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Mason wasn’t sure if he was more hurt or pissed that they’d just walk off the job without talking to him … without getting his side of the story. He’d known them for years. Had considered them friends, family even.
“Veronica, can you please call the whole pack to meet at my place in an hour?” he asked, stepping out of his office.
“Sure, Mr. Phillips. Is everything all right?” she looked worried by his request.
“Not really. I want you to close up the office and meet me there in one hour.” He grabbed his phone and jacket and headed out.
“Okay,” she called out behind him.
Mason didn’t slow his pace. He knew he had to figure this shit out. It needed to be done once and for all. He was tired of living in the shadows and worrying every second of his adult life whether this day would come.
He had just found his mate. Even if there were issues in the new relationship, he was not about to let his past interfere with his mate, his pack, or his business. He wasn’t about to let anyone fuck with his life for another minute. Mason couldn’t change what he did when he had first learned of his powers. He had been punished and shunned. He had never contacted anyone from his former pack … not even his damn family.
He had done as he had been told and walked away. He never once looked back. Instead, he had chosen to learn the tough lesson they had sought to teach by abandoning everyone and everything he had ever known, along with his gift. It had nearly killed him and his wolf, but that was their burden to bear … nobody else’s.
* * *
“What’s going on?”
“Why are we here?”
“Is there some sort of threat?”
His pack had questions, and by the look on their faces, he damn well better have the answers.
“Let’s give it a minute. We’re missing quite a few,” Mason said.
“I don’t know where my mate is,” Dorothy said. “He should be here.”
“He never showed up for work today. Him and a few dozen others,” Mason replied, less than amused by the lack of consideration his people had shown.
“What do you mean he never showed up for work? I dropped him off when I took the kids to school because I needed the car for a doctor’s appointment today.” Dorothy looked terrified by the thought that no one knew where her husband was.
Several of the women stood. Women whose husbands also worked for Mason’s security firm. “What the hell is going on?” several of them asked.
Mason quickly re-evaluated what he had thought about those who hadn’t shown up for work. “All of your husbands left for work as well?” he asked.
“Yes,” they all nodded that they had.
Mason sucked in a deep breath, wondering where the hell to start.
“I need you all to listen to me for a few minutes before you judge me too harshly.”
“Where are our husbands?” one of the women shouted.
“I don’t know, but we will find them,” he said. “Now, I need to tell you all about something that happened just over twenty years ago and how I came to be alpha of this pack.”
“What you did decades ago doesn’t matter. We just want to know what’s happened to our mates,” Dorothy said.
“I think it’s all related,” Mason said. He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts on the depth of the situation he now found himself in. He had been wrong. Very wrong. It had been silly of him to think that his pack would have so easily abandoned him, but he really couldn't help it.
His former pack had kicked his ass to the curb quicker than he could blink. The trauma from that event would likely be with him for the rest of his life. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. It would always be there in his soul.
“When I was just a kid, I had found out that, like many of you, I had been born with a unique power. I could enter the dreams of anyone I had a connection to. No one in my pack had ever explained how gifts or powers worked. No one had ever heard of a power like mine.
“At the time, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I could jump in and out of dreams of different pack members, my family, and my friends. I didn't realize at the time how intrusive or wrong it was for me to do that. Some of the girls in my pack had started to dream about me and had started having feelings for me even though they were in relationships with others.
“When I realized what my powers were doing to others, I gave up on them, but it was too late. The damage was already done, and there was nothing I could do to fix it.” Mason paused and looked around the room.
