Chapter 6 - Mason
The evening air was balmy, pressing down on me as I jogged alongside Jackson.
Sweat slicked down my back, and I breathed heavily, having pushed myself harder than I usually did, but I didn’t care.
I needed the fresh air; I needed a clear head, and I’d run through the forest for as long as it took to find that.
Next to me, Jackson ran, a stern look on his face. It was his focused look, one I had come to know well since growing up together.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked, as we began along an inclined path. Honeycreek was an utter woodland surrounding a small town, and patrol rounds weren’t unusual, but I’d doubled up on them ever since the demons—Djinn—had begun to attack.
So far, they’d hit the bookstore, the museum, and the local diner, and I wanted no more places attacked. Given the frequency of their attacks, it was a far-fetched thought, but I had the teams to fight the devastation they wrought.
Because I was realizing now, with Bryce’s insistence, that these creatures were behind the attacks, and part of me was ashamed that it had taken Bryce being targeted to realize that.
“My sister,” Jackson answered. “I don’t get why the demons have targeted her. I mean, I get Honeycreek. There’s a large pack presence, and they might think they can win against us. I just don’t like not knowing why.”
“Because the reasons we don’t know aren’t reasons we can’t anticipate,” I finished.
“Exactly.”
We continued jogging, and when we came to a small creek, I ran through it, while Jackson sailed over it easily, dropping into a roll before springing to his feet.
“Show off,” I muttered, as we continued up the path that would take us through our part of the forest. Across town, I had two other pack members doing their patrol, and we’d likely meet in the center.
“Bryce and I always used to run through here as kids,” Jackson told me, laughing breathlessly. “She’d always try to race me and often lose. By then, I was training for the brigade but also shifting a lot, so I was eating more, working out. Yet she was always convinced she could outrun me.”
“Did she ever?”
Jackson snorted. “She got winded barely two minutes in.”
“And as a wolf?” I pressed.
“She ran well as a wolf, but don’t you remember she was always slower?”
The truth was that I had shoved Bryce and anything to do with her so deep down in my memories that I had to really think to recall anything. I just ran on, not able to admit why I’d blocked her out.
“Her daughter…” I said, instead. “She’s a shifter, too. I can sense it. There’s something else about her that I can’t quite work out. Do you know what it is?”
Jackson shook his head. “Beats me. Must be related to her father. Unless he’s a shifter, too. In that case, I have no idea. I don’t really get a lot from her in that sense.”
Why did I? I wondered. My footsteps faltered. Maybe it’s my alpha instincts. I’d always been able to get a keen sense of people, read them a little better, and when they were shifters, it was even more.
“Do you know who her father is?” I asked Jackson, wondering if he was from Honeycreek or if he’d been in White Bay and abandoned Bryce. Or had she left him in this town like she’d left my pack? Was that her daughter’s other scent? Pure human, maybe.
“Nope,” Jackson said, his eyes cutting away from me.
“Bryce never mentioned?”
Jackson shook his head.
I snorted. “If she won’t tell you, then she really won’t tell me.”
“What exactly happened with her and the pack? I never really understood, but the way the guys looked at her before… I didn’t like it. I mean it, Mase. I want her protected.”
“I know,” I said. I tried not to think about the jealousy curling through me at the man whose hands had pressed into the same places on Bryce’s body that I had. “And she will be. She chose to leave, but you know how packs work.”
Jackson bit his lip. “I feel like I abandoned her. I should have left when she did.”
“No,” I growled, protective over my pack. “You’re my second. You belong with us.”
“And Bryce doesn’t?”
“Bryce chose to leave,” I told him. “If you couldn’t sway her mind, then that means she’s stubborn, just like you.” I knocked into him, grinning. After a moment, Jackson smirked as well.
“True.”
We continued running, my eyes scanning the trees for more scorch marks or evidence of ifrit presence.
But I couldn’t concentrate on that long enough to take notice, my thoughts drifting to Bryce over and over.
The proud lift of her chin, the spark of her emerald-green eyes.
The way her arms had curled around her torso as soon as she got out of the car.
She’d done it as if wanting to make herself small, and I hated seeing that.
I hated knowing I’d had a part in that.
I had to focus on the pack. Bryce wasn’t my concern now, not properly.
She’d been a momentary blip in my mission of protecting my pack and watching out for more demons.
She was now safe in Jackson’s house. But every time I pictured Bryce and Cassie sitting in the backseat of Jackson’s car, the thought of their scents blanketing every inch of the cottage I’d rescued them from, my inner wolf stirred.
It called out to them both, and I hated that.
I needed my focus, not to think about the girl’s ruined birthday, or questioning why I thought about getting her a gift when I didn’t know her, or needing to know that they were protected. Neither of them was my concern anymore.
Or so I was trying to tell myself.
“Hey, stop.” Jackson threw out an arm to grind me to a halt.
I did immediately, my eyes searching the forest around us.
Pine trees clustered together, swallowing paths, and making the shadows far darker in the night.
But there, through the trees, I spotted the way the air went hazy with heat.
It was summer, but the night air had cooled the town, and it only wavered like this at the height of midday.
“Something’s wrong,” I told Jackson, who nodded. Peeling my thoughts away from Bryce, I finally forced my focus back onto this, where it should have already been. “Do you think it’s a trap?”
“Not a trap. Just… something. An attack half carried out? Aborted? Or a portal location, maybe?”
“There’s more.”
I nodded at the heat waves fluttering between the trees, haphazardly placed, with no pattern that I could discern. I let my instincts take over, and the strong, revolting smell of sulfur flooded my nostrils.
“Definitely demon activity,” I muttered, shaking my head. “I’m not getting anything else, though. No other presence.”
“It’s still closer than is comfortable.”
“I know.” I kept scanning the trees. Demons weren’t usually silent, but the air felt too still, too silent, as if they were lying in wait.
Something was building outside of our attention, and our patrols weren’t going to be enough soon.
I could feel it in my gut, a bubbling of worry, a gnawing that I wouldn’t do enough to protect my pack and Honeycreek’s population.
How many had already been injured in the fires?
“We have to go back to the pack.” I turned, jerking my head for Jackson to follow me. “We have to warn them to be on extra guard.”
“I want to warn Bryce,” Jackson said, startling me. I frowned, but he only scowled at me. “If there are demons nearby, I won’t have her unsuspecting of it.”
“Do you want to scare her like that?” I countered. “Let her sleep easy.”
“I can’t not tell her.”
“What do you think she’ll do if she knows there are close demons here, when you’ve just taken her from her home to escape them? She’ll go right back there.”
After a moment, Jackson nodded.
I hesitated before speaking again. “We have something more to go off, you can tell her. For now, let the pack start handling things. Let us protect her.”
The way we should have always done.
***
The town’s museum was a two-story building right door to the town hall, and it was the pack’s meeting place. There was a den above the main museum where we could all gather comfortably without crashing someone’s house.
The complex served as our housing, sure, but I needed somewhere private, somