Boarlander Beast Boar (Boarlander Bears Book 4) (16 page)

Bash had placed himself between Ryder and the river waves lapping at the beach. “I bought girl drinks, too, and rainbow umbrellas so you can feel fancy.”

Ally lifted a bright red fruity beer from the cooler and handed it to Beck while Mason went to work helping Kirk and Clinton duct tape a bunch of giant yellow inner tubes together. Across the river, a commotion snatched Beck’s attention.

“Yooohooo,” called a petite, red-head with thick glasses, a floppy straw hat, and a yellow polka-dotted saggy tankini. The Gray Backs filed out of the woods behind her.

“Hey, Willa!” Emerson yelled with a wave.

“Hell, yeah,” Kirk said. “Now it’s a C-Team party.”

“The Ashe Crew is meeting us down river.” Creed, the dark-haired alpha of the Gray Backs called through cupped hands, “Hey, Ryder-man!”

“Hi Mister Creed!”

“Congratulations on owning your owl today, buddy!”

“Hooo, hooo!” Ryder called.

Her son was practically vibrating with pride as Beck snapped him into his life jacket, and a well of excitement bubbled up her throat. Today had turned out so differently than she’d thought it would.

They piled into their inner tubes, Ryder into the smallest one, and rowed clumsily with cupped, splashing hands to the middle of the river toward the Gray Backs, who were doing an equally horrid job of steering. They were all cracking up by the time they reached each other and linked up. And behind them, Kirk, Bash, and Clinton jumped all the way over the falls and into the river with huge cannon-ball splashes. Ryder got so excited, he squeezed his juice box all over himself and giggled uncontrollably when the rowdy Boarlanders popped out of the water right beside his tube and splashed him. A slow-floating quarter-mile down river, and the Ashe Crew was waiting in the shallows, true to their word, and with a couple of kiddos around Ryder’s age. Wyatt was the blue-eyed bear shifter son of the Ashe Crew alpha, Tagan, and his mate, Brooke. And Bruiser and Diem’s daughter, Harper, linked up her little tube to the boys’ too. She was a striking girl, with dark hair and one soft brown eye like Diem’s, the other blue with an elongated reptilian pupil. But despite the fire-breathing dragon that resided inside of her, she was polite and gentle with Ryder when they splashed around.

When Mason swam up behind Beck and rested his elbows on her tube, then leaned in and nuzzled her neck, another layer of happiness washed over her. Looking around at the different crews who were greeting each other like they hadn’t seen each other in months instead of days, and under Mason’s easy affection with the soundtrack of Ryder’s laughter echoing through the river valley, this incredible sense of belonging drifted over her like a warm, comfortable blanket.

And now she had another reason to fight for the shifter rights vote.

Because someday, someway, she and Ryder and Mason were going to register and pledge as official Boarlanders.

Mason readjusted Ryder’s weight in his lap so he could drape his arm around Beck’s shoulders. A distracted smile still lingered on her lips as she swayed from side to side with the rocking motion of Clinton’s truck. She was happy. Mason could sense it coming off her in waves, and damn, what it did to his animal. Hoof stomping, chest up, head held high, his animal hadn’t ever been a prideful creature, but today he was.

On the other side of the truck bed, Kirk was rubbing his mate Ally’s shoulder absently as she dozed off. Usually, Clinton drove like a bat out of hell, but today, he’d acted almost normal. Maybe 1010 was working its magic on him, too.

The sun was setting behind the mountains, painting the sky in neon pinks and oranges, casting Beck’s face in a pretty glow. She smiled up at him, as if she could hear his thoughts. Hell, maybe she could. He’d never marked a woman before. It had been against the rules of the boar people to give Essie one because she was human, and he’d cared deeply about what his people thought about him back then. Now, all he cared about was Beck, Ryder, and the inhabitants of Damon’s mountains.

Clinton pulled under the Boarland Mobile Park sign and onto the new gravel road. He parked in his yard over the scorched words he’d burned into his weeds and, exhausted from the day, they all climbed out of the truck. Ryder was still hanging on, but Mason would bet his tusks he would sleep like a winter grizzly tonight.

But when he turned for 1010, there was a familiar, beat-up old white Ford truck parked on the new concrete pad beside it. And on the front porch rocking chairs, Beaston and Aviana sat with matching smiles.

“Beaston!” Kirk called with a wave. The others greeted him, too, but the feral-eyed bear shifter only nodded a greeting, his glowing green eyes never straying from Ryder.

With a frown, Mason led Ryder and Beck to the porch. The boy hadn’t met the Novaks yet, but not for lack of Mason trying. It seemed Beaston had trouble being separated from his raven boy more than a few yards, and he’d grown protective and unwilling to take him out of the trailer he shared with Aviana behind the Grayland Mobile Park.

