When my wolf seems to be pawing at me, begging to be let out, I finally shift and start running. I know these woods almost as well as I know the woods behind the estate. And really they’re the same forest. I could run with my eyes closed and not miss a step, knowing just when to duck and when to jump, able to sense just where I am based on the feel of the ground under my paws and the scents around me. I test myself; seeing how far I can push. It makes me feel a little better about things.
Eventually, I sniff out my brother and head in his direction. We wrestle around and play and give chase. Xander seems to understand my mood. I guess that makes sense, since he can run a bit hot-headed himself. When we both sniff out deer, we run toward it and I feel the thrill of the hunt rushing through me. I haven’t even eaten since the croissant earlier that morning and I’d normally be hungry on a run to begin with. Now I’m practically starving and I want meat.
The prey make us work for it. All my senses are on high alert as my brother and I chase, hang back, and chase again. We corner them finally and then it’s a little massacre as the two of us pounce. I’ve always felt that this might be the part that a human mate wouldn’t understand. They’ve all seen Bambi too many times. But for us, it’s life as a shifter. I’m a peaceful person the vast majority of the time, but now I feel alive as my sharp canines sink into the deer’s throat after its crumbled beneath me. I can’t magically make everything okay for Alice. But I can control this and I can sate myself. The mood is easier and the meat tastes good in my mouth.
When I shift back at the edge of the woods later, my mouth is caked with blood and my belly is full.
But I’m still angry.
Chapter Eight: Alice
They’ll be releasing me soon and it’s understandable. There’s nothing much wrong with me really. I wasn’t very badly hurt. My face and the scars on my wrists and ankles are healed already and I know that’s due to my shifter nature as I get my strength back.
But the thought of being released is as terrifying as anything else. I don’t know where I’ll go. I don’t know if somebody decides where I go or if I get a say in it. And if I did get a say in it… What would I say? If I could go anywhere I would go to the Tremblay’s. Wherever Mason Tremblay is, I’d like to go there. He’s the one being so kind to me. But for all I know, there’s some place for lost wolves like me. They’d place me with a new pack or let me choose one. The Tremblay pack is just Tremblay’s. I doubt they’d allow me to choose them. Who wouldn’t want to be a Tremblay?
I’m in the hospital another couple of days after that one day Mason spent with me. He comes each morning and spends so much time there, it makes me think I must be holding him up from something. I know the Tremblays are rich, but he must have to work? On the third day he comes, I woke up from a nap and see him working on a computer. He puts it away like he’s embarrassed, but it makes me curious. What does he do all day?
On the fourth day, I see people through the window of my room that looks out on the hall. I recognize Micah Tremblay and there are two other men standing there with Mason. I think they’re his other brothers. I’m curled up and the light is out. They probably think I’m asleep but I watch as they talk quietly. I can’t make out what they’re saying. Mason keeps looking back at me like he’s worried, except one time when he smiles softly. I wonder if they’re talking about what should be done with me. Eventually the others go away, and Mason comes into my room; careful and quiet like he always is.
I stir and Mason says, “Hey there. You awake?”
“Hmm.” I answer by stretching and rolling over onto my back. I figured out the bed controls on the first day and now I raise the head of the bed, smiling sheepishly.
Mason sits in the chair beside me and smiles back, scratching his elbow. He looks nervous. I wonder if he’s about to tell me they’re going to send me away somewhere and he feels bad.
“Is it time for me to go?” I say. Though I can’t quite control how my voice shakes.
“Well…” He hedges, looking around the room. “It’s time for you to be released from the hospital, yes. The question is, where to next. Right?”
“Yeah,” I say, heaving a sigh. “Hey, don’t feel bad, okay? If you need to send me to a pack or something. Or if there’s somewhere I’m supposed to go. You’ve done so much for me, Mason. I’ll never be able to thank you.”
“Alice!” Mason raises his voice just a little. It doesn’t scare me or anything, but it does surprise me. He’s speaks softly most of the time, even when he’s being firm and trying to make a point. Now his eyes are big and I see him glance away, his jaw tensing for a moment. “Sorry, I just… What I was about to say is that if you would like to, we’d really love for you stay at my parent’s estate for a while. Or if you’d rather, you can certainly stay at my place. I have a lot of extra room. I just didn’t want to assume… It’s up to you really. I just don’t want you ever to think you’re putting us out, or anything like that. Alright? I told you we wouldn’t forget what you did for us. I just feel as if you definitely do need a place to stay, at least for a while. It’s just a matter of where you want to go.”
Mason sighs and meets my eyes then and I let out a breath.
Oh.
All I can manage to say at first is, “Well…”
“My parent’s house is huge, of course,” Mason says, sitting back and spreading his hands. “And my parents are very kind people. I’m sure my mother would just love you. And there’s a full staff there too. And a rose garden. You’d be in the lap of luxury. Not that my place isn’t nice. It has much more room than I need and it’s also… It’s very nice. And I’ll be there. Of course.” He clears his throat. He seems just a little bit nervous but I’m not sure why. Does he not want me to choose his place? ...Or is he afraid I won’t? “So where do you want to go? Don’t think too hard about it, don’t worry about it. Please. And if you’d rather go somewhere else-”
“I want to go with you,” I say quickly.
