by T. S. Joyce
By the time the shiny black diesel truck rolled under the Boarland Mobile Park sign, Clinton felt like he could keep his skin a while longer.
Scared animals were dangerous animals. If Harrison spent a single minute in Clinton’s shoes, he would see how unsalvageable he was and put his crazy ass down. And Clinton wouldn’t even blame him. He was lucky to have survived so many crews.
When the truck came to a stop in front of the semi-circle of Boarlanders, an older man with wide shoulders and tired, dark eyes got out. He looked like Mason, but with thirty extra years of age and stress on him. Two other men got out, too, and flanked him. One was taller, and thinner, with blond hair and a snarl on his lips, while the other was shorter with a big barrel chest and tree trunk arms. He was the one to watch, reeking of dominance, with his eyes all psychotic-looking.
Air-Ryder slipped his hand into Beck’s, and Clinton put himself between the little family and the boars. He couldn’t help himself. Mason looked calm-as-you-like, but if Harrison said “go,” Clinton would happily rip these douche-wagons limb from limb just for funsies. They had brought war into Damon’s mountains and put all the shifters here at risk, and Clinton was a proud grudge-holder. Always had been, always would be.
“Son,” the older boar greeted Mason. He looked around at the others with narrowed eyes. “I gave you my word we didn’t come to make trouble. Are the bodyguards really necessary?”
“Apparently,” Mason said languidly. “What do you want?”
Cockface cleared his throat, then crossed his arms, flexing them like he was trying to puff up. Wouldn’t work. Everyone here was a bigger monster than him. “As you know, defeating Jamison means you are the dominant boar now—”
“You aren’t pissed that one of your sons killed your other son?” Clinton asked.
“No,” the old brawler gritted out. “That’s the way it is for our people. Someone has to win, and someone has to lose.”
Clinton frowned so hard his face hurt. He dragged his gaze to Air-Ryder. He wasn’t even Clinton’s kid, but if anyone offed him, Clinton would kill everyone associated with his death, whether they were family or no.
“I told you your people are fucked up,” Bash said.
“Agreed,” Mason said. “Make this quick. Why are you here?”
“I need you to fight these two,” his dad said, gesturing with two twitches of his neck to the titans behind him. “With your absence, dominant boar has gone back to me as interim, and I don’t want this job. I retired for a reason. You not taking your rightful place—”
“As president of the fuck-ups,” Kirk chimed in.
The old boar’s eyes went dead. “You not taking your rightful place as dominant boar has thrown our people into chaos. We need a leader. I get that you aren’t coming back to us, but you at least owe it to us to put things right.”
“I owe you.” Oooh, Mason’s tone sounded dangerous as hell.
Clinton rocked forward on the balls of his feet, excitement growing in his middle. Fight, fight, fight.
“Yeah, Mason. You owe us. Right now we have the damned Barrow as our leader.”
“He ain’t a barrow,” Clinton gritted out. Fuck him for calling Mason old names that weren’t true.
“He is. He isn’t earning enough working out here, and he’s sterile—”
“Horseshit!” Clinton said, taking a menacing step toward the trio of idiots. “So let me get this straight. Your people brought war here, almost killed Mason, and now you think he owes it to you to throw this fight. Because that’s what this is, right? Mason is Beast Boar. He’s bigger than all those fuckers who came up here, more battle-hardened, and you want to pin these lesser boars up against him in hopes they survive and take dominant boar. Right? He almost died. Your son almost died. I watched him.” Clinton jammed a finger at the Boarlanders. “We watched him bleed out. We held him together. We almost lost him, and maybe that don’t mean shit to you, you horrible father. But I’ll be good goddamned if I’m gonna sit here and watch him throw a fight after he earned the title Beast Boar.”
Mason was staring at him with a surprised expression frozen onto his face, and his annoying mouth was drawn up in a smile.
“Shut up, Mason,” Clinton gritted out. “And furthermore,” he said, swinging his gaze back to daddy fuckface. “He ain’t a barrow, and I bet you knew that all along. What did you do, give him those two sows knowing he couldn’t breed ’em?”
“Clinton,” Mason warned.
“Let me guess…you had ’em on birth control?”
“Clinton!” Mason barked out, good and pissed now.
But when a flash of guilt washed over his father’s eyes, Clinton knew he was right.
“You picked a favorite son, and you destroyed Mason in the process so no, he ain’t fightin’ to save your people from chaos, fuck you very much.” Clinton raised his hand in the air. “I vote to kick the pigs off the mountain.”
Bash’s hand shot in the air. “I vote that, too!”
Kirk tossed up two relaxed fingers, Harrison offered daddy boar a feral smile and raised his hand, and now Beck was looking down at her belly with wide, shocked eyes. Yep, there it was. Patchy periods or no, she hadn’t had one since she’d come to the trailer park. Clinton knew. He kept up with the girls’ cycles, and screw whatever that said about him.
Mason stood rigid against the waning evening light, his furious gaze drifting between Clinton and his father, his chest rising with his ragged breath, his hands clenched at his sides. With a snarl of his lips, he lifted his hand in the air and muttered, “Bye, Dad.”
His father ground his teeth and dared to hold Mason’s blazing blue gaze for a few moments before he wised up and dropped his eyes to Mason’s boots. With a quick nod of his head, he gestured for his two sidekicks to get back in the truck, and then he slid in behind the wheel. Before he left, he rolled down the window. “Mason…” He swallowed hard and shook his head for a long time before he simply said, “I’m sorry.”
Mason gripped the back of his hair as he followed the truck to the welcome sign at the entrance of the trailer park. And when he paced back, his eyes were glowing like blue flames and boring into Clinton.
“What did I do?” Clinton asked.
“What did you mean? About me not being The Barrow, what did you mean?”
Clinton crossed his arms over his chest and looked off into the woods, ready to ignore the shit out of that question.
“Clinton, I swear I’m gonna Change and gut you if you don’t start talking.”
Clinton braved a glance at Mason’s feral face, then looked into the forest again. Lifting his chin, he said, “Beck should tell you.”
“I-I need to take a test to be sure,” Beck rasped out, like she was having trouble forcing her words up her throat.
“No, you don’t. I’ve smelled you for a while,” Clinton said. Dragging his gaze to Mason, he murmured, “You put a little piglet in her. She’s the one you were supposed to have a family with all along. Fuck those sows.”
Mason’s face went slack with shock, and then he inhaled a long, shaky breath as he looked at his mate. Beck was crying like a baby already, her face all crumpled, tears streaming down her rosy cheeks. Audrey and the girls were rubbing her back, and Air-Ryder was looking around confused.
Mason scooped Beck off the ground. His shoulders were shaking as he buried his face against her neck. Clinton couldn’t take it. Too much happy. Too much mush and emotion, and his bear was roaring in his middle to Change and escape the pain.
He could’ve had this once—happiness—but his mates had only succeeded in destroying him instead.
As Beck began sobbing behind him, Clinton strode desperately for the woods.
Moments like these would never belong to him. He hated everything.
And then his ears rang with the roaring of his bear.
Chapter Three
Alyssa Dunleavy squinted at the napkin she was doodling on and then went to work shading the eyes. She coul
d never get the boy’s face right. With a quick glance around the diner she served tables in, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the newspaper article some pro-shifter named Emerson Kane had written for the Saratoga Hometown News. Alyssa unfolded the paper and flattened out the wrinkles, then slid it across the beige countertop to sit right beside the picture she’d drawn of the boy from her dreams. Under the article was a photo of five guys sitting in front of a mobile home. She’d found it when she’d become interested in the upcoming shifter rights vote, and now she just couldn’t get one of the bear shifters out of her head. Even through the low resolution of the photograph, the man’s ferocious face looked eerily similar to the boy in her dreams. And even weirder, his name was listed under the picture with the rest of his Boarlander crew.
Clinton, just like the boy’s name from her dreams.
The other server on shift, Bryce, yanked the picture from her grasp and asked, “Is this dream guy?”
With a mortified gasp, Alyssa snatched for it and missed as Bryce laughed and dangled it out of reach. Damn her stumpy legs, and double damn Bryce’s giraffe stature.
“Whoa, he’s fine.” Bryce cocked his head and stared at her drawing sideways. “Or he would be if one of his eyes wasn’t miniature.”
“Okay, stop,” she muttered, pulling the napkin from his fingertips with a riiiip. Perfect, because she planned on tearing it up anyway.
“Hey, Angie,” Bryce called down the counter. “Safety First had another dream.”
God, she hated that nickname. “Bryce,” Alyssa gritted out, her cheeks flaming with heat.
The owner of Sparky’s Diner shut the cash register and made her way toward them. Great. With one last death glare for Bryce, Alyssa smoothed out her apron with her clammy palms and plastered on a smile for Angie.
“Let me see,” her boss said, hand out. She waved her fingers impatiently, so Alyssa sighed and gave her the newspaper article and her crappy drawing.
As Angie and Bryce studied the pictures, Alyssa tried to imagine it from their points of view. The picture was so grainy, and this man in the article was much older than the boy, by a decade at least. There was no way they were a match, and now they would know how crazy she was. Wincing with mortification, she made her way to the only full table and refilled a regular’s coffee before he needed it. She wished it was busier, but right now was the lull, midway between lunch and dinner.
“What did your therapist say?” Angie asked, way too damn loud for comfort. The whole town already thought she was a nut-job. Small towns knew everything about everyone, and it had leaked long ago that Alyssa traveled into the city on Thursdays to visit some fancy shrink.
Clenching her teeth against the urge to pop off to her boss, Alyssa put the coffee pot back on the heater and leaned onto the counter. Quietly, she admitted, “She thinks I have these dreams to cope with my accident. She says it’s my brain’s way of filling in blanks because I’m not happy with the answers I’ve been given. It’s all in my head. This boy is just…” Alyssa shook her head helplessly. “He’s just a figment.”
“Hmm,” Bryce said, his perfect chestnut-colored eyebrow arched high. “And what do you think?”
“I don’t know. I think about him way too much. I should stay in the here and now, but for some reason I keep escaping to this fantasy world I created in my head.”
“Well,” Angie murmured, “your doctors did say there could be permanent damage they won’t ever know the full extent of. Maybe this is part of it.”
“Yeah.” Alyssa tried not to sound disappointed. She really did, but hearing another theory about her brain damage from her friends sucked. Her parents, doctors, and therapists already made her feel like a freak. “You’re probably right. And in my dream, there is this girl named Shae, and I’ve never heard of anyone named Shae in my life, nor does the dream make any sense.” Smile like a normal person. Bigger. “It’s nothing.”
Except she knew how she felt in those dreams. She felt the tingling in her legs creeping through her body. Felt the wind on her face and the puddle that soaked her socks. She felt his kiss—violent and almost painful. Twice she had startled awake with her lips throbbing.
She really was crazy.
This poor guy in the paper didn’t even know he was being stalked by some lunatic. She lived across the country from him in North Carolina. That man had nothing to do with her, and the dream was obviously some fucked-up, desperate attempt to make sense of her accident. Why? Because losing all her memories by getting her dumb ass lost in the woods and falling into a ravine was much less interesting than some hero-soul-mate-love-story. Clearly, she’d been watching too many of those lovey-dovey proposal videos online.
Alyssa pursed her lips and threw the ripped, scribbled napkin away. She wanted a lovey-dovey proposal. And not just the proposal, but someone who would deal with all her baggage.
“So,” Bryce drawled. “Remember when you dated Kyle? And Ben?”
“God, don’t remind me. I’m not the world’s best girlfriend.”
Bryce turned and poured himself an orange soft drink from the soda machine into one of the paper cone-cups Angie supplied for them when they wanted a refreshment on shift. “Not your fault. You lost all your memories at eighteen, and now you have ten tiny years of remembered history. And then you go and pick boys, not men, who can’t handle your journey.”
“Journey, huh? Both of their breakup speeches were mortifyingly similar. My exes wanted a woman who knows who she is. And frankly, they have a point.”
