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

He jerked his fingers back as he felt the horrible indents. He half expected to see blood on his fingertips when he pulled them away, but there was nothing there. His hands were dry.

His face was all right, only slight scarring from that prick’s silver rings. Derek didn’t know what the werewolves would do with all the silver, but he hoped it involved fire.

He’d never hated silver before in all his life.

He checked the back of Mason’s head one more time, finding more of those small craters in the back. He’d not only taken the shotgun blast for him, but he’d also taken pellets right to the head.  The fact that he was alive was a miracle in and of itself.

Derek couldn’t help himself. The situation was so morbid that he had to laugh.

“I figured you had a hard head but didn’t think it extended to the literal definition of it.”

Then he started to cry. He sat there for a few minutes, his messed-up hand over his eyes, just wishing that the life of a werewolf didn’t require so much uncertainty and danger.

Mason was going to be fine, Derek was sure of that, and now that the hunters were all dead, Derek had a decision to make that he

wasn’t sure he could handle.

He loved Mason. He had ever since he was twenty years old.  Since the minute he first laid eyes on the man, and apparently they were mated.

Mason Returns to His Mate                    119

Derek had a life that he’d struggled to build for himself in  Brampton, though. He wasn’t wildly successful by any means, but he considered himself a success considering the way his story started out.  He’d bought that run-down pawn shop, and in a town of less than eight thousand people, he’d turned it around completely. He even had the respect of the townsfolk, despite the fact that he was openly gay in such a small area.

Now he was going to have to decide if he wanted to go back to that life, where everything was safer and no one came after him  with a shotgun, or stay with the man he loved and practically vanish from the grid, starting over completely.

If only Mason would just open his eyes, then he wouldn’t be having these doubts.

120                          Marcy Jacks

Chapter Twelve

Blasius could hardly believe his luck. His mate, his Rhyan, was here, alive, and in front of him.

And he’d thought fate had been cruelly laughing in his face for centuries, but no. Not only a new life in a new body, but also his lover returned to him in the form of this human.

Human no longer, he supposed. With his injuries, Blasius had no choice but to take the man away from the battle raging outside―hunters in this time were so much more pathetic than in his.  At least the hunters in his day had the stones to fight up close, using their muscles and  brawn instead of these strange new weapons of

today.

Guns, he’d heard the term now and again but was still becoming  used to the word on his tongue. One of those cowardly hunters had  escaped thanks to such a weapon, which only infuriated Blasius more,  knowing that the man who escaped might just be responsible for his  mate’s current condition.

Regardless, Rhyan had been injured with one such weapon, and was clearly dying of it. Blasius would not allow the man to die on him, not again. So he’d taken him away,  locked himself inside of one of the cabins, and then proceeded to dig the bullet out of the gut of his lover.

He’d tried to comfort him, but Rhyan had screamed something terrible as Blasius’s fingers dug into the wound, and Blasius prayed that Rhyan survived the operation.

Even with Blasius digging his claws into the man, infecting him with his werewolf venom, there was still no guaranteeing he would

Mason Returns to His Mate                    121

live.

He did live, and now he was resting, in bed, his outer clothing folded on the chair at his side. He was pale but sleeping peacefully.

The odd thing was how Rhyan did not seem to recognize him.  That would change once the man woke up. He would tell him who they were to each other, and he and Rhyan would finally be together after all these centuries apart.

* * * *

Mason’s eyes hurt when he opened them. The room was so fucking bright he could barely see, and he had to turn his eyes away from the offending light just to be able to think.

He put his hand to his eyes and groaned.

“Mason,” Derek said.

His name on the other man’s lips sounded like a relieved sigh, and then Derek’s shadow was over him as his face was gripped between  Derek’s gentle hands and he was kissed, every last inch of his face.  Mason pressed his lips back wherever he could, but Derek was too

quick for him.

His mate was alive. He’d survived the gunshot that Mason had taken for him. Thank God. His eyes burned, and not because of the light in the room, though he pretended that was what it was.

“Sorry,” Derek said when Mason told him what the problem was, and then the light from the bedside lamp clicked off, and they were left in the dark. “I put one of Maggie’s scarves over it. I didn’t think it would be too bright.”

Mason looked down at his side where Derek had put the book he’d been reading by faded lamplight. “How long have I been out?”

When he was able to adjust his eyes in the dark, he saw the way  Derek rubbed his cheeks with the sleeve of the shirt he wore. “Couple of days. You had me so fucking worried. People were starting to say you were in a coma or something.”

122                          Marcy Jacks

Mason didn’t know what being in a coma felt like, so he couldn’t confirm or deny that that was what his long sleep had been.

“I feel like shit. The back of my head hurts,” he complained.

Derek snorted a