Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mason
“Wake up, dammit!”
My eyes fluttered open, then went wide. “Let me go!” I screamed, struggling against the giant’s grip.
“Mase, I need you to calm way the fuck down.”
Wait—that voice… Okay, so it was rough, but fuck, I knew that voice as well as I knew my own.
“Kip?”
“Yeah, it’s me. I know you have questions, and I swear I’ll answer them once we get out of here. You know, out of the fire?”
I knew we had to get out. Bits of ceiling were falling, setting other things alight, the heat…
The problem? I was staring at Kip with new eyes.
He wasn’t wearing clothes, and his body, so much bigger than when he was in human form, was covered in thick deep blue scales. My gaze drifted downward and I swallowed hard. There was still a very sizable lump in his crotch area, and I wanted to see it desperately.
Kip snorted. “You are such a perv, Mason. We’re up to our eyeballs in a literal fire and what are you trying to do? Get a peek at my cock.” He nudged me. “Focus. You can get your hands on it later.”
Even when he was…whatever he was, he was still my Kip. And I was going to hold him to that.
Then it hit me. “Well, if you’re you, then who the fuck were you dragging?”
He lifted the body up by the ankle and I saw the soot-covered face of the unconscious man.
“Jerome?” At least, I hoped he was unconscious.
“Yup. We know who started the fire. Call Billy Joel.”
“You owe me a huge explanation,” I snapped.
“I do, but I repeat, we need to get out of here. Can you stand?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
He hauled me to my feet. “Listen to me carefully. I’m going to pick you up, then we’re going through the back door. Are you ready?”
I nodded.
“Mason, I asked a question. Are you ready?”
Somehow, with that growly voice, his being bossy was even hotter. “Yes, Kip.”
And then I was off my feet and tucked lovingly under one arm, the other around Jerome. “Hold tight.” Then he rushed forward.
All manner of things went through my head. This was how he’d beaten Alpha Donnelly. This was how he’d held me against the wall and fucked me. This was how he’d cradled me to him, keeping me from harm and night terrors. It didn’t matter what form he took.
This was my Kip.
We smashed through the back door and into the yard. I watched, both impressed and horrified, as Kip changed. The scales receded, the wings drew back inside his body, and the shiny red eyes became the cool blue I knew.
He dumped us both on the ground. “Play the worried spouse,” he whispered.
“Oh, Kip!” I wailed. “You saved me. You can’t die!”
He rolled his eyes. “I said play, not overact, you ham.” But he reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. “I was so afraid you were inside.” The words came out raw.
Before I could say anything, firefighters and EMTs swarmed around us. They gave all three of us oxygen, although my wolf was already cleaning the char from my lungs. I wasn’t sure what Kip was, but I hoped his body was doing the same. His skin was gray, and burn marks dotted his arms and face.
“What happened to your clothes?” Henry asked.
“They caught fire, so I took ’em off so I could find Mason,” Kip explained.
The firemen were shifters, so they knew why I was naked. They brought blankets so we could cover ourselves.
Then came the cops, not just from our town, but from two of the nearby ones, and I knew there were going to be a shit ton of questions.
I hope Kip has answers, because this is going to destroy Alpha Donnelly when he finds out Jerome was the one who attacked me.
There was no other explanation for him being in the house.
I figured it would be better for Donnelly to hear it from me, until I realized my phone was still inside the house, probably a pile of melted plastic by now.
Kip moved closer and wrapped an arm around me. Initially I wanted to pull away, because part of me was still in shock at seeing him as… whatever he was. Except it was more than shock.
I was pissed.
My mind was awash with questions, and all I could do was watch as our hopes and dreams went up in thick, acrid smoke.
Kip leaned over and kissed my hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered gently.
“For what?” I couldn’t rein in my anger a second longer. “For lying to me our whole lives? For living your life as something other than human? What exactly are you sorry for, Kip?”
He had the decency to blush. “Like you, I couldn’t tell my secret. I—”
“Mason!” My parents made a beeline for us. Mom mapped my face with her hands, looking for injury. Dad hovered, his brow furrowed.
“I’m okay,” I promised. “Kip was in the house, so he’s worse off than I am.”
Kip frowned. “I’m fine. I’m just glad Mase is okay.” His hands shook, however.
Suddenly, I felt like an absolute shit for being mad at him. I’d only told him about me being a wolf after I’d been backed into a corner, and he’d handled it just fine.
I need to give him a chance to tell me his reasons before I act all butthurt. Because the way I was going, I would ruin what we were building.
