Chapter 5 - Bryce
My stomach twisted with anxiety, and my breath felt trapped within my throat.
I can’t do this, I thought, as the wolf pack crowded around the car, gaining on me. I had once been part of them—and now it was clear I was, and always had been, an outsider.
“Come on,” Jackson said quietly, standing at my side. He gestured for me to walk on, Cassie trailing behind, her eyes wide. “Let’s get you out of the direct focus, yeah?”
I wanted to be angry—I wanted to tell him it had been his idea to bring me here in the first place. Jackson had claimed I wasn’t protected against the Djinn, but how could I be protected against the might of the Honeycreek pack if he was one of them? They’d turn on him, too.
My gaze swept over Mason, but he was too busy glaring at another male. I couldn’t remember the other wolf’s name, but he was vaguely familiar. I’d spent seven years burying my memories of this place; I didn’t exactly want to force anything back to my mind.
I walked through the pack, two rows making a formidable aisle for Cassie, me, and Jackson to head down. But I was rooted to the spot, feeling every judgment weighing on me. My mind spun, and I tried to collect myself for my daughter, but I couldn’t. I was eighteen again, cast out from my pack.
Cast out by a boy whom I’d loved, who had never once loved me.
My breath came fast and heavy, and I was flushed with dizziness.
“I can’t,” I whispered.
One thing about the pack, Jackson had once told me. Is to not show weakness. They’ll tear you apart the second they catch wind of it.
In that moment, my weakness was on display for everybody to see. I shrank and realized how White Bay had only packed over my insecurities rather than solved them. My life there had only been a cover-up, a distraction. I wasn’t healed at all.
“Mommy?” Cassie’s voice brought me back, and I started, turning to take her hand. Her soft, warm fingers clasped around mine, grounded me. “Are you okay? Who are these people?”
“They’re…” I couldn’t speak. I was light-headed. It was all too much, too much, too much, and I couldn’t endure any of it.
“They’re friends of mine,” Jackson helpfully filled in.
“Are they friendly?” Cassie asked, skeptically looking around. There was a cute little frown on her face. “They don’t look it.”
A flare of anger went through me. If the pack had welcomed me, then Cassie would have grown up with a father, would have been embraced by the pack as their cub, and would have been raised by more uncles than she could count. She would have been supported—we would have been supported.
Instead, I’d been shunned, and I couldn’t stand the thought of my daughter paying the price. My heart pounded. That was another thing. How could I keep my daughter’s secret if I were back among the very pack led by Cassie’s father?
“They’re good guys,” Jackson told her, and I caught his gaze, shaking my head. “You can’t villainize them to her just because they made you feel a little awkward, Bryce.”
I had given my brother the most watered-down version, blaming nobody properly.
I couldn’t turn him against his friends like that, his pack.
As a man, he had to show his loyalty to them.
I’d been hellbent on leaving; if he’d sided with me, he’d have been a lone wolf.
No sister to follow, and no pack to call home.
So I’d made the choice for him, forcing him to keep my secret.
“How about that wall painting, then?” Jackson asked Cassie, changing the subject. He flashed her a grin, jerking his head. “C’mon. I’ll show you to the guest room. Once you’re settled, I’ll take you to the general store to get some paint. You want some pink? Lavender, maybe?”
“Green,” Cassie said quickly. “A real forest green.”
“Green it’ll be,” Jackson laughed. He walked onwards with her.
A presence at my back had me stiffening, sensing Mason.
“We should walk on,” Mason murmured. “Get away from the stares.”
“They’re your pack,” I answered curtly. “You swayed their opinion about me once. Surely you can do it again. Tell them to heel like—”
“Watch it,” he growled. “You’re one of us, too.”
“Was,” I corrected. “I haven’t shifted in a long time. And I’m not part of anything to do with you, Mason.”
Steeling myself, I followed after my brother and daughter, aware that Mason caught up easily.
But as I walked past the pack, I felt a thousand needles prickling me, and my insecure thoughts swirled.
