Boarlander Beast Boar (Boarlander Bears Book 4) (12 page)

“No, you aren’t, Beck. Your eyes are glowing like yellow highlighters right now. What are you going to do? Huh? You gonna homeschool him forever, keep him from making friends, coddle him because that’s what you’re doing. He ain’t living! Every time he gets pissed, he Changes.”

“Because you hurt him, Robbie! You hurt his feelings when you tell him he’s not normal, or that he needs to change a fundamental part of who he is to earn your love. I’m not having this conversation anymore. My answer is a definite, non-negotiable no. Ryder is fine the way he is. He’s perfect.” Angry tears stung her eyes at how much she hated Robbie right now. She shook her head as she stared at this terrible person she’d given her heart to once. “Why can’t you see he’s perfect?”

“Because he ain’t,” Robbie gritted out. “And if you aren’t willing to take him to the appointments on the days you have him, I’ll file for primary custody and get it done myself.”

“No judge is going to give you primary custody, you idiot. You barely see your son! You haven’t paid child support! You are literally the worst father I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah.” Robbie gave her a blood-chilling smile. “But I’m human, and I have more rights than you do. A judge will see what I’m trying to do for him and cut you out of Ryder’s life because he deserves better than this. He deserves better than you.”

Bile rose in her throat at the idea that this monster could actually take Ryder away. Her son’s life would be so empty, so lacking with Robbie constantly belittling him. She loved Ryder more than air. He was vital to her. Her entire existence was devoted to giving him a good life. She breathed for his little smile. “I’m leaving.”

She stood, but Robbie grabbed her hand and growled out, “Not until you say yes and sign the consent forms.”

Beck tried to break away from his grip, but Robbie tightened it, his eyes going cold as a snake’s.

When he wrenched her closer, she gasped out, “You’re hurting me.”

The crash of the pool stick against the metal edge of the pool table was deafening, and in an instant, the jagged splintered end was shoved against Robbie’s jugular.

“Take your fuckin’ hand off her,” Mason gritted out in a low, snarling voice that could rival a monster’s.

Robbie let her go slowly, then lifted his hands in surrender. Behind Mason, Haydan, Kellen, and Kong stood like demon-eyed titans, ready to rip Robbie in half.

“Here’s how this will go,” Mason said low as he eased the stick away from Robbie’s throat. “There will be no more talk of torturing Beck’s kid and no more laying your hands on her.”

“And who are you?” Robbie asked through a furious grimace.

“I’m Mason. I’m Beck’s mate.” He gave a venomous smile under those glowing blue eyes. “Now, I’ve seen a lot of daddies like you.”

“Like me,” Robbie scoffed.

“Yeah. Fuck-up dickheads who screw up a kid’s life because it suits your own to do it. And the story is always the same. You slither back into your kid’s life when they’re grown and don’t need you anymore. You come with your apologies ready because your guilt will eat at you until you can’t sleep. Can’t eat. You’ll raise your other two babies and eventually you will grow up enough to realize you did your other kid wrong. And you know what will happen then?”

Robbie crossed his arms defensively, but now he wouldn’t meet Mason’s glare.

The table creaked under Masons weight as he locked his arms on it and leaned forward. “He’ll be the one telling you that you’re worthless. And his hatred will be all your fault. You’ll die knowing you failed that kid, when all he wanted was for you to care about him. Don’t you bring this gene therapy shit up again. You won’t kill Ryder’s owl. He’s a badass bird of prey. You’ll just make him angry, and someday, he’s going to be a fucking warrior, fed on your endless faults.”

Mason arched his gaze to Beck, apparently waiting for her to chime in, but she was a little dumbfounded right about now. Before, it had always been her alone sticking up for Ryder, but Mason had just reminded her how awesome it was to be a shifter. Ryder
was
going to be a badass. He was a bird of prey, a raptor, a flight shifter. That was fucking awesome! She knew because she was one and, hell yeah, she was tough.

“I think you should leave,” she murmured to Robbie. “You should go back home and really get to know our son. He’s amazing if you would just see past your prejudice.”

Robbie shook his head for a long time, stared out the front window as the fire dimmed in his eyes. “Beck, I can’t do this anymore.”

“Can’t do what?”

Robbie leveled her with a hard look and murmured, “That was my last offer to be a part of his life.”

“I don’t understand,” Beck said softly.

“I don’t want to pay no child support on a kid I never wanted.”

