Are we done here?”

Jordan nodded. Mason couldn’t read the expression on his face, and he wasn’t going to sit there and try to figure it out. He fished the keys out of the knee-deep pocket in the sweats. Each step he took towards his car sent a rush of pain up his leg. He had barely noticed it until then. Was it the adrenaline? The drink? Both?

Mason paused as he unlocked his car door. Was he still feeling the drink? He hadn’t had that much. All he could feel was the pain in his ankle. He glanced back at the bar. Jordan was still watching him. Had it been any other day, Mason would have just walked home. He was probably fine, but he never risked it. But, there was no way he was walking home then. He could barely stand.

The drive only took five minutes. Mason went straight into the house and to the freezer, not even bothering to strip out of the sweatpants. Now that he was home, he didn’t give a shit. Mason found a bag of frozen corn, picked up his phone off the counter and dropped onto the couch. Pulling a cushion off the other side, he propped his ankle on top of it on the coffee table. It had swollen up to the size of a small melon. Perfect. He dropped the bag of corn onto it and fell back into the couch. Where did a shifter even go to get an injury looked at? Even if it was broken, he would still only take a day to heal. Not that he had ever broken a bone to be able to judge.

Mason picked up his phone. The light was blinking. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know why. Even if he already knew.

With a deep breath, he swiped open the screen. There were three missed calls and six messages. All from Emma. Ignoring the voicemails, he opened the message screen.

The first one was from over an hour ago. I’m sorry. The response to his last message to her.

Sorry. Sure.

He scrolled to the next.

Mason answer your phone.

What happened?

Jordan said there was a fight at the bar.

Mason? Please answer me. Is everything okay?

The phone vibrated as another message came in. I’m coming over.

To do what? Rub salt in his wounds? Mason sucked in a deep breath, and then started typing.

Don’t bother. I’m fine. The rebound got what was coming.