“Oh please,” Angie said, wiping down the counter with a wet rag. “You know who you are. You are Alyssa muthaflookin’ Dunleavy, the best server I’ve ever employed—”
“Hey,” Bryce complained half-heartedly from behind his orange soda mustache.
“You have no less than a dozen Employee of the Month pictures in my office—”
“Rigged,” Bryce muttered.
“Bryce, I don’t think you’ve showed up on time since you started working here,” Angie said.
Bryce nodded once at Alyssa. “She has a point.”
Angie continued. “You love your parents, you’re a hard worker, a great friend, and you can cook like nobody’s business. And you are the shittiest scribbler I’ve ever met.” Angie cracked a smile. “You know enough. Kyle and Ben were small-minded pickle-dicks who weren’t on your level.”
“Maybe this mysterious sexpot is your dream guy,” Bryce mumbled, clicking away on his phone. “He has a profile up on bangaboarlander dot com. Listen to this. ‘Clinton Fuller, age twenty-eight, nymphomaniac, giant penis, no STDs, wants tons of kids, loves to give flowers and cuddle, immediately ready for a mate, net worth—a billion dollars.’ And then it has a phone number listed. And then it lists an edit to the profile that just says, ‘Great ninth best friend.’ Hell, he’s my dream man, I’m calling him.”
“Bryce! Don’t!” Alyssa reached for the phone, but he was across the counter and escaped her easily as he lifted the cell to his ear.
Bryce pouted and hung up. “Straight to voicemail. Dream Guy’s voice is sexy, though. All deep and growly.”
Alyssa groaned and rested her head on her crossed arms on the counter. “Bryce, he isn’t my dream guy.”
“No STD’s, Alyssa,” he said through a baiting grin as he pointed to the glowing screen of his phone. “Giant penis.”
“Bryce,” she whined. “Why can’t you be my dream guy? You accept me and my baggage.”
“Because you don’t have a giant penis. If I was straight, though, I’d put a ring on you tomorrow.” He frowned. “If you stopped wearing those nerdy glasses and shaved your legs more often.”
“Okay,” Alyssa muttered. “Enough. I’m going to go stock the back.
“Waaait,” Angie drawled. She and Bryce shared a look Alyssa didn’t understand. Angie pulled up a plastic jug full of ones and fives. “We may or may not have set up a little charity for you.”
“What?” Alyssa turned the full jug and read
the sign taped on the side. Sure enough it read Get Alyssa a Life Fund. Fantastic.
“You have worked here since you were twenty, Alyssa.” Angie rested her elbows on the counter. “You should’ve moved on a long time ago.”
“You don’t like me working here?”
“You know I do, and I’ll be completely screwed when you leave and the bulk of the work falls on this one.” Angie nudged Bryce, who looked completely unoffended. “But you haven’t taken a single vacation. You went stagnant and got scared of life after that accident. You haven’t gone anywhere or done anything, and it’s time.” Angie pulled a wad of money out of her back pocket and dumped it into the jar. “This is to help with your trip.”
“Trip? What trip?”
“The one you’re taking to Saratoga to figure out what it is about dream guy that has you off in la-la land all the time.”
Bryce dropped a wad of money into the jar and declared, “For disposable razors.”
Alyssa’s throat thickened with emotion at how amazing her friends’ offer was, but… “I can’t take this.” She fingered the lip of the plastic container. This was more money than she’d ever seen in her life. “It’s way too much, and I’m not going to Saratoga.”
“You have to.” Bryce draped his arm over her shoulder and set his phone down. “We’ve already rented you one of those rustic cabins on the outskirts of town for seven days of that wilderness shit you like so much.”
“I went camping one time, and it was at the local park.”
Bryce shrugged. “Go for a week, meet dream guy, mark him off your list so you don’t have to think what-if for the rest of your life, and then come back here and work at the diner for eternity if you want.”
She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t. Her nickname was Safety First for a reason. She was twenty-eight years old and still got nervous talking to strangers. She didn’t even go to the local bar without pepper spray, a serrated pocket knife, and at least two friends. The thought of going to a new town that was chock full of shifters was terrifying. She’d never even met one of the animal-people, and now she would what? Walk up to Clinton Fuller and ask him what he was doing in her dreams?