Do my thighs look bigger than I realized in these jeans?
Is my shirt button straying at my chest?
Suck in, Bryce. Give them no reason to notice that you haven’t lost any weight.
I shouldn’t care, shouldn’t be so fixated on surface things, but I still remembered every laughter, every insult, every jab about my weight and appearance.
Lifting my chin higher, I strode onwards to the door to Jackson’s house.
He closed the door, leaving the four of us standing in the main hall.
Before I could take Cassie upstairs in this unfamiliar house, far from the comfort of my childhood home that Jackson had moved out of a few years ago to be nearer the pack, Mason stepped forward.
“Hey, Cassie,” he said, and I bit back my correction.
I just hated the casualness he thought he could speak to her.
Annoyance sparked through me as Mason crouched down to Cassie’s height.
Seeing them like that sent me reeling, and I wanted to snatch her away from him.
It was too much, seeing them so like one another, none of them knowing who the other was.
“It was scary, right? Seeing all those bad guys out there?”
Cassie nodded silently.
“They were big, weren’t they?”
Again, Cassie nodded. “I don’t want to see them again.”
“And you won’t have to unless you want to be introduced,” he said, surprising me. “That’s my promise to you. And you see that cool guy behind you? Uncle Jackson is going to keep you safe. I will, too. Is that okay with you?”
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “But what about Mommy? Will you protect her from them, too?”
My heart cracked, both at Cassie worrying about me and because Mason had never once protected me from the pack.
“Trust me, those guys know not to get on the bad side of your mom.”
I almost rolled my eyes at that. I didn’t need to be portrayed as the hero; I just wanted to keep my daughter safe. But I was glad Mason didn’t say he’d protect me. I wouldn’t trust him to.
“Your uncle and I will never let anything happen to you,” Mason swore, holding Cassie’s eyes.
He held out a fist for her to bump hers against. Panic surged through me.
I knew his instincts would tell him something, but I could only hope his confusion held out long enough for me to figure out a sure way out of here.
Mason will find out the truth soon enough, and I was nowhere near ready.
I didn’t want Cassie to be part of this world. I didn’t want her involved with Mason, whether she was entitled to know him or not. He was cruel, and I had no reason to think he’d changed.
“Kiddo, let’s head up,” Jackson prompted. “Hey, that reminds me. Mrs. Kingsley at the general store has a daughter your age. You two could be buddies, huh?”
“Sure,” she muttered. “This birthday sucks.”
I pulled her to me for a moment, crouching before her.
I was too aware of how my thighs pressed against my jean seams, how my stomach relaxed against the button, too aware of it all beneath Mason’s scrutiny.
“Baby, listen to me. We’re going to have a do-over for your special day, and we’ll get the biggest cake ever.
I’ll buy you more dancing shoes, and I’m sure you’d love to celebrate with Uncle Jackson, right?
It’ll be a little late, but it only means double the cake. ”
At that, her eyes brightened as she nodded. “I didn’t have any friends in White Bay. I’d like one.”
“Then how about we get you settled so we can go out?”
Cassie nodded enthusiastically before reaching for Jackson’s hand. “Ready!”
The two of them headed upstairs, and too late, I realized I should have followed them. I hovered in the hallway with Mason as I stood up. He was on his feet again, and seemed not to know what to do around me as much as I didn’t around him.
The tension momentarily dispelled from focusing on Cassie returned, and I couldn’t stop feeling so attuned with how close we stood, how much space I took up, how I looked, how—
Stop it, I told myself mentally. I did not need to reduce my confidence around Mason. Not now. Not when it had been seven—
“It’s going to be okay.” Mason’s voice cut through my thoughts.
I could barely meet his eyes and only swallowed, shifting my weight.
“And… Bryce, don’t listen to what anyone in the pack says about you.
I wish I hadn’t listened all those years ago.
I should have made my own decision about you without their judgment. Without anyone’s judgment.”
I spun to him, a question of what he meant on my lips, but Mason was already slipping out of the front door, leaving me with my confusion.