I scooted closer to him and wrapped an arm around his waist, putting my head on his shoulder. He sighed at the contact and tilted his head to rest atop mine.
Then I remembered I had a painful task to perform.
“Mom, do you still have Alpha Donnelly’s phone number?”
“I think so.” She fumbled for her phone. “Why?”
“Jerome started the fire,” I told her. “I’d rather Alpha hear it from me instead of from a cop.”
“He’s the one who attacked you?” my father snarled. “I’ll gut him!”
I gave him a beseeching glance. “Dad, leave it alone. The cops have him near the cruiser. They were giving him oxygen last I saw.”
A strident voice rose above the noise of the crowd. Apparently, Jerome was conscious.
“He’s a fucking monster! At least seven feet tall, covered in scales. He had horns and a tail, like some demon.” He sounded unhinged.
I hadn’t seen any tail on Kip, but that sounded hot.
I was such a monster fucker.
I paid no attention to Jerome as Mom handed me her phone. I was about to call Alpha Donnelly when I realized John should probably be the one to do it, so I called him instead.
“Hey, what’s up?” he asked cheerily.
“John? It’s Mason.”
“Why are you calling from your mom’s phone?”
I explained the story to him as best as I could, without telling him about Kip.
There was stunned silence before he spoke. “You’re telling me a werewolf from another pack attacked you? Burned your house down? Doesn’t he realize what a war between packs will do?”
“There isn’t going to be a war! It was Jerome that attacked me, not the pack. I was hoping you could call Alpha Donnelly so he doesn’t find out about it from the police.”
John sighed. “Yeah, I’ll call him. This’ll kill him. He loves that jerk.”
I knew he did. Someone had to. “He’s just lucky Kip showed some restraint.”
“Kip found him?” John asked incredulously.
“Yeah, he—” Kip put a hand on my arm and when I looked up, he shook his head. I bit my lip. “He’s a lot stronger than he looks.”
“He’d have to be to beat a werewolf.”
I recalled the six wolves Kip had flattened at Alpha Donnelly’s place.
You have no idea.
Kip was stronger than any of them—any of us—knew, but unlike them, I was going to find out.
Why was it so wrong that the thought excited me?
Kip
The police had taken Jerome away, and I’d persuaded Donald and Rachel to give us a little breathing space before things got hectic. Then I whisked Mase off to the motel.
I have a lot of talking to do.
I just hoped he was in the mood to listen.
At least he waited until we were inside the room before he launched into his interrogation.
“What are you?”
That was my Mase, shooting from the hip, right from the get-go.
I cradled the cup of coffee I’d bought on the way over. I needed a jolt of caffeine.
“Before I answer what I am, it might be easier to tell you what I’m not.”
Mason held his hands up. “Any way you wanna play this is fine, so long as I get some answers.”
“I’m not a shifter.” He arched his eyebrows, and I shrugged. “Okay, not a typical one anyway. For all of you, the change is physical. You and the wolf share the body. That’s not how it is with me. But to explain, I need to go back a bit, to around the fifth century.”
He managed a smirk. “I was always crap at history. So what happened way back then?”
“Dragons were decimating the land.”
Mason blinked. “Now there’s something that never made its way into the history books.”
“Knights fought them valiantly, but they were outnumbered and outmatched. So a sorcerer at the time”—I rolled my eyes— “and no, it wasn’t Merlin, before you ask—came up with a spell that would fuse dragon and man, making a creature that was stronger, more agile, far more aggressive, and loads more powerful. ”
“A spell. Magic.” Mason stared at me. “Where’s popcorn when you need it?”
I knew his attempts at humor were only a mask.
“So how did they merge dragons and men?”
I sighed. “Dad says they captured the dragons they used. There were many different types. Fire, ice, wind.”
Mason cocked his head. “And what kind are you?”
“Dad says we’re the most powerful known dragon type. Storm.”
He nodded, as if he heard this kind of thing every day. “Okay, back to the story.”
“Fifty knights were ‘voluntold’ their mission, which was to undergo this process.”
“‘Voluntold’?”
“Yeah. See, when they asked the knights, they spun tales of great glory, of serving king and country, of how they’d be the heroes of the ages. What they hadn’t counted on was only five people agreeing to join. That was far less than they expected.”
“Gee, I wonder why.”
“So they went to other knights and told them they were to volunteer for this melding of dragon and man. Hence, voluntold.” I gave another shrug. “It went well, and most dragons were eliminated by the hybrids. Of course, once that happened, there was no need for dragon knights anymore.”
Mason went very still. “What happened to them?”