Boarlander Beast Boar (Boarlander Bears #4)(51)

Beck had her hand in so many pots, and she was the epitome of grace under fire. None of the negativity seemed to get to her. She brushed off the protesters in Saratoga like they were no more than annoying gnats, and yesterday, at a meeting at City Hall, she’d been called out for the first time for her animal. Her cheeks had flushed for a moment, but then she’d lifted her chin proudly in the air and told them, “Damn straight, I’m a snowy owl shifter. I’m proud of where I come from.”

She’d stared down that committee, eyes bright yellow and daring them to look away, like some warrior woman ready for battle. Mason had sat there beside her, completely stunned that he’d landed a tough-as-nails woman like her. Just the memory of the fierceness on her face drew up Mason’s boar.

Mason tucked the covers around Ryder’s little body, wrapping him up like a burrito before he strode into the living room. They’d moved out of 1010 and into his trailer the day after floating the river, and over the last week, Beck and Ryder had fit in easily here. And now, he could barely remember this place without them. They’d stamped their presence here so completely that every room, wall, and floorboard now held a memory of his little family.

Bash had once said Emerson was his air, and Mason hadn’t understood the sentiment at the time. But now he did. Beck and Ryder were the oxygen that made him breathe easy and feel normal.

“Let me do the rest,” he murmured, gesturing to the laundry basket. Ryder only had what he’d packed for Robbie’s, and since the boy loved playing in the dirt, he and Beck were doing laundry constantly now. They soon would need to go back to Douglas and pick up her car and move her out here officially. She hadn’t been keen on going back to a place where she’d been cut so deeply, and he understood that.

He could never go back to his first home either.

But looking at Beck now as she smiled up at him from the couch, he didn’t have the urge to anymore. Home was where she and Ryder were. Home was here, with the Boarlanders.

Boarlander. He should’ve known he was destined for this crew.

Beck opened her mouth to say something, but her attention landed somewhere behind him, and her face transformed into one of horror. Her eyes turned from green to yellow in an instant.

Mason’s skin prickled with the cool breeze of wrongness against the back of his neck. He didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to see her, but Esmerelda was here, and he couldn’t make Beck witness her alone.

Slowly, Mason turned. Essie stood there in the kitchen, eyes so sad, a rope burn deep in her neck. She was tinted blue, transparent, and her hair and white dress fluttered around her in a stiff wind that didn’t touch him.

“They’re coming.” Her lips moved just after the words reached his ears.

“Essie, I moved on, just like you wanted. You have to let me go. You can’t come here anymore.”

Her eyebrows arched high, and a strangled sound screeched from her throat, as if she wanted to say more but hadn’t the power. Her hair whipped about, and the front door ripped open, slammed against the wall with a crash.

And Esmerelda was gone.

Outside, she whispered it again. “They’re coming.”

She was luring him. He knew it but was powerless to stop his legs from carrying him toward the door.

“Mason,” Beck said in a shaking voice. She pulled his hand but, helplessly, he dragged her with him. What was happening to him? He stared down at his legs in horror, willing them to stop.

“Mason, don’t go out there!” Beck yelled, her bare feet stuttering against the laminate flooring as she struggled to stop him.

The second his boot echoed onto the porch in the evening light, Beck’s hand slipped from his. She stood frozen in the doorway, hair tumbling down her shoulders, eyes round, chest heaving.

Eyes wide with terror, Beck whispered, “I can’t move.”

Enraged that Essie’s power was affecting Beck, Mason looked to the woods and yelled, “I’m here! What do you want from me?”

They’re coming. Coming, coming. They’re coming. The hissed whispers filled his head, each word cluttering the next. Coming, coming. They’re coming.

Mason squatted down and covered his ears. He hated her voice, hated that she was still here haunting him. Hated her. “Gaaah!” he screamed as the volume of her whispers drowned out everything and filled his head.

The noise dipped to nothing so suddenly that Mason opened his eyes, and there she was, right in front of his face. Tears streaming down her translucent cheeks, she said, “Mason, they’re here.” Esmerelda was blasted backward and disappeared in a puff of cerulean smoke.

The ground rattled under his feet like an earthquake.

“Mason,” Clinton said, warning in his voice. He stood on top of his trailer next door, eyes on the woods where trees were shaking. Something awful was coming closer and closer. Shit.

Boom! A gunshot echoed through the valley, and in an instant, Kirk threw his trailer door open. “Ally!” he yelled. His massive silverback ripped out of him, and he charged the woods. Clinton landed hard from where he jumped off his trailer.

“Call the dragon,” Mason barked out, but Clinton was already dialing on his cell phone.

“What’s happening?” Beck asked in a voice that trembled with terror.

The trailer rattled as the vibration grew closer, and Mason held onto the banister to steady himself. “Beck, stay inside. No matter what you hear, you go in Ryder’s closet, and you don’t come out. You protect our boy.”