Boarlander Beast Boar (Boarlander Bears #4)(26)

Heartbreak slashed through Mason’s eyes as he ran the tip of his finger down Beck’s cheek. “I worked a lot. My instinct to provide for Esmerelda and our future babies kicked up so hard, I couldn’t stop pushing myself. More time at the office, more weekends ruined, and I couldn’t see it, but Essie saw it as me pulling away from her. She couldn’t understand shifter instincts because she wasn’t one. I thought I was being a good mate, setting up a nest egg because I knew that someday we would get pregnant, but to her, she thought I resented her. She thought I was abandoning her. She was crying all the time. Arguing over nothing. She didn’t want me to touch her. Stopped wanting to sleep with me. She would say, ‘What’s the point? I’m broken.’ I didn’t know what to do. I was twenty when we first paired up, young, stupid, head-strong, didn’t understand depression, didn’t understand her. She quit my company, didn’t want to work, didn’t want to get dressed, didn’t want to brush her hair or go out or talk to people. I watched her wither. She became obsessed with these apple trees in our backyard. Just…babied them. Maybe they were her babies while we tried, I don’t know. She was always out there with them, talking to them, pruning them, reading under their branches, obsessing over the fruit and any dead leaf. And one day, I came home from work dog tired, my Drift had been on my ass about offspring, had to fire someone that day, just in my own little world when I walked through the door. I couldn’t wait to unload all my burdens on her because she always made me feel better. So I called her name, and when she didn’t answer, I knew something was wrong. Just knew it.” Mason’s voice hitched, and he took a few seconds before he continued. “I found her in the backyard, hanging from one of the apple trees.”

“Oh, my God,” Beck murmured, pressing her hands over her mouth. “Mason.”

“I went mad after that. Just…” Mason shook his head for a long time, and his eyes went hollow. “I didn’t care about anything or anyone. I blamed my Drift for pushing her over the edge, but mostly I blamed myself for not knowing how to save her. My people started calling for me to prove myself if I still wanted to be in the running. I needed offspring, a mate, something. I was earning, but Jamison had pulled far ahead, and my dad wanted to step down as dominant boar. So he gave me two sows and told me to earn my keep.”

Bile rose in Beck’s throat. She hugged him tight and buried her face against his warm chest. She was a coward and couldn’t watch the phantoms in his eyes anymore.

Mason’s voice dipped to a ragged whisper. “I cared nothing for them. I just wanted Esmerelda back. But I’d stopped feeling somewhere along the way, and it was nice to escape into a rut and focus on breeding them just so I didn’t have to think about how damned broken I was. So I didn’t have to spend nights alone, listening to those goddamned apple trees creaking in the wind outside. By the end of that year, Jamison had me declared The Barrow. Rutting had made me weak. I hadn’t been thinking about food, Changing, fighting, or anything. Just sex. Just this single-minded desperation to prove I wasn’t worthless—for me, for Essie, for my Drift. I wasn’t in any shape to fight and I knew it, but I went ahead and challenged Jamison just to put an end to all the pain. He was the only one who could match my boar. The only one who could send me to Essie with honor.”

Beck’s shoulders shook with her silent crying, and she gently traced the long scars up his ribs.

“Damon found me.” Mason smoothed her hair from her face and hugged her close. “I was lying out in the woods, my people all around watching me bleed out. I’d been split open by Jamison’s tusks, and I remember staring up at the stars, wondering why it was taking so damned long to die. And there was this wind, chaos and fire, and then everything went dark.” Mason kissed her hairline and sighed. “And then I woke up in the dragon’s lair, newly freed from my people.”

“How did he find you?”

Mason shrugged. “I ask him that from time to time, and he just tells me he saved me because he was supposed to save me. The old dragon is full of riddles. I worked as a bodyguard, watching over his daughter, Diem, when she was in college as a favor to the man who had dragged me from the mud, and then when I came back here, I worked for him for different reasons.”

“What reasons?”

Mason eased back and smiled sadly. “Because somewhere along the way, Damon became my friend. And even though he was quiet, reserved, and emotionless, I saw glimpses of the man he could be. I suspected he was just as broken as me, but I wanted to be there when the dragon rose again.”

“And you were,” she whispered, proud of Mason for overcoming such tragedy and turning into the incredible, loyal, strong, caring man he was today.

Mason ran his fingers through her hair and agreed. “And I was.”

“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.

“I want to know all your secrets.”

Beck drew his knuckles to her lips and laid a soft peck on his skin. “None of that made me want to run.” She wiped her damp cheek on the pillow and braved a look in his eyes. “It only made me like you more.”





Chapter Thirteen


Beep, beep, beep, beep!

Beck cracked her eye open just in time to watch Mason’s giant hand arch through the air and smash the alarm clock into tiny pieces. The poor contraption made a pathetic last attempt to wake them with a strangled beeeeeep, but then died completely, the glowing green 6:00 am fading to darkness.