Mason gave her a sad look and moved off with the others, leaving her and Robbie alone again.

“Robbie, you don’t pay child support now, and I still let you see him whenever you want.”

“Yeah, but we already went through the courts, and last paycheck, they docked me by a lot. I have two kids on the way, Shelly can’t stand shifters, and she needs more than you did, Beck. She needs the big house and the shiny new car to be happy.”

“So what do you want me to do? I can’t afford to go back to court to beg them to stop docking your pay, and even if I did, that stuff isn’t up to me. And frankly, you should’ve been paying something. He is your son too, and you’ve put the entire financial burden of raising our child on me.”

“I think I want that burden to stay on you.”

She shook her head in confusion, unable to come up with a single response.

“I think I want to give up my parental rights.”

Beck huffed out a shocked sound. “W-what?”

“Your man or mate or whatever is right. I’m one-hundred percent going to screw Ryder up. I don’t like shifters, Beck. Never have. I don’t think you’re natural. You don’t fit into the food chain.”

“We fit fine. You just hate that I’m higher on the food chain than you,” she gritted out.

“I still want the gene therapy. If it was up to me, I’d strip that owl out of Ryder tomorrow and be done with it. I’m not putting my new family’s needs second by giving you all my money to raise a
shifter
. If you’re going to fight fixing Ryder, then I’m out.”

And with that, Robbie stood and left without looking back.

“Okay, thanks June. And no matter what happens, you guys will still be in his life. You’ve been amazing grandparents.”

“Well, I sure appreciate that,” June said in a tear-soaked voice. “I just wish Robbie wasn’t so bone-headed. Call us tomorrow and let us know if we need to meet you halfway.”

“Okay. Have a good night.”

“You too, honey. Bye.”

Beck hung up the phone and set it in her lap, face up in case Robbie called to change his mind. Although, according to his mom, June, relenting his rights had been on his mind for a while now.

“I should’ve seen this coming,” Beck said softly to Mason from the passenger’s seat. “Ryder’s already asleep so I couldn’t talk to him. God, I hope Robbie is in his right mind when he talks to him about this. Or should he even say anything? I mean, Ryder might not realize Robbie isn’t in his life anymore because he really wasn’t present to begin with. I don’t know what the right thing is to do. I don’t know anything,” she whispered helplessly.

Mason intertwined his fingers with hers and lifted her knuckles to his lips. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“Will it? Genetic testing! I still can’t even wrap my head around that. Robbie’s ultimatum was to physically and emotionally scar Ryder or reject his child altogether? I already felt alone raising Ryder, but now I’m really, really alone.”

“No you aren’t,” Mason said fiercely. He looked at her with the fire of promise in his eyes. “We’ll figure this all out.”

But Mason didn’t see what she did. His headlights illuminated a woman in the middle of the road. She was cast in an eerie blue glow, her long dark hair flowing unnaturally, and her eyes were black as night.

“Mason!” Beck screamed. “Look out!”

Mason jerked his attention to the road and slammed on the brakes, skidding sideways right into the woman. But right before they careened into her, she disappeared.

A terrifying whisper filled the cab. “They’re coming.”

“Hold on!” Mason demanded, turning into the skid with one hand pressing Beck so hard against the seat she couldn’t breathe.

Fishtail after fishtail spun the truck this way and that, and the smell of burnt rubber choked Beck as they slammed to a final stop.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Beck chanted, horrified as her heart threatened to leap out of her chest. She turned and looked behind them, expecting to see a body on the road, even though there had been no impact. “What was that?”

“That,” Mason gritted out, his furious gaze on the rearview mirror, “was Esmerelda.”

****

Mason ran his finger under the covers, along her ribs, and down the curve of her stomach to the swell of her hips. “Can’t sleep?”

“Sorry,” Beck whispered in the dark. “I was trying to be still so you could get some rest.”

He brushed her hair out of the way and pressed his lips on the back of her neck. “I can’t sleep either.”

Easing back against his strength, she whispered, “Why does it feel like everything is falling down around us? Our rights are being stripped, Robbie…Esmerelda. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think I understand about the claiming mark now.”

Mason sighed and hooked his arm around her stomach, pulled her tight to him. “Beck, it’s not that I don’t think about it. I mean, I feel obsessed. My boar wants you, I want you, and damn, I will love seeing my mark on you someday.”

“But Esmerelda. She’s getting stronger in your life, just like I am, and you want to know why before you give me a mark. You don’t want it to be me and Esmerelda fighting for your attention when you claim me. You want it to be about me and no one else.”

