Page 36 of Fastlander Fealty

She’d thought of the Fastlanders as that, but the more time she spent here in the Mountains of the Blue Dragon, the more she thought she had actually come from enemy territory, and stepped into something different.

Chapter Seven

Owen felt like death warmed over.

He should be used to this, truly he should, because where he’d come from, his people fought all the time, but with boars he knew what to expect. They all had the same weapons—tusks for goring, size for charging, sharp hooves for slashing.

In the Fastlanders? The grizzlies were a problem, and healing from claw marks and bite wounds was brutal. Ace had powers that Owen was pretty sure no one knew the extent of, and lion, vampire, or freaking-space-traveler, fighting him was rough.

And now Wreck had entered the chat.

That was unfortunate.

Owen’s skin looked fine for the most part, just red where the heat in the water had touched him, but it burned under his skin more than made any sense. If he was feeling this raw, probably Silver was feeling something similar. He didn’t like that. Didn’t like her hurting.

“You and Ace stay here with the girls,” Gunner growled, and damn, right now the Alpha was making the entire clearing feel like the air had weight. He was worked up, and fair enough. None of them had probably ever felt Wreck’s power before. It didn’t feel awesome.

Owen took another bite of the cold steak and gestured toward the road. “Someone’s coming. I hear a couple engines.”

“Police?” Captain asked from where he was still kneeling in the yard. He was all cut up from Owen’s tusks, but already the slashes had stopped bleeding. He must’ve been hurting though, because he sure wasn’t moving much.

Gunner stood at the mouth of the entrance to the clearing, right in the middle of the one lane gravel drive. Owen watched the tension in his shoulders lessen when he got eyes on the truck, and with the shake of his head, Gunner strode off the road to make way for the large Black SUV that rolled slowly toward the house. Following it was Owen’s truck.

Confusion swirled inside of him. He was busy trying to make out the figure who was driving his truck behind the dark tint, and so he didn’t pay much attention to the leading SUV.

“Shhhit,” Captain muttered under his breath, but Owen didn’t realize who it was until a tall, dark-haired man got out of the driver’s side. He had silver eyes with elongated pupils, and silver hair at his temples.

Damon Daye.

Now, most everyone who knew anything about shifters would be scrambling to show respect to the Blue Dragon himself, but Owen? Owen couldn’t pry his gaze away from the big, barrel-chested man who stepped out of his truck, and tossed him the keys. Mason. Mason the Beast Boar was here. Mason had driven Owen’s truck from where he’d parked it at Dart’s.

Owen struggled upward and put his hands formally behind his back, realized he was still bare-ass naked, and covered his nethers as he watched Mason say something to Damon Daye, who then headed to Gunner.

Mason barely looked Owen’s direction before he pulled something out of the back seat. It was a large plastic bin. He brought it over to Captain and set it in front of him. “Here is everything we could get from the river bank. The floats are deflated. Too many claw marks to save them. I put some extra clothes in there too.”

“Thank you,” Captain uttered low, opening the lid to the bin. He tossed Owen a pair of sweats and then struggled to his feet, pulled on a pair for himself.

And Owen, like a moron, stood there holding a pair of sweats and a half-eaten steak, staring at Mason because all coherent or intelligent speech had abandoned him.

Mason. It was really Mason. Here, in the flesh.

Mason. Mason the most influential boar shifter in the entire shifter universe.

Mason his idol!

“Hey, hi, hello,” Owen said lamely.

Mason narrowed his eyes at him and nodded a greeting, then made his way back to the SUV.

Owen took a step forward to stop him, but nothing cool came out of his mouth. “It was mice to neet you. Nice to meet you. Again.”

“Why are you being weird?” Captain asked.

Owen flipped him off and watched dejectedly as Mason drove Damon Daye back down the road in the black SUV.

He stood there frozen until the taillights disappeared.

Now, he wasn’t a blusher in general, and as much as he wished he could blame it on the burns from Wreck, his cheeks heating up was completely from embarrassment. He’d missed his shot to talk to the Beast Boar.

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