Tension eased in my chest.
I took a step towards her front door when my phone rang. I knew she heard it. Bryce’s head snapped to the window, and I quickly ducked out of view, answering my phone quickly. Her eyes widened in fear, and I stayed hidden as she searched for something in the trees.
I was supposed to be protecting her, but my cowardice to stay away was only scaring her.
“What?” I snapped into my phone.
“You’re needed at the station,” Theo told me. “There’s been another fire. It’s small, but it has the marks of the demons.”
“Give me five minutes,” I growled. “Have Jackson form the teams. I want you all to be ready to head out when I get there.”
“Got it.”
I hung up, surprised at Theo’s immediate following of my orders. That was unexpected, but the worry of the newest fire swept through me. They were growing way too frequent for comfort. So far, the only damage had been buildings, but how long did I have before that damage became casualties?
Having to leave Bryce behind, I headed down to the station.
Chapter 9 - Bryce
The feeling of being watched never left me all afternoon. The paranoia lingered in every shadowed corner of Jackson’s house, and every noise translated to me being hunted. It was foolish; I was stronger than that.
But it wasn’t just an ifrit I worried about coming face-to-face with, no, but the wolf pack that lived just beyond the front door. Every voice and footstep that got muffled through the walls, every man that walked past, had me cringing, tugging Cassie from the windows.
Her curiosity only grew the more I did that, and soon enough, I had to forcefully stop myself. I was not the same woman who had left Honeycreek. I was strong, and confidence had been hard-won, and sometimes I didn’t always feel it, but it could be there.
Ithadto be. My own issues would only seep into Cassie otherwise, and I couldn’t let that happen.
Sighing, I knotted the end of her braid as I walked to the kitchen.
“Cass,” I called, only to hear the little stampede as she came running down. My daughter had never been quiet. “You hungry?”
Cass nodded, quiet and engrossed in the screen that I didn’t remember giving her.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Cassie mumbled. “Found it in Uncle Jackson’s room.”
“You want to go put it back where it belongs if it’s not yours?”
“Nope.” Cassie collapsed onto the sofa, her feet curling next to her as she tapped animatedly at the screen, flicking through apps, without ever actually looking at anything.
“Cass.” My tone grew sterner, and I headed over to my daughter. “It's not yours. Don’t snoop. Would you like your uncle to be doing that with your things?”
“No, but… Well—look.”
Cassie swiped off everything on the tablet she held and lifted it to me, showing me the picture on the lock screen. I froze. I remembered that picture. I sat between two wolves, my hair unbound and catching the sun, so dark it looked navy blue. My eyes were crinkled almost shut, and my mouth was open in laughter. I would have thought of myself as pretty had I not noticed the way I’d moved to laugh, without realizing, bunched up my chin, rounding my face.
My arms were hidden well enough by the oversized sports jersey I’d been wearing of Jackson’s, but the skintight jeans clung to my thighs. In the picture, I perched atop a grassy hill, deep in the woods, and I looked so carefree. The gray wolf, Jackson, stood next to me, looking up at the black wolf on the other side of me.
Mason.
My stomach clenched, flipping dangerously. He stood so close to me, his head lowered, as if protective. I recalled the day that the picture had been taken by June. At the time, I hadn’t hated how I looked, at least not to the extent it had become, and I had printed the picture out, taping it to my teenage bedroom wall. There was no way he’d felt protective. At least not now, looking back.
“You grew up around wolves?” Cassie asked, her eyes looking up at me owlishly, taking me out of my youngermemories and back into the present. No longer seventeen, in love with the pack alpha, but twenty-five, with his daughter, and a whole lot of explaining to do one day.
I nodded.
“Like the one who rescued us? That’s what this one looks like.” She jabbed a finger at Mason. I pulled it from her grasp, locking the tablet and setting it aside. “Right? So knew him, though. Uncle Jackson made it sound like you did!”
