Wild and Free

(Mason’s POV)

There are certain things that people could tell you that your first thought to would immediately be: not possible. Things like you’re going to ace a test without coming to class once, or win in a fight against a person thrice your size. The optimists would say some hopeful bullshit like ‘nothing is impossible’ or whatever and that is true but let’s face it, it’s very unlikely that you’d accomplish. So while technically nothing is impossible, some things are just hard to imagine.

So, if someone came up to me and told me that I’d be sitting in front of Auden WIlde while she was an the verge of a mental breakdown, I would probably slap you silly because out of everything, that would be the thing I would think was impossible. But miracles can happen.

And so there I sat, crouched on the ground in front of the girl herself.

None of us had any idea what we were walking into when we climbed the stairs to Auden’s apartment. We wanted to check there one more time to see if maybe there was a scent we could follow, so Kenzie, Greyson, and I headed over there. But we didn’t know what to think of what we found when we got there.

I had never seen so much destruction in such a small place before, even compared to the aftermath of our pack getting attacked. And there was also the fact that it was ten times worse because we didn’t know who did it.

It also made it all the more heartbreaking knowing that Auden had pretty much killed herself scraping together the money for everything in there. It would take forever to get even a little bit of it back.

“Auden, please just look at me,” I asked her again.

Her head was tucked behind her legs that she’d drawn toward her body, her forehead resting against her knees. I could hear her breathing, still nothing from her heartbeat but I didn’t think about that. The girl’s long, ash brown hair was tangled and strewn across her shoulders. I didn’t even want to look at her hands and the bare skin on her legs, because I knew what I would see.

Auden shifted, still not looking up, but the movement caused her to wince as more shards from the countless broken dishes and god knows what else dug into her skin.

Using my ability, I willed away the remnants around us, creating a small but clean circle to avoid any more blood. It wasn’t like it was for me, I mean I could take a couple pieces of glass no problem and be healed in no time. But Auden wasn’t me. She didn’t have my abilities and had to heal naturally.

Her head lifted slowly as she heard the scraping of the ceramic and glass across the wooden floor. She looked at what I’d done and glanced at me with an expression I couldn’t quite identify.

It was like a mix of confusion, fear, and gratitude? I didn’t know.

In that very moment, Auden looked like porcelain. It was as if she could just as easily shatter into a thousand pieces as the things sitting around her had too. She was so fragile but beautiful at the same time. I could tell she hated it, the look in her eyes gave that away but it didn’t change how I saw her. She was truly statuesque, so full of emotion but blank at the same time.

Part of me envied her for it. Sure I was going to be Alpha and I had been taught how to look like one, I would never be able to put up the front that Auden did. It was one thing to mask your emotions, and another to push them so far away that it appeared you did have any. That was what I thought the girl did so often, but there and then it was something different. Raw almost.

“Who did this to you?” I asked, my voice almost a whisper. Images of the wreckage I had avoided looking at since I walked in flashed over my vision.

She shook her head, glancing around. I wanted so badly to turn her head away so she wouldn’t look at everything.

“Please just tell me,” I said, peering into her slightly red rimmed eyes. They were the same beautiful blue but they had lost their spark. Instead of being a brilliant sterling blue, they were stormy and icy and cold. She was scared and angry because she didn’t like not knowing what was going on. I knew the feeling.

She looked down and the floorboards beneath us, “I don’t know, I-I don’t know” she mumbled. “The lock was broken when I got here, I didn’t see anyone.”

I knit my brows in confusion, “W-what? Where have you been for the last two days? Why would someone do this?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, her voice hoarse but not in a way that made it seem like she was crying, just exhausted.

Auden, couldn’t keep her eyes on any one place. It was like staring at something for too long hurt her. And on top of that, there wasn’t much else to look at that wasn’t destroyed other than the floor in our little circle, and me. And she wasn’t looking at me.

I sighed, raking my hand through my hair, “We should get you out of here. You can’t focus and we should get those cuts cleaned up somewhere safe.”

A shadow crossed Auden’s face and it had dawned on me that this place was safe to her. Or at least it had been. Where did she go from here?

She nodded in agreement to my statement and made a move to stand but her legs didn’t seem to want to support her. She began to fall to the floor again but I grabbed her before she did so. I held my arms around her small waist, keeping her upright and letting her lean on me. She was light as porcelain as well. She squeezed her eyes shut, whether from pain or embarrassment I did not know. Perhaps it was both.

“You alright?” I asked.

Auden nodded and let out a shaky breath, though I wasn’t convinced.

We both looked down to see a huge, sharp piece of glass embedded in Auden’s upper thigh.

“Holy shit, why didn’t you say anything?” I asked her panickedly.

She swallowed, “I guess I landed on it when I tripped. E-everything is kind of numb.”

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. “Greyson and Kenzie are in the car outside. We’ll take you to our pack doctor and see if she can help.”

She shook her head, “N-no that’s not a good idea,” she protested nervously. “I’m not part of your pack. I won’t be welcomed. Your father will be angry with you. I-I’ll be fine here. There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom-”

“Seriously? No way, that is going to need way more than just a first aid kit,” I told her, gesturing to the glass.

“Mason, I’ll be okay. It doesn’t hurt,” she tried to claim.

I shot her a look, “You don’t fool me you know. And I’m not giving you a choice.”

She attempted to pry herself out of my hold but I held tighter and made her look at me, “Come on, please?”

Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine and I wanted to know if it was because she was thinking about my plan or being stubborn.

“Why don’t you trust me?” I asked.

Her gaze snapped to mine in a second. Even I was taken aback by the bluntness of the question.

“What?” she whispered.

“You heard what I said,” I replied. “I’ve told you almost everything about myself and tried to prove to you that I’m not going to turn into the monster you think I am. For whatever reason. I know almost nothing about you because you haven’t told me. You act like a friend but you still hesitate every time you’re around me. I want to know why.”

She studied my face, her calculating eyes running over every feature as if she were drawing a picture in her mind. Was that how she remembered things? Drawing a picture on paper or in her mind to attempt to not forget. It was like she was scared she would lose a detail or something.

“You think I haven’t told you anything?” she asked. Her tone was both accusatory and offended.

“My entire life I’ve been lied to, cheated, and treated like garbage for things that aren’t even my fault,” she said, her eyes piercing through me like a blade. “People have lied to me and turned on me so many times that I am permanently scarred for it. So yes Mason Royal, I may not tell you everything but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t let you see me at all.”

Any other person probably would have thought she was about to cry. I thought she was going to cry. But that wasn’t her and she didn’t shed a tear.

“Do you think that I would’ve let you into this place that night of the attack if I didn’t trust you a little bit?” she asked me, making me feel like she was a mile away rather than less than a few inches. “You are one of, what, four people who know about me and my family? Do you even realize how big that is?”

“Auden-”

“You don’t,” she cut me off. “So just remember that the next time you try to claim that I’m the kind of stone cold monster that you think I am.”

She looked away from me but I turned her chin with my pointer finger, so she was looking at me again.

“You’re not a monster,” I told her, our eyes boring into each other’s. “I hate the fact that you even thought that and I’m sorry for making assumptions. You’ve clearly been through way more than I could ever imagine and I shouldn’t push you for whatever you haven’t told me. I’m sorry.”

She looked like she wanted to say something else but like she couldn’t find the right words. I got that a lot. The only thing she did do was bite her lip and I was suddenly aware that there was still a large piece of glass in the girl in front of me’s leg.

“God I’m an idiot,” I cursed, looking back up to her face. “Please let me take you to our pack doctor. I promise that you won’t be interrogated by my pack but I can’t let you stay here.”

Auden looked around once more, casting a sad glance over the destruction that was her home. And then she nodded.

~*~

I picked up Auden bridal style, one arm under her knees and the other behind her back. And Auden being Auden, had protested to that as well, claiming she could walk. But even she wasn’t invincible so I ignored her claims and picked her up anyway.

When I got to the car, it had started raining again, much like the day that the boys had gone missing but no thunder yet, just heavy rain.

Kenzie and Greyson hopped out of the car the second they saw me come down the stairs holding our friend.

“Shit what happened to her leg?” Greyson asked, staring horrifiedly at Auden’s injury. The rain was washing away some of the blood but it continued to flow.

Auden was a great actress and knew how to hide her feelings. Pain was not her strongest thing at hiding. At least physical pain that is. She had a different way of showing everything. While most people would cry or maybe even pass out, she kept her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth pressed into a thin line. Her muscles were tense as well but otherwise you probably wouldn’t be able to tell if you just glanced at her.

“She thinks that she must’ve fell on it when she tripped,” I told them. “Her adrenaline is wearing off so she’s going to be in a lot more pain. We have to get her to the infirmary.”

“What? Are you serious? We could get in so much trouble Mason,” Kenzie warned me. I ignored her, trying to carefully set Auden in the backseat of the car without touching her wound.

When she was in, I looked at my arms that were red with blood. Another look at Auden told me that we shouldn’t have wasted so much time talking. Her face was sickly pale and she struggled to keep her eyes open.

“Kenz that isn’t the biggest problem right now okay!” I yelled, running over to the driver door. “Make sure she stays awake and doesn’t bleed out,” I commanded before we both got in.”

The four of us were soaking wet and speeding down the street to get back to the grounds. It was the first time I really cursed the fact that we lived so far.

“Did you call Cassie?” I asked them both.

Greyson nodded, “Yeah she kind of freaked out.”

“Imagine how I feel,” Auden mumbled.

I grinned at how she could even try to be humorous while she had probably lost a fourth of her blood.

“Hang in there Auden not much longer,” Greyson lied. We were still pretty far but I was doing my best.

“So what did Cassie say?” I repeated.

“Right,” Greyson remembered, “She was at her house with RIley and they said that they would meet us at the pack house.”

“And Holden?” Kenzie asked hopefully.

Greyson shook his head, “I called him but he said that his dad is out and he has to take care of his mom in case she goes into labor or something.”

Kenzie’s face fell a bit but she brushed it off cuz she knew that her mate’s pregnant mother was important too. They would just have to remember to call him later to tell him what happened. Not that we really knew anything because Auden hadn’t explained yet. We’d worry about that later too.

The rain continued to fall hard around us as we plunged into the woods. I could hear Auden muttering words under her breath but I was pretty sure they were in French so I didn’t understand any of it. I guess I should just be glad she was still conscious enough to be speaking at all.

I felt like an idiot for not realizing that we were wasting time inside talking. I mean I had seen the glass and still didn’t do anything immediately. But I could beat myself up about it later.

My eyes were on the road but a glimpse of something in the rear view mirror grabbed my attention. I looked and saw that at least two of our patrols were in wolf form and following the car.

Alpha Mason, you are carrying a foreigner into our borders, one mindlinked me, his deep voice sounding serious and hard even in my head.

I am fully aware of that thank you, I shot back. Said foreigner is seriously injured and needs medical attention. I will discuss the matter with my father once the girl has been treated properly.

The Alpha must be informed, a second voice said, presumably the other wolf.

Then report me but I am your superior and I told you that she needs help! I yelled at them warningly. Tell the Alpha that I will speak to him once she is cared for. She poses no threat.

There was a silent moment before the first replied with, Very well, and the two wolves split off from their chase behind the car.

Kenzie knit her brows at me in the mirror, “What was that all about? You’re angry.”

I shook my head, “Just the patrols informing me of shit I already know. I am very aware that there is a foreigner in the car, because I am driving her. It’s as if they don’t realize that I am going to be Alpha.”

“They’re just doing their job, we’ll worry about it later okay?” She said and I nodded.

After what felt like forever, we finally sped through the gates of our pack grounds. I ignored the place that I normally left the car and drove on the walking trail all the way to the doors of the infirmary.

Kenzie hopped out of the car first, “I’ll go in and get someone. Greyson open the doors so May can get Auden out,” she instructed before dashing inside, out of the rain to do what she said.

Greyson followed my twin’s directions and opened the door while I lifted Auden from the seat and followed Kenz inside.

~~AUTHOR’S NOTE~~

Hope you enjoyed!

As always, comment, don’t hate, and read on!

~your Cheshire Cat loving friend