I held up a hand, cutting Theo off. “I am the alpha of this pack, Theo. You don’t need the reminder, but you do need to stand down. Bryce is welcome back into my pack if she wants to be. I promised her safety and protection, and Iwillensure that is seen through. The same goes for my daughter. I want her togrow up in a pack she can look up to.” I looked at them all, one by one. “Yes?”
Through the room, murmurs of agreement rose, and I nodded.
“And you, Theo?” I pressed.
“No more arguments from me,” he muttered. “Not where a child is concerned—”
“Or Bryce,” I corrected. “Having my daughter shouldn’t make her immune. I want her respected as you would me.”
He looked as though he was going to laugh, but I silenced him with a narrowed look. Once he silently nodded, clasping his hands behind his back, I looked to Bryce, expecting her to find her relieved, or at least still slightly nervous, so I might comfort her, but her face was utterly white. All color had drained from it, and her body swayed, as though she was barely managing to stay upright.
“Bryce?” I crossed the short distance between us, my arms going to hold her. “What’s wrong?”
But her eyes were vacant, her mouth moving in silent murmurs, barely even parting. I let go of her, realizing she was having another vision. I only stayed there, waiting for her to come back to me.
When she did, it was with a seize of her body and a gasp as she blinked, as though she didn’t know where she was for a moment. Her eyes went to mine, widening.
“A portal,” she whispered. Her hands reached for mine, but she didn’t look as though she had realized what she had done. She squeezed and squeezed. I remained there as her tether. “That’s why Honeycreek is being targeted by the ifrit. There’s a portal beneath the museum, not just a leyline.”
Chapter 19 - Bryce
All evening, I couldn’t shake off how wrong I felt. As if someone had knocked me slightly off-kilter, a slight nudge on the wrong line. But I’d only felt it when we had walked closer and closer to the museum, and I knew it had been nerves.
Or, at least, I thought it had been.
Especially when the feeling only deepened as I entered the meeting space above the museum. At least a dozen pack members crowded the room, intercepted by several women I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell if they were part of the pack, but there was something about them that I couldn’t get a read on.
Being in there, surrounded by the hostility of the pack, only made me feel as though I was just clinging onto my sanity. Memories of their past behavior rushed through me so hard I barely heard Mason speaking. At least, not until he had proclaimed that he would claim Cassie as his own before the pack, in an official ceremony.
I gasped, forgetting to not draw attention to myself in the hopes of avoiding the pack’s wrath, but then the feeling had hit me in another wave, tugging me under. So many energies surrounded the room—my own, Mason’s as an alpha, the shifters, another undercurrent of something cold and glittering, like cold ice.
And then the shadows that snaked below. I could feel that dark energy climbing upwards,
snaking through the halls, one long thread that broke off as it wound through exhibits. I could feel them as surely as if they were tangible, wrapping around my throat. My eyes were non-seeing, and I shook so hard, caught in the grasp of that wrong energy, and I realized it hadn’t just been the pack.
In my vision, I followed those shadows, down, down, my mind wandering through the museum, lit only by a few lights in glass display units. And then there it was—a whole mass of dark energy writhing and congealing below the museum itself, not reachable by any living thing.
Something glowed through the mass, something with bright green fire, so hot it burned even to look at it through the vision, and I swore my face singed, as I slowly realized what it was.
June’s words echoed in my head.
I slammed back into my body.
“There’s a portal beneath the museum, not just a leyline,” I whispered. “And it's already open.”
Yes, yes, I was right. That was why the cracks of green cut through the shadows, why more fire tried to spill out. The portal was open, leaking not only the djinns’ energy but also their magic, their telltale mark of presence.
“It has to be true,” I urged, as the silence grew heavy around me. “That has to be why the ifrit are targeting the pack.”
“They’re not targeting the pack,” Theo sneered, folding thick arms across his chest. “They’re targetingyou. We just have to protect you because—” He stopped, his shoulders going rigid. His mouth tightening, he sighed. “Never mind.”
“The packisbeing targeted,” Mason argued. “Why do you think we’re putting out so many fires? Why do you think they’re watching us—because they are, Theo. Bryce has been targeted, yes, but we’re all at the mercy of the djinn attacks. That’s why Honeycreek has had so many fires lately: an attack on the town is an attack against the pack, too. The more we go to put them out, the closer we are to harm.”
“How do we know there’s an actual portal?” Someone else asked, a face I vaguely recalled. “Bryce was fuckin’ weird at the best of times. And now? I mean, we all just saw her freak show.”
He sneered at me, and I cringed back.
“That ‘freak show,’” I snapped, “is how you know I’m speaking the truth. You think I do that for fun? It's goddamn terrifying.” Eyes swiveled to me, and when I next spoke, my voice cracked. “If you want to go look for yourself, go right ahead, but without proper safety or equipment, you won’t make it back up here.”