Mason’s eyelashes flutter. He has a pretty, full mouth that smiles now. I even see some teeth this time. He runs his hand through his dark mop of hair and nods.
“Okay,” he says firmly. “Are you sure? It’s really up to you. Of course, I’d like to be able to look after you and know you’re okay after all this-”
“I want to go with you,” I say again. It feels so foreign to except something so big from anyone. It’s like jumping off a cliff. “If it’s really up to me. That’s what I want.”
Mason nods and smiles down at his shoes and looks around the room. He turns and grabs the books stacked on the shelf against the wall and sets them back as if he suddenly needed to straighten up. There are double the amount of books there than before. He bought me several the other day and then shook his head, making fun of himself because he’d brought more books than I could ever be expected to read in a couple of days. But I have read two already, and a third is spread open on my lap. I loved pouring over them. The one I’m reading now is about pirates. He told me it was one of his favorites as a kid.
As if reading my mind, he says, “I have a lot of books too. I have a whole library.”
I managed to sneak away to the library closest to the old Hardwidge woods several times over the years, before we moved to that compound that Dax was going to turn into a utopia. The idea that I could borrow books for free always blew my mind. Except I was never sure how often I would get to go and I was scared of letting books get overdue. The few times I got to go, I spent as long as I could looking at the books and browsing all the magazines in their racks.
“A whole library?” I say.
“Well, it’s a personal library,” I say, shrugging. “Not like a real one? But I do have a lot of books, yeah. You could read whatever you wanted and whatever you want that I don’t have, I’ll buy for you.” He ducts his head at that, like he’s said too much or he’s embarrassed and somehow I like him even more. “Or ya know, we could go to the real library. I don’t get out to the Quinton Publi
c Library that much but I remember it being pretty nice.”
“I’m sure it is,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say. “Do you have a shower?”
I blush at having blurted out the question. Before the hospital, bathing at Hardwidge usually meant shifting and bathing as a wolf out in the river, which was enough to keep you clean as a human as long as you were able to shift. When I got to the hospital, I’m sure I was rank and dirty. I can only imagine what Mason thought. But the hospital has showers. Of course, I knew about showers and bathtubs, but I’d never used one. The shower was divine. A nurse helped me the first couple of times and I think I worried her, I was moaning so loudly at the delicious sensation of the hot spray of water on my body.
Judging by Mason’s expression, my question is as ridiculous as it sounds to my ears. But I can see him pretending it’s not.
“Yeah,” he says simply. “I have a shower. I have a couple showers. And a really fancy bathtub. You’ll love it.”
“I…” I don’t know what to say in the face of all this kindness. Andy and I used to share food and look out for each other when we could, but this is something else. At least I know one thing to say. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Alice,” Mason says softly. “But remember, please. It’s us who owe you everything. Micah wanted to say hello earlier, but we thought you were asleep and we didn’t want to overwhelm you.”
“Oh.” I swallow and sit up a little straight as if Micah Tremblay might walk in any moment. “I think I’d like to be able to look a little nicer when I meet your brothers. Not that...I don’t care what I look like in front of you-”
“I understand,” Mason says. “Well then… I can get your release organized if you’re alright with it? And we can go to my place? We can eat there. My food is much better.” He gives me a wink and it makes me smile.
“Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath. I feel nervous and spread my hands on my blanket, squeezing my knees through the sheets.
I tell myself to be brave. Mason thinks I’m brave and I trust Mason, so maybe he’s onto something.
“Okay,” I say again. “I’m ready.”
Getting released from the hospital apparently takes just about forever. There’s a lot of paperwork, but finally Mason is pushing me out in a wheelchair. He tells me he let his brothers know what’s happening. I feel an adrenaline rush. It’s hard not to be nervous even if there isn’t a reason to be. Mason is obviously really devoted to helping me. I’m just going to be grateful for it.
The car ride is quiet. His car smells nice, like it’s new. He talks the whole way to his house about nothing in particular in that soft tone of his. He puts different songs on the radio because he doesn’t know what kind of music I like and about how Quinton is so pretty when it rains and it makes his wolf calm down for some reason. He talks about how he’ll make us lasagne even if he doesn’t know whether or not I’ll like it because he thinks I will and he doesn’t know why. Then he talks about how he doesn’t know why he’s talking so much and it makes me laugh.
Then he blinks at me and says, “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard you laugh before. Maybe a little chuckle, but that was a real laugh. I liked that laugh.”
That makes me laugh again and Mason just smiles wider. “I’ll remember that then.”
“You don’t have to laugh if you don’t want to,” Mason says so seriously that it makes me laugh yet more. “I’m ridiculous sometimes.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair and maybe because I’m sitting so close to him, I notice how long his fingers are and how his soft hair runs through them. It makes me blush and I swallow, looking out the window.
Everything about Mason Tremblay is different from every single man I knew at Hardwidge. They were hard and brutal and always full of rage and hate and everything about Mason is peaceful and kind and sort of soft even when he’s strong. I take a deep breath and wipe my eyes when they get a little bit teary thinking about it. I’m lucky, I realize. I’m so glad it was Mason that picked up the phone when I called.
