The light turned green, and I peeled away, passing Jackson with my breath held, but he still never looked up. If he sensed me, he didn’t show it. As I passed, I noticed bruising on his face. Beneath his eye, his jaw, and the corner of his mouth. I knew, then, that he knew that Mason had found out.
Dread crept through me at the thought of Mason hurtling for Jackson, both of them blaming one another. God, what had I done?
I floored the accelerator, trying to turn the town into a mere speck in the rearview mirror.
“Mommy, I didn’t get to say goodbye.” Cassie sniffed, looking at me. “June was going to take me to the park today.”
“I’m sorry, baby.” I smoothed down her hastily braided hair. “Maybe she can take you to the beach in White Bay.”
“I hate the beach,” she mumbled. “The sand gets everywhere.”
I couldn’t answer or do anything except hold my tears back fiercely as I nodded, keeping my eyes on the road. Slowly, asphalt became the forest floor, and I turned onto the forest cut-through. The dread I’d felt seeing my brother’s bruised face only deepened. It was an uncomfortable gnawing in my gut, a pool of unease. Something was wrong.
I scanned the area as I drove faster, keeping an eye out. Was Mason there, watching me from the depths of the trees? Was he a wolf or a man?
But the shadows suddenly falling over the car were neither of those things. One moment, I was staring at the woods, noting a sign that read the highway was a couple of miles ahead through the woods, and the next moment, an ifrit hit the windshield, shadowy palms smacking the glass as fireerupted behind it. But it wasn’t just one. Surrounding us, more ifrit appeared, and I jerked the wheel as they all came hurtling towards me.
The last thing I heard was Cassie screaming as I lost control of the wheel, and a tree trunk was suddenly in my view. I slammed into it a moment before everything went dark.
Chapter 16 - Mason
It’d been a sleepless night, too wired to sit down and settle. After I’d broken down, I’d scraped myself off the ground and gone to the old stack of pictures I kept upstairs in my former room. As per custom, I had moved into my father’s old room following his death when I was eighteen, but my childhood bedroom was the storage space I’d still never properly tidied up.
I felt too awake, too alert, wanting to fix everything.
Brushing my thumb over a picture of Bryce from our senior year of high school, her grin wide, teeth visible, a smile not yet burdened by my rejection of her only days later, I knew I had to make everything right. Words wouldn’t be enough—not anymore.
I shouldn’t have abandoned her in the cave, in the woods—Hell, anything could have happened, but I’d gone by Jackson’s house through the night, noting her scent there, strong. She was physically okay, at least. More guilt gnawed through me at the thought of being her protector yet leaving her to defend herself in the woods.
Shame threatened to pull me back down, paralyze me all over again, butno, I couldn’t let it. Not now, not when I had everything to lose.
Since the sun had risen over Honeycreek’s vast woodland, I’d tidied up my house, cleaned everywhere, and made it a space fit for Bryce and our daughter. I wanted them to be at my side, where they belonged. The fact that I had a daughter—that she had already lived seven years without knowing who I was—gutted me, but I had to keep going, keep making it right.
There was a brand-new pair of ballet shoes called in from a store in the bigger city beyond Honeycreek. The box was gift-wrapped, ready for Cassie. It wouldn’t fix everything, but it was a start. I had prepared a breakfast of everything Bryce had once loved. It was a tentative gesture, but I wanted her to know I still loved her, still remembered everything about her, from the fact that she hated when her eggs scrambled to a certain point of inedible for her, and that she preferred to eat pasta with a spoon to “get the sauce ratio correct”.
I smiled at the table, the food still packaged and ready to be cooked once I brought her back. I’d cleared out my mom’s old room—my parents had been cold towards one another, simply the faces of an alpha and his omega, nothing more than doing their pack duty of making an heir, an arranged union by their own parents—and left another gift for Bryce in there.
Stepping back, I snapped a picture of the table and sent it to June.
It's not enough, I know, but it's a start, right? I want to make things right.
June’s response came back quickly:I hope you like sore knees, Mason, because the amount of begging and groveling you’ll need to do is insane. She’s heartbroken.
I sighed, pocketing my phone. I knew that I could smile and prepare, but I knew it was all just a mask over the fact that I couldn’t properly apologize immediately. But I knew the truth now about my love for Bryce, about Cassie. And now that I knew I had a cub, my little girl, the only thing I wanted to do was grow the bond I already felt, a burning ember in both of us. We were already connected by blood and shifter genes—now I just needed to win Bryce’s and Cassie’s trust to prove myself of being both the father and alphatheywanted me to be.
Another text came through, this one from Theo:Heard about what happened at Harveys. Are you sweet on Bryce, still?
Anger flared in me. I typed back quickly.And what if I am? Don’t challenge me again, Theo.
I’m not trying to, he responded.I’m just trying to ask. I don’t want to be like Freddie.
My response came back, curt and clear:Then learn to have more respect.
Theo didn’t answer after that, and I was grateful. Right now, I need the pack from my mind. I would deal with their thoughts and reactions later, but Bryce was my main priority. She always should have been.
I went to leave my place, only to be hit with a sudden feeling, punching through my gut. It was worse than the lingering bruises from my fight with Jackson. I pressed a hand to my stomach, frowning. It crawled through me, something like dread, like waking up from a nightmare my mind couldn’t remember, but my body could.
Cassie.
