I wanted to be angry—I wanted to tell him it had beenhisidea to bring me here in the first place. Jackson had claimed I wasn’t protected against the Djinn, but how could I be protected against the might of the Honeycreek pack if he was one of them? They’d turn on him, too.
My gaze swept over Mason, but he was too busy glaring at another male. I couldn’t remember the other wolf’s name, but he was vaguely familiar. I’d spent seven years burying my memories of this place; I didn’t exactly want to force anything back to my mind.
I walked through the pack, two rows making a formidable aisle for Cassie, me, and Jackson to head down. But I was rooted to the spot, feeling every judgment weighing on me. My mind spun, and I tried to collect myself for my daughter, but I couldn’t. I was eighteen again, cast out from my pack.
Cast out by a boy whom I’d loved, who had never once loved me.
My breath came fast and heavy, and I was flushed with dizziness.
“I can’t,” I whispered.
One thing about the pack,Jackson had once told me.Is to not show weakness. They’ll tear you apart the second they catch wind of it.
In that moment, my weakness was on display for everybody to see. I shrank and realized how White Bay had only packed over my insecurities rather than solved them. My life there had only been a cover-up, a distraction. I wasn’t healed at all.
“Mommy?” Cassie’s voice brought me back, and I started, turning to take her hand. Her soft, warm fingers clasped around mine, grounded me. “Are you okay? Who are these people?”
“They’re…” I couldn’t speak. I was light-headed. It was all too much, too much,too much, and I couldn’t endure any of it.
“They’re friends of mine,” Jackson helpfully filled in.
“Are they friendly?” Cassie asked, skeptically looking around. There was a cute little frown on her face. “They don’t look it.”
A flare of anger went through me. If the pack had welcomed me, then Cassie would have grown up with a father, would have been embraced by the pack as their cub, and would have been raised by more uncles than she could count. She would have been supported—wewould have been supported.
Instead, I’d been shunned, and I couldn’t stand the thought of my daughter paying the price. My heart pounded. That was another thing. How could I keep my daughter’s secret if I were back among the very pack led by Cassie’s father?
“They’re good guys,” Jackson told her, and I caught his gaze, shaking my head. “You can’t villainize them to her just because they made you feel a little awkward, Bryce.”
I had given my brother the most watered-down version, blaming nobody properly. I couldn’t turn him against his friends like that, hispack. As a man, he had to show his loyalty to them. I’d been hellbent on leaving; if he’d sided with me, he’d have been a lone wolf. No sister to follow, and no pack to call home.
So I’d made the choice for him, forcing him to keep my secret.
“How about that wall painting, then?” Jackson asked Cassie, changing the subject. He flashed her a grin, jerking his head. “C’mon. I’ll show you to the guest room. Once you’re settled, I’ll take you to the general store to get some paint. You want some pink? Lavender, maybe?”
“Green,” Cassie said quickly. “A real forest green.”
“Green it’ll be,” Jackson laughed. He walked onwards with her.
A presence at my back had me stiffening, sensing Mason.
“We should walk on,” Mason murmured. “Get away from the stares.”
“They’re your pack,” I answered curtly. “You swayed their opinion about me once. Surely you can do it again. Tell them to heel like—”
“Watch it,” he growled. “You’re one of us, too.”
“Was,” I corrected. “I haven’t shifted in a long time. And I’m not part of anything to do with you, Mason.”
Steeling myself, I followed after my brother and daughter, aware that Mason caught up easily. But as I walked past the pack, I felt a thousand needles prickling me, and my insecure thoughts swirled.Do my thighs look bigger than I realized in these jeans? Is my shirt button straying at my chest? Suck in,Bryce. Give them no reason to notice that you haven’t lost any weight.
I shouldn’t care, shouldn’t be so fixated on surface things, but I still remembered every laughter, every insult, every jab about my weight and appearance.
Lifting my chin higher, I strode onwards to the door to Jackson’s house.
He closed the door, leaving the four of us standing in the main hall.
Before I could take Cassie upstairs in this unfamiliar house, far from the comfort of my childhood home that Jackson had moved out of a few years ago to be nearer the pack, Mason stepped forward.
