Page 54 of Tempest Rising

“Mason,” I said again, this time softer. Steady. Patient. “It’s me. Tess. You’re safe—it was just a nightmare.”

His gaze latched onto mine as recognition cut through the haze. For a moment, the deep, animal panic in his eyes felt like staring into a depth I wasn’t sure I could fathom. But then, slowly, haltingly, the panic eased. He exhaled a rough, shuddering breath before lying back down, the tension in his massive frame unwinding by inches. “Sorry,” he muttered, his voice raw and broken. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Don’t,” I interrupted, my hand lingering on his shoulder before I let it fall away. The heat of his skin burned on my palm long after I’d moved it. “You don’t owe me an apology.”

I hesitated, then softened my voice. “Do you want to talk about them?”

For a moment, the silence stretched. It wasn’t the comfortable, companionable kind we sometimes fell into—no, this was taut, unsettling. I waited, recognizing Mason’s quiet deliberation, the way he always held back.

“The nightmares… they only come back when... someone I care about is in danger,” he said finally, his voice quieter but heavy with something raw. He exhaled sharply again, shaking his head. “It’s like my head knows even when I try to ignore it. And tonight—earlier—when... when you were hurt…” His voice cracked, breaking on the last word, and he cleared his throat roughly. “It’s like I’m back there again.”

My chest tightened in response, the urge to reach for him—to anchor him—nearly overwhelming.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat and forced my voice to steady. “Mason... whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“You should know. You deserve to know what happened.” His bitter laugh carried no real humor, only something raw and worn down. “They... always come back. Always remind me of the things I couldn’t stop.” His gaze flickered toward me, shadowed and unreadable. “You don’t know what I’ve done... who I had to be.”

I didn’t understand why he thought I deserved to know this, why now—but I would listen. I owed that much to my best friend, to the years we’d lost.

The fire cast fleeting shadows across his features—a face that looked carved from stone, yet too human in its fragility in this moment.

“They took us the same day,” he said, his words heavy, each one landing like a hammer. “Kali and me. She was only a baby.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, the muscles of his jaw flexing beneath the pressure.

I felt my stomach twist, but I didn’t interrupt.

“She was so small,” Mason continued, his gaze dark and far-off, as though he were staring at some horrible scene only he could see. “They didn’t even want her, at first. The people who… who took us. They wanted me—boys, they said, lasted longer in the pits. But when I fought back, hit one of them, all it took was one look at her for them to realize they could use her to control me. And they did.” His voice dropped lower. “Every fucking day.”

The fire snapped, the sound sharp in the silence, and Mason flinched almost imperceptibly. His hands clenched into fists on his thighs, the firelight catching the deep grooves of his dark skin, a roadmap of old scars.

“They put me in the ring my first night there,” he continued. “Told me to fight or they’d sell her off to someone worse.” His voice nearly cracked, and he steadied it with effort so visible it hurt to watch. “They didn’t have to explain what that meant. I was thirteen. I understood enough.”

He leaned forward slightly, his broad shoulders hunched as though the memory itself weighed him down. “You think you know what it feels like to lose a fight?” A bitter snort escaped him. “It’s not the pain from the broken ribs or split skin or when your teeth feel loose in your mouth. It’s that every time you drop to your knees, you’re asking yourself whether it’s her life or yours.”

His voice broke then, raw with anger and something deeper—something like grief. “And they made me choose that again, and again, and again.”

I had to swallow hard against the ache that swelled in my throat. The thought of him, young, lost, and alone, forced to fight for his sister of all people, sent a blade straight into my chest.

“I fought them for her,” he rasped. “Every single one they threw at me. Wolves. Fae. Vampires. Things I didn’t even know had names. I learned to kill because I had no other choice. And I told myself, if I could just keep winning, they wouldn’t sell her—” His voice shattered, and he pressed a shaking hand to his forehead, grinding the heel of his palm into it like he could push the memory away.

“They used her against me every time I got too strong,” he said after a moment, his voice quieter now but no less tense. “Any time I mouthed off or fought back, they’d hurt her to remind me who was really in control. They’d take her out of the cages and parade her in front of me, sometimes with bruises that told me what would happen if I ever stopped killing for them.”

My stomach churned. “Mason…”

“It’s fine,” he muttered, though his tone undercut the word. “She’s alive. I fought for her. Did what I had to. But every moment I fought for us, they broke something else IthoughtI could protect.” His dark gaze flicked up to meet mine. “Every fight felt like a choice. Her life or mine. Her pain or mine.”

I couldn’t stop myself any longer. I reached for him, tentatively, resting my hand on his forearm. The rock-solid muscles beneath softened just slightly under my palm. I didn’t speak yet—there was nothing I could say that would undo what had been done to him, what he’d been forced to become—but I wanted him to feel more than his own rage. More than his own grief.

“You made it. You got her out. Youbothsurvived.”

He sagged under my touch, just slightly, and the room felt smaller. Warmer. “I’m scared of what’s left of me,” he admitted in a voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. “And I don’t know if there’s enough ofmeto get us through this.”

“There is,” I said without missing a beat. “I see it—you’re more than the broken parts, Mason. All of you survived. That means something.”

There were no words between us after that. None were needed. I shifted closer again, lying down fully on my side, and reached up tentatively to pull him forward. His arm came around me like aslow, uncertain wave before it finally anchored itself to my back, enveloping me in his warmth as he lay facing me.

The quiet filled with our breathing. His shifted gradually, slowing to match mine.

“Thank you,” he murmured against the edge of my hair, his voice low but steady. “For staying.”

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