Cassie threw her arms around Bryce, kissing her cheek. “Bye, Mommy! Okay, I’m ready.” She gave me a very serious, business face and nodded. I held out my hand for her to take, and she paused for a second before taking it. As soon as she did, that tether between us flared, and I smiled at her. “You feel that, too?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’ll be useful if we’re ever parted, like the other day. Listen to it. I can also teach you to help read emotions through it.”
Her eyes went wide as I laughed, glancing back at Bryce.
“I’ll bring her back within two hours, okay?”
I could tell this was a huge trust test for her, but it was also significant for me, too. It was the first time I was spending time with my daughter alone. As an alpha, looking at his firstborn cub, that was a big deal. Even just as a father, it was a big deal.
“You like running, right?” I asked her as we neared the treeline.
“Yeah!”
“All right, see if you can keep up with me.” I grinned down at her as I slow jogged into the trees, keeping her in sight as she blew past me, her childish giggles filling my heart with something I couldn’t name. Something I’d not felt before. My chest ached, and I could only catch up easily to her, keeping pace as she zig-zagged between the trees, her small feet kicking up sprays of dirt.
We ran up until I had us stop in a particular clearing where the sun fell right through the canopy of trees.
“Okay, so,” I told her, crouching down as Cassie promptly dropped to the floor, her cheeks pink. “Very soon, I’m going to have a ceremony. You know what that is?”
Cassie shook her head.
“It's like… a party. But it's to celebrate something.”
“Like a birthday party?”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking before I nodded. “Sure. And it's for you. For you and me, really.”
“Like my birthday party that got ruined?” Her voice turned pouty.
“Sort of,” I sighed. “I’m sorry that happened, Cassie. But this one will be awesome, too. Your mom will be there, maybe your uncle Jackson, and you know those guys I promised would always protect you? They’ll be there, and they will make that safety official. How does all that sound?”
“Scary,” she admitted. “But exciting.”
“That’s a good response,” I told her, smiling. “We’re going to need some flowers, so do you have a favorite?”
“I like tulips because Mommy used to grow them in our yard back in our other home.”
“Tulips sound awesome,” I told her. “You want to look for some with me?”
Her eyes brightened as she got back to her feet, already hunting for them.
“You know,” I began, “when your mom and I first met, I found out her favorite flower was tulips, too. I should have gotten her some for her birthday, but I didn’t get the chance. How about I pick her a bunch now?”
“I think she’ll like that. Uncle Jackson bought her some a while ago, but she cried.”
My hand paused where I went to reach for a cluster of flowers that I guessed weren’t tulips, but I could order some ahead of the ceremony. For now, I just wanted this time with my daughter. I sighed, wondering just how often Bryce had thought about me over the last seven years.
“Did you ever do anything like this with your mommy or daddy?” Cassie asked, surprising me.
I thought back to when I had been seven, pushed into a dressed-up outfit and forced to sit with other kids at my parents’ black tie galas. Sometimes, my dad had been the kind to run through the woods with me, but I had discovered a lot about my wolf alone.
“Not really,” I told her. “But I did go to a lot of parties with them. They enjoyed being like this. Human. Not wolves, but they still took their roles seriously within the pack.”
Cassie nodded, humming a tune under her breath. “That’s a shame. I like it.”
“You like doing this with me?”