I don’t know what I expected of Mason’s house. I had no idea what to expect. The way he talked about his parent’s house, I imagine that place huge and something like a castle from a fairy tale. But Mason’s own house seems absurdly large, considering I grew up sleeping in a one room shack in the middle of the woods. We drive down the road and it just appears around a bend; a dark wood sided house with huge windows and a big porch. It looks like a modern house that was created by the forest somehow. It’s clean and calm looking, as much as a building can look calm.
“I’m hoping you feel at home here,” Micah says when we park. “I know it will be strange for you staying at some stranger’s home.” He grabs my backpack from the backseat, and the accompanying bag of odds and ends from the hospital. That’s my only baggage, meagre as it is. I’m wearing the clothes Mason found me in again, though they’ve been washed now. They smell like soap and a little bit like hospital but my oversized jacket and t-shirt and jeans are all I’ve got to wear right now. I get out of the car and take a deep breath. The house sits right across the road from the woods and I like that, knowing something so familiar is right there. I might have had a lot of people treat me badly in my life, but the forest has always been there. The forest, I was never afraid of.
“Um, Mason,” I say, as I follow him up to his door. He turns around, eyebrows raised in question. “This isn’t a stranger’s home. You’re not a stranger. Not to me.”
He relaxes at that and nods firmly as he opens his front door. “Good. I’m glad to hear you say so.”
“Whoa.” I widen my eyes when I walk into Mason’s place. The house seems even bigger on the inside. There’s just so much space and light. But the light isn’t glaring like the sun when the day is too hot or like the greenish lights at the hospital that seemed to hum in my ears while the nurses checked my vitals. This light is natural. Even with the rainy day, the place seems full of a soft kind of light. The floors are dark wood and the big front room looks out on thick glass windows from the floor to the ceiling and a view of all Quinton and the mountain beyond.
“You live here all by yourself?” I ask, spinning to face Mason.
“Ah...yeah.” He shrugs, and ducks his head. He seems to do that a lot when he answers certain kinds of questions. I haven’t quite figured it out yet. “Let me show you your room.”
Mason leads me up the stairs to a wide open landing shaped like an L. Mason’s room is in the corner and mine is next door. When I see my room, I have to take a minute to think. I sit on the bed and try to find my bearings. Everything about the room is so peaceful, so…Mason. The bed seems enormous to me. A part of me doesn’t understand why one person needs so much space, but I’m hardly complaining. There’s a bookshelf opposite the bed and a desk and a cozy looking chair next to a sliding glass door that leads out to the balcony. I don’t know how long I’ll be here, but the thought of getting to stay in such a nice place for even a day seems too good to be true.
“I’ll give you a house key, of course,” Mason says. “I have an extra downstairs.”
“A key?” I murmur. I find myself distracted by the books on the shelf. He seems to have stocked it with all kinds of different stories. I wonder if he did that just for me or if the books were there before.
“Yes.” Mason waits until I look at him again and says, “It’s important to me that you know you can come and go as you please, Alice. No one is making you stay here. I want you to feel...safe. And...and free. If you ever want to go on a run in the woods or go out walking, whatever you want.”
“I understand,” I say, summoning up a smile. “Thank you, Mason.”
“Good,” Mason says, nodding. He sets my backpack on the chair and looks around the room, blinking as if it's just appeared in front of him. The more time I spend with him, the more I notice these funny little things he does that make me smile. “Good. Now how about some food?”
Mason insists that he doesn’t need help co
oking and not knowing what else to do, I sit at the table where I’m eventually supposed to eat and browse a few of the books from the shelf in my bedroom. The one that first catches my eye is Alice in Wonderland and I wonder if he put it there because of my name. That thought makes me smile too. It never takes me long to get caught up in a book and I don’t even notice when there’s a quick knock at the front door.
“Helloooo! Hey, it’s Luna!” A voice says.
I’m not sure what I’m expected to do but Mason comes trotting out to meet Luna as she comes inside. I hadn’t expected to meet anyone new today. I don’t think Mason expected anyone to come over, but I find myself curious. If I was going to want to meet anyone, it would be Luna. She’s the one who first made it out of Hardwidge, along with her mother.
“Hey. Hi, Luna. Didn’t expect you.” Mason says, looking back and forth between us.
Luna sweeps in, carrying several large paper shopping bags. She smiles softly in my direction. “Yeah, I know. And I didn’t bring Micah or anything. I just wanted to stop by because I was a little worried you might not be totally prepared for your lovely new guest…”
I see Mason bristle slightly. His brow turns down and he opens and closes his mouth. “I...I think I’m prepared?”
“Yeah?” Luna smirks at him. “So you bought up a bunch of lady’s toiletries, socks, underwear, pajamas, and some basics to wear until she can pick out things she likes?”
Mason says, “Uh…”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Luna says, giggling. She looks at me like we share a secret. Like we’re already friends and I find myself feeling lighter and less nervous. “Men, huh? Silly boys.”
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