“Yeah.” She was lost in her own world, so innocent to the words she said and how much they meant to be. With her jeans on and a pale green t-shirt, her hair hanging in her face, she looked so small. How had she been as a baby? Would she have fit into my whole palm? Would she have clung to me in comfort, or cried for her mom instead?
So many questions rolled through my head, things I’d never really get to know properly, and the distress of that rose in me, but I quelled it down quickly.
“How do you feel about staying here for good?” I dared to ask her.
“Hmm.” Cassie finally looked at me. “I have a lot of feelings. I’m worried about Mommy. Sometimes she’s happy here, and sometimes she isn’t, but she wasn’t always happy in our old house, either.” She stomped over to me, her little boots making footprints in the dirt. Dropping her flowers, she took my hand. “I want to stay. I like it here and want you to teach meabout being a wolf, too. I want Mommy to be a wolf, too, and to be happy.”
“I swear that I’ll do everything in my power to make her happy,” I promised my daughter, smiling up at her.
All I have to do is find a way to truly show Bryce that I’m not the guy who’ll get scared and run again. That I’m ready—I’m ready to face my anger and hurt properly, at her side, through good and bad.
Chapter 21 - Bryce
“You look… on edge.”
I looked up at June’s voice, my hands cupped around a mug of black tea.
“I am,” I admitted. She’d come over not long after Mason had arrived, so my opportunity for rest had been snatched away, but I’d take June’s company over anything. She hadn’t heard about my attempt to leave town, and I hadn’t wanted to bring it up. Not yet, at least. There was too much else happening.
June’s eyes were as tired as mine, but there was a gleam to them as she spread some papers
over the coffee table.
“Mason’s taken Cassie out for the first time,” I told her. “I don’t want him to ask anything that’ll confuse her, and I’m just worried if they spend more time together, she’ll get close to him, and he’ll leave her, or ditch when—I don’t know, when she’s a bratty teenager and too much to handle, or when she won’t go to her room if she’s annoyed. Just when she’s not a sweet, innocent kid who wants to do everything, you know? He’s missed out on her being a baby. I get he wants to make up for it, but I can’t help feeling guarded.”
“It makes sense. But… he is her dad, too, and he has to have a chance. It takes two to make a baby.” She laughed, teasing me, and I could only give a half-hearted laugh.
“Right,” I muttered, drinking my tea deeply, letting it attempt to wake me up. “What did you find?”
“Well, on top of what we were already working on, I found more records dating further back. It's true what we found. Mason stems from a powerful line of alphas, and that’ll continueinto Cassie, whether she’s the first female alpha of Honeycreek or finds a mate just as strong.”
“That’s my seven-year-old you’re trying to grow too fast,” I groaned, rubbing my eyes as I moved to look at the research.
“I know, I know, but…” June was all fired up. “Freya told me there’s a prophecy through the town about the Warwick alpha line. That, one day, a girl would be born who combines both shifter and magical powers. It's well known.”
“But that also is me,” I pointed out.
“But it's the specific shifter blood in her that completes the prophecy. Here.”
With a navy-painted fingernail, June traced Mason’s lineage, right back to centuries and centuries ago, hundreds of alphas all narrowing down to my daughter. It seemed insane—insane and overwhelming to even process.
“My little girl is the bringer of a prophecy?” I asked, looking at her name printed on the genealogy sheet.
“Yep. And she’s going to be a pretty powerful leader in whatever role she fulfills. Whether she remains mostly human and pursues magic that will far surpass yours, or becomes an alpha, she’ll have many wanting to swear loyalty. She could grow the pack tenfold, should the prophecy be believed.”
“But she’s…” I laughed weakly. “She’s my baby.”
June only grasped my hand, squeezing it. “You're very powerful, baby.” She inhaled, sniggering. “I guess Mason sleeping with youwasa good night.”
“Oh, my God!” I shouted. “Stop that.” June only grabbed my ankle from where I kicked my foot out at her. I shrieked as she pulled me, and I rushed to put my tea down, but I did, I stopped sharply. “The ifrit. That’s why they’re targeting us.They’re trying to get to Cassie. What if her magic could be the thing to banish them for good? What if…” The blood drained from my face. “My seven-year-old daughter could bring about the end of djinn?”
“Something like that,” June mused. “I’ll look into it more between my other research, but it's sure looking that way.” My friend paused, glancing at me. “But… Bryce, you know that this means if the ifrit aren’t banished, then they could try to target her forever.”
I was already thinking about that, and I couldn’t stop the way my fear curdled through me. I suddenly felt ill at the thought of her being hunted forever, growing up anywhere, yet never being free.
Were Mason and Jackson right? Was Cassie safer in Honeycreek, surrounded by a pack, as she grew older?
***
