Jacks, Marcy - Mason Returns to His Mate [DeWitt's Pack 8] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic Man by Marcy Jacks (free novel reading sites .TXT) 📗

want to be stuck here.

“James told me about you,” Corey said, lifting his hand. “See  this? This is what happens to humans who support werewolves. I’ve  been shot, too, and I’m lucky to be alive.”

Derek shivered.

“The pack’s been avoiding you for your own protection, but now  that you’re mated to Mason, you’re as connected to us as it gets  without turning you into a werewolf.”

Mated? He and Mason had only just reconnected. It was a little  early to be using that kind of wording, wasn’t it?

He still had  to fight this. “I have people who will miss where I

am.”

If his landlord and the general public who came to his store counted, which they didn’t.

Corey had that look on his face that said he knew Derek was full of shit. He had no one who loved him on the outside and no one who

would care that he’d vanished from the face of the earth.

Derek suddenly felt sick.

“When these hunters are taken care of, it’ll be safer for you to go back out into town. We’ll make up a story that you can tell the police.  Isaac has  a lot of money, and he’ll make sure you get a good lawyer.”

“And how long will that be?” Derek asked.

Corey’s eyes were pitying again. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t,” he added quickly when Derek was about to argue some more.  “Hunters are dangerous, and  you said yourself that these guys likely have your ID. If we can’t kill them before they show your picture off to other hunters…” Corey trailed off and shrugged helplessly.

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And he’d wondered about his hand. Now he knew. For the first

time, Derek saw the darker side of this pack. These were nice people  from what he saw on the outside, but realistically, they were part of  the paranormal. They had hunters to deal with and occasionally had to  kill in order to survive. They would kill the men who were after  Derek as well, but that was only because those hunters were also after  the pack. Would they kill Derek if he threatened them, too? Even in  this small way?

He was hardly the kind of man who had issues with death and  killing, so long as it was done in self-defense, but to hear it talked  about so openly and casually was surreal.

Derek got up from the picnic table.

“Where are you going?” Corey asked.

Was this why the other man had been so nice and inviting to him  before? Because he was charged with keeping an eye on him?

“Back to the guest house to think,” Derek muttered, stuffing his  hands into his pockets and not looking back.

Corey didn’t say anything to him as he left.

Mason Returns to His Mate                    67

Chapter Seven

James clenched his jaw when his younger brother finished telling him the story. “You stayed away for ten years over that? I should kick your ass right now.”

Considering the lazy life Mason had been leading ever since his self-exile, not having to worry about hunters and all, James didn’t doubt he could do it.

“I know. It seems pretty stupid when I think about it.”

“It is stupid,” James said. “Jesus Christ, you mean to tell me that I  lost my brother for ten years because you had too much fun one night  with your mate?”

“Didn’t exactly work out like that,” Mason muttered.

“Whatever.” James was in the mood to fight something now, and  since fighting his brother would be counterproductive, he was really  hoping one of the wild werewolves prowling the area would jump out  at them or something.

They were still around, he knew that much. Their scent was faint,  but it was still in the area. They were being oddly quiet lately. Maybe  their human sides were starting to come to? Who knew?

James and Mason were only out here because they were hunting  them. Not to kill them, but to bring them in.

James had decided that increasing the pack right about now with  some more alpha wolves might be a good move, and since most of the  wild wolves out here were transformed against their will by Deacon,  and with Deacon being dead and all―sort of―they might be willing  to come in and learn to be more civil. He just had to catch them first  before he could convince them that letting out their more human sides

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wasn’t exactly a bad thing.

Nick was still out there with Mickey. Their area to search was  wide and farther out than James’s, so maybe they were having better  luck than James was.

“Well, thank God you decided to come back and finally talk to  him. Otherwise I might still not have you,” James said. He could  hardly look at his brother right now for how angry he was.

“Yes, but now his shop is gone,” Mason said.

James was about to hit him over the head with a whole lot of shut-

the-hell-up-with-that-self-pity-shit before Mason started speaking

again.

“We need to kill those hunters and fast. The longer he’s away  from the  human world, the harder it’ll be for him when he goes back.”

James lifted a scraggly brow at him. “You don’t want him to stay  with the pack?”

“I do, I mean, it would be preferable, but the second he finds out  he can’t leave, he’ll flip out. He’s human, James. He won’t want to  have the pack forced on him.”

“I haven’t forgotten that he’s human. Isaac is human, too, and he’s  fine staying with the pack.”

“Yes, but he can leave anytime he wants. He’s not in hiding.”

His brother had a good point, but he refused to let Mason beat  himself up over it. The last thing he needed was for his little brother  with the guilt complex a mile long to go running away again for  another ten years.

James decided to drop it, but the conversation wasn’t over. He  would be bringing this up again.

They kept on the vague trails of the wild werewolves for another  couple of hours, only deciding to come in when the sunlight, the little