Beaston was cupping something gently on his lap and didn’t stand as they approached like his dark-haired mate, Aviana, did. Instead, he cocked his head at Ryder and murmured, “I’m Beaston.”

Ryder had gone quiet, and Mason understood. Beaston’s eyes glowed like a demon’s, and the air around him was heavy with dominance.

“Tell him hi,” Beck encouraged him.

“Hi,” Ryder said shyly, his eyes on the floorboards.

“Introduce yourself,” Beck murmured, inching him forward by the shoulders.

“My name’s Ryder Layton Anderson and I’m five years old and I live in a trailer park.”

Beaston cracked a crooked smile, just for an instant before his eyes went curious again. “I came here to see you.”

“Why?” Ryder asked in that little squeaky voice of his.

“I have something to show you.”

“Is it a puppy?”

“No, but it’s the most important thing to me. The best thing.” He held out his cupped hands, and on his palms sat a tiny, fluffy, jet-black chick with a glossy, black beak and big round eyes that blinked curiously at Ryder. “This is my raven boy, Weston. Someday, you’ll call him Wes.”

Ryder’s eyes went round, and Mason knelt beside him to get a better look at Beaston’s son. “He’s already shifted?”

“Early,” Beaston said with a nod. “I wanted to come today. Wanted to come to the river for Ryder, but Weston Changed and...”

Aviana settled her hand on her mate’s tensed shoulder and whispered, “It’s okay.”

“I had a dream,” Beaston said, his eyes steady on Ryder. “A black raven and a snow white owl were flying over a crowd. Everything was loud. Cheering. They flew as one. Happy. My Aviana will only bear me cubs now, and Weston will be my only raven boy, and you…you will be like his brother. You’ll be fierce. Strong.” Beaston’s eyes blazed like green flames as his voice dipped lower. “And do you know what they will call you?”

“What?” Ryder whispered.

“They will call you Air-Ryder, Son of the Beast Boar, Blood Brother to the Novak Raven.”

Chills blasted up Mason’s arms, and he jerked his eyes to Beck, who looked equally as stunned.

“Who,” Mason asked, fully aware that Beaston’s dreams had never been wrong. He had the sight, like his mother before him. “Who will call him that?”

Beaston lifted those wild green eyes to Mason as a sly grin spread across his face. “Everyone.”

Mason stood leaned against Ryder’s open doorframe, arms crossed over his chest as he watched him sleep. The little boy’s lips were parted, and his face was completely relaxed. He used to think boar offspring were the cutest, but now that seemed ridiculous. Ryder was the cutest. Little fluffy owlet, always wanting Mason or Beck to hold him when he Changed. Mason had tucked one of his downy gray and white feathers into an empty matchbox for safekeeping since Ryder wouldn’t be this little forever.

Beaston’s dream proved that. Someday he would grow up, and Mason wouldn’t get to cuddle the little owl anymore. He would get manly hugs and back slaps.
Son of the Beast Boar
. Mason gritted his teeth against the urge to fall apart. He sure didn’t feel like The Barrow anymore.

Beck was in the living room folding laundry and watching some reality show she roped him into sitting through after Ryder went to bed at night. Any other woman, he would’ve fought it, but Beck liked snuggling and talking about the characters, and damn, he would watch a documentary about water boiling if it made her happy.

She’d been on the warpath since they’d been forced to register. Her days were filled with balancing motherhood and being a champion for the shifters. She had meetings and conference calls, organized events, and bullied the crews into community service with a relentless tenacity. Cora Keller had called Harrison and told him to keep her happy because the work Beck was doing for shifter public relationships was making a huge difference. Even Cora was back to joking on her phone calls, where for a while, she’d been so stressed, like the weight of their future was on her shoulders.

Mason was so fucking proud of Beck for stepping up. She had everyone doing a job, visiting the websites, answering questions, doing community outreach, and volunteering at Parks and Rec events down in Saratoga. At her direction, the girls of the Ashe Crew had built a huge rapport with the surrounding areas at the flea market where they sold their shabby chic furniture and décor. Willa’s Worms were now a staple at every bait shop from here to Kansas, and every one of the crews spent more time in town and signed autographs whenever anyone asked.

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.

Boar-lander. 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.”

Everything was so clear now. So bright. So obvious. He’d been wrong about what Esmerelda had been doing here. She hadn’t been telling him to let her go. She’d been warning him against the people who had cut her heart wide open when she’d been alive. She’d been warning him, not because she couldn’t let go, but because she wanted him to protect what he’d found—Beck and Ryder. The Boarlanders. He ran for the woods, peeling off his shirt as he went.