“Close. I want it to be about you and Ryder. He’s my only shot at a kid, Beck. I feel like you’ve opened this door to a life I thought I would never have.”

“Do you feel pressure?”

“Yeah. Hell, yeah. Before Esmerelda, I would’ve jumped right on you, marked you, claimed you. I was young, but Beck, I was so ready for a family. A mate, kids, all of it. I was right on the cusp of taking the alpha position over my people. I had a great job. Providing for you and Ryder wouldn’t have been a concern at all, and back then, that was the most important thing to me. Security.”

“I’m not asking you to provide for us, Mason.”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I have the means to provide for you now, too, but when I met you, that wasn’t the first thing I thought about. I’m different now. The first thing I thought was, ‘oh shit, how can I make her happy while I’m dragging this baggage?’ And the answer is I don’t know if I can. I couldn’t make Esmerelda happy, and now look what’s happened. She wasted her last years on me, and now she’s wasting her afterlife on me, too.”

Beck turned in his arms. Her night vision was impeccable so she could see every worried line of his face, every indentation of muscle across his shoulders, every ounce of sorrow in his dark gaze. “I don’t think she would see it as a waste.”

Mason traced the outside of her ear with a light touch. “Jason said he thinks she’s here to tell me to pay attention to you and Ryder. He thinks she’s here to tell me to move on from her death.”

Beck searched his eyes, but he wasn’t meeting her gaze anymore. “And what do you think?”

“I was fine with that explanation until I saw her standing in that road tonight. I’m letting you in. I’m falling in love with you. I’m nervous, but excited to meet Ryder.” Mason lifted his soft brown eyes to hers, held her steady there. “So why is Esmerelda getting stronger?”

Beck shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know.” That had scared her badly. She’d already been freaked out by Esmerelda talking to her in the restaurant, but seeing her and feeling her cold, dead breath against her neck in Mason’s truck had stolen the safety Beck felt here. Sure, she’d known ghosts existed, but physically seeing a ghost, feeling Esmerelda’s presence, and watching the effect it had on her mate was completely different. Her owl hadn’t settled down since they’d almost wrecked.
Scratch, scratch, scratch,
her inner bird of prey clawed at her skin, asking to be released just so she could fly off some of this emotion.

“Will you Change with me?” she whispered, too chicken to look him directly in the face and watch the rejection there.

Mason hooked a finger under her chin and lifted her face, pressed his lips to hers. His mouth moved against hers like water, soft and gentle. And when his tongue brushed hers, she opened for him, allowing him to taste her, allowing him in. Although she wouldn’t admit it out loud, Mason had all of her. Everything she had to offer, he could have if he would just keep her. Because this feeling—this chest fluttering, stomach-dipping, happy sensation—hadn’t existed before he’d breathed life into her.

He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to make her happy because he felt broken. But he didn’t see it. She was broken, too, shattered into the perfect shape to match his tattered edges. He could keep his claiming mark and take it slow if that’s what he needed. She understood now, and she would wait for him. She would find her patience if it meant she could live more moments like this when a big, dominant, scarred-up beast of a man held her heart so gently in his hand and promised wordlessly to protect it for always.

She loved him.
Loved
him. Just being capable of this intense emotion after Robbie had stripped her soul bare was a testament to how inherently good Mason was. She wouldn’t have given herself to anyone less. Not after all she’d been through.

So she would wait. And she would love him. And she wouldn’t guilt him for being careful because he’d nurtured deep love once, and even if he didn’t realize it yet, Mason
knew
how to build it again. With her.

He was worth waiting for. Worth the effort. Worthy of her “all in.”

With a content sigh, she slipped out of his kiss with a soft smack and rolled over, gave him her back. Her revved-up instincts told her Mason really was a beast boar. Robbie used to take her from behind and hurt her, and she’d sworn never to let a man do that to her again. But then Mason had come along, and he wasn’t just some human male trying to dominate her. Trying to stifle her shifter by putting her beneath him. Sex with Mason was different. It was more animalistic, and this was the test. If he didn’t trigger her to panic, then she really was getting better.

Mason’s reaction was instant. His arms slid around her, pulled her back tight against his raging hard erection. He rolled his hips gracefully with her seductive movement. And when she reached behind her and gripped the back of his neck, she could feel his teeth on her shoulder, as if he couldn’t help but tempt himself to bite.

