Boarlander Silverback (Boarlander Bears #3)(14)

“All the damned time. It’s impossible not to, right? The Gray Backs are all paired up. My best friend started a family.”

“Damon did move on quick, didn’t he?”

Mason chuckled. “No. It took him centuries, and I’m happy he found Clara, but seeing everyone so happy makes me want things I won’t find.”

“So, when Damon finishes rebuilding his house, will you go back with him? Will you be his driver and assistant again?”

“Shit, I don’t know.” Mason relaxed against the couch cushion and picked at the label on his beer bottle. “I’ve been thinking about it, but I don’t know where I belong anymore. I never pledged to anyone.”

“Why didn’t you pick a crew?”

“Because boar-people don’t work like that. We stick with our own kind. The second I register, they would come after me and yank me back to fulfill my duties. I’m happy-ish in these mountains.”

“Happy-ish?”

“Yeah, man. Don’t pretend you don’t feel the ache. Feel the burn of the outside. You’re one of the last singles, too. What about you. What’s the plan, Lowlander?”

Kirk shook his head and set his semi-clean boot down, then started on the other. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not? There are worse alphas to put yourself under besides Kong.”

“Yeah, well, Kong isn’t an alpha. My gorilla-people don’t work like that. One silverback per family group. He’s got my animal stifled, and my instincts right along with them. I have my eyes on a female. A woman,” he corrected himself, because Ally wasn’t just some gorilla female ready to breed. She was more. Everything, maybe.

Mason sat straight up. “Who?”

“Officer Holman,” he said through a smirk.

“Dancin’ with the devil, are you?”

“Don’t call her that.”

“She isn’t one of us, and she isn’t just some human, Kirk. She’s one of them. She’s the first wind of the tornado headed our way, and you’re holding your arms out, waiting for her to carry you away. Careful with that one.”

“I thought you’d understand.”

Mason glared at him a half a minute too long. “Have you told Harrison?”

“Nope. Just you.”

Mason cursed and stretched out one of his legs, then sighed. “Do you trust her?”

“Yeah, but it’s different for you and me now, Mason. We have nothing to offer a human woman anymore. Nothing can legally bind us to them.”

“Until they reinstate our rights.”

“And how long with that take? How long do you think?”

Mason looked tired and shrugged one shoulder up. “I don’t know, man.”

Kirk didn’t either, but he did understand the answer to that question could be never. Kirk was prepared to be patient and wait on that slow human timeline until Ally was ready to settle down, but then what? What commitment could he possibly give her that would mean anything? He couldn’t claim her by shifter laws, and he couldn’t marry her by human ones. They’d have to carry on, just like this, until the government got tired of meddling in shifter affairs.

“She was better off without me, and by a lot.”

“You kissed her yet?” Mason asked quietly.

“I’m not talking to you about that.”

“I’m not asking as a pervert so shut your defenses down. I’ve had a mate before, and I know how it feels when you lock on. Heart pounding when you even think about seeing her, wanting to taste her all the time, needing to hear her voice, your animal going nuts when it’s been too long between visits, that bone-deep instinct to breed her and start a family just to tether her to you. Are you there yet?”

Kirk dropped his boot and wadded up the dirty paper towels. He stared out the open blinds to the rainy day beyond. With a sigh, he admitted, “Yeah. I’m there.”

“Then ask me what you really want to.”

Kirk debated not saying anything else. He wasn’t into therapy hour. In fact, he’d always prided himself on being an island that no one could reach. But suddenly, he was having all these inconvenient feelings, and hell, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to ask Mason for advice on the decision that was doubling him over. Pitching his bad moods left and right sure wasn’t working. “Should I go back to Kong’s Lowlanders? If he stifles my animal, maybe, in time, the instinct to settle her will lessen.”

Mason huffed a humorless sound and scrubbed his hand over the three-day beard on his jaw. When he looked at Kirk again, there was sadness in Mason’s eyes. “That feeling won’t ever go away, Kirk. Not even if you ripped your beating heart from your chest. Kong won’t save you from your mate.”

“I’m not trying to save myself,” Kirk murmured, gaze following the streams of rainwater that raced down the window pane. “I’m trying to save her.”





Chapter Eight


Alison chewed distractedly on the end of her pen and stared out the front window at the drizzling rain outside. At this rate, it would turn her front yard into a weed swamp in no time. Her suitcase still sat packed on the floor of the single bedroom. A part of her had thought her boss would pull her back any minute when he found out how little work there was to do here.