“Mason,” Beck shrieked. “Is it IESA?”

“No!” He called back at her. He gritted his teeth against the hatred that welled up inside of his chest. “It’s the boars.”

Emerson ran by as Bash and Harrison melted into the woods in front of him, a deep snarl in their throats. She bolted for Mason’s trailer with a gun in her hand. “I’ll take care of them!” she called out. Her eyes were full of terror, but her voice was steady, determined.

Good Emerson. Brave human, knowing just what to do so he could focus on the blood he was about to let. Fuckin’ Robbie for outing him, and fuckin’ Jamison for not being able to let Mason go.

A sick feeling twisted his gut as his boar roared to be set free. Now, he had everything to lose.

Another gunshot boomed through the valley, and the drum of a silverback beating his chest echoed through Boarlander woods. His people were going to war, and their pain would be on him. Their blood would be on his hands.

He could smell them now as he wove through the trees. The thick, dizzying, musty scent of dominant boars tainted the air and filled his senses. The deep-throated squeal of a battle cry blasted through the forest. There would be no talking them down. They weren’t here to negotiate his return. They were here to steal everything he loved.

His body broke, bones snapping, muscles stretching, bottom canines elongating into thick, sharp tusks as his body exploded into something monstrous. He hit the ground running on sure-footed hooves. He was fast in this form. Faster than a lightning strike as the trees blurred past him. Harrison and the others had cut them off in the firefly meadow. The raw violence of the bears, the tiger, the silverback, and all the boars pushed fury through his chest. There were too many.

Jamison’s giant red boar stood off to the side, eyes blazing the blue of his people. Mason wanted to gut him. Wanted to run his tusks through his belly and watch him die in his own entrails for trespassing in his mountains. Bash was in trouble, though, under a pile of four razorbacks. None of the boars could touch Mason or Jamison’s size, but frenzied by bloodlust, they had the numbers and single-minded killing instincts that made them bold and relentless. Mason shifted his stride and hit the back of a boar head on, gouging his thick hide with his long tusks.

He shook his powerful neck, stabbing, battling, protecting Bash’s weak side—his back. The air smelled like iron, and the boars grew in number, as if Jamison had called another wave. He lost his mind. Lost his thoughts other than
kill
. Other than
defend them
. Other than
save them
.

Flashes like photographs punctuated brief moments between battling. Kirk slamming a white boar against a tree trunk. Harrison’s massive grizzly clamping over the thick neck of another. Bash’s claws…too close. Audrey’s white tiger leaping onto a boar slashing at Harrison’s back, her canines open and ready, her claws out, her eyes full of fury. Ally, legs splayed over her four-wheeler, tattoos black against her pale skin, lips pulled back in a battle scream, she popped round after round at the boars that surrounded her.

Pain ripped up his back leg, and Mason went down hard, skidding in the dirt. The second he hit earth, Jamison charged him, the coward. He’d watched from the side until Mason was tired. Until he was down and wounded.

Adrenaline surged through his body, and he struggled to his feet, catching Jamison’s full force. The brawler boar had broken off one of his tusks since Mason had last seen him, but his brother was skilled at protecting his weak side, slashing the other like a long blade. Jamison wanted war? He could have his mother fucking war. Mason wasn’t the same broken shifter he was when he’d challenged Jamison before. He wasn’t depleted and weak. In his time away from his people, he’d spent his efforts logging, putting on muscle, and battling for these mountains beside Damon and the other crews. He wasn’t wishing for death anymore. Now, he had so much to survive for. So much to defend.

Jamison hit him like a wrecking ball, but Mason was ready. His legs braced, he skidded through the dirt, locked his tusks with Jamison’s and jerked his neck, throwing his brother off balance. Stupid fucker had been brawling with lesser boars, but Mason was a dominant Croy like him. He was a rip-roaring war machine.

Searing pain flashed up the nerve endings in his side as other boars joined Jamison. Assholes didn’t know how to fight with honor. They didn’t care if it took a hundred of them to kill one, so long as they won. So much ache, so much warmth, but Mason couldn’t unlock with Jamison, or his brother would have him gutted in an instant, just like the first time.

Something white blurred by, and the shriek of a pig sounded from behind him. The weight on Mason’s body lessened, and in an instant, another white streak dove and lifted. Beck. She was going for their faces, keeping the others off his back. Distracting them.

Clinton’s blond bear roared an oath of death and slapped another boar off the pile, then clamped his massive jaws on another. Crazy Clinton was buying him time.

A battle cry sounded as a set of long, curved, black talons raked across Jamison’s left eye. With a grunt of pain, Jamison stumbled, and Mason used his body weight to charge him against a tree.