She thought he would take her hard and fast since that’s what rutting men did, but instead, Mason slid his hand down her quivering belly and cupped her sex. And when he brushed his finger down her wet folds, she gasped and spread her knees wider for him. For a while, he toyed gently with her clit, bringing her closer to climax with every touch, and when she was bowing against him, pleading, he finally slipped his finger inside of her.

Against her back, Mason rolled his long, thick erection. She wanted that. Wanted him in her, wanted them connected, because when they were in each other’s arms, the rest of the world slipped away. Beck reached between her legs and drew his dick between her thighs, against his hand as he fingered her.

Mason grunted and pushed a second finger inside of her, and she was gone. Her orgasm pulsed through her, and he worked each aftershock out of her until she was sensitive and twitching under his touch. And then he kissed her neck as she recovered. Sensual, commanding lips, a hint of tongue, and nipping teeth had her begging silently again. She arched back, tempting him as his dick slid through her wet heat.

“Are you sure,” he whispered against her neck.

Oh, he’d listened when she’d told him Robbie used to take her from behind just so he didn’t have to look at her face, but this was different. Mason was different. Sex like this with her mate was exciting and erotic. She loved that he made her come before he took pleasure for himself. Good man. Good boar. Good mate.

“With you, I’m sure.”

Mason rolled her up on her hands and knees and threw the covers off them. “On your elbows,” he said in a gravelly voice. “Arch that back for me so I don’t hurt you.”

A delicious shiver trembled up her spine and landed in her shoulders at the commanding confidence in his voice. She bowed like a stretching feline and spread her knees farther apart on the soft mattress. “Like this?” she teased, tossing him a look over her shoulder.

Mason’s eyes sparked like blue fire, his gaze locked between her legs.

He ran his big, calloused hands down the sensitive skin of her outer thighs, lifted up on his knees, and pressed his taut stomach against her back, like he was testing how much weight she could bear. Rocking them forward gently, he brushed her sex with the head of his cock, and now he was the one teasing.

“Touch yourself,” he whispered, hand over hers, guiding it between her legs.

Touch herself? Eeek! She hadn’t ever done that in front of anyone before, and now—oooooh. Mason pressed her hand over her clit, and she could feel his shaft as he dipped into her by inches. He eased back and then pushed into her deeper, filling her with delicious pressure, stretching her with his girth.

His arm was locked on the bed beside her cheek, and she turned and bit his bicep as he rubbed her hand between her legs again. A low rumble rattled his chest, vibrating against her back.

“Deeper,” she pleaded.

Mason pushed into her until his hips met her ass. Rolling her eyes closed, Beck sighed out a helpless sound as she moved with him. His abs flexed against her as he pulled out and pushed in, and when she pressed his hand against her sex to feel where he was entering her, to feel how wet he’d made her, Mason jerked his hips, bucking into her faster.

She was already toeing the edge, about to fall over the side when Mason slammed into her with one more deep thrust, and… “I’m coming,” she gasped out. “Mason, I’m coming.”

Mason bucked into her again and froze, gritting out a feral sound as his dick pulsed heat inside of her. Over and over he throbbed, matching her release, until warmth trickled down her thighs. God, she loved this. Loved him wild. Loved how he made her feel like the sexiest woman on the planet. Her sexy beast boar, filling her with his seed until she couldn’t hold anymore.

Minutes stretched on as they slowed their pace and savored every aftershock, and at last, with a slick sound, Mason pulled out of her.

He ran kisses down her back, right along her spine, coveting her, showing her sex wasn’t his end game. Showing her it was just the beginning of his affection. “Yes,” he whispered against her fevered skin.

“Yes, what?” she asked in the dark.

“Yes, I would love to Change with you.”

The grin that stretched her face felt so good. Wordlessly, Mason stood beside the bed and held out his hand, palm up.

“I should clean up,” she murmured, slipping her hand into his.

Mason lifted his chin proudly, his blue eyes glowing from the inside out. “No. My animal likes you smelling like me.”

With a steadying breath, she padded out of the bedroom, through the living room, and into the night, holding the hand of the man she loved. Mason didn’t mind touching her anymore. He didn’t balk or panic. In fact, the sound rattling his chest, just above her senses, sounded content, and his skin heated where it touched hers. She couldn’t even bring herself to be embarrassed by the warm wetness that trickled down the insides of her thighs to her knees. If this was the only mark Mason would allow himself on her, then she was fine with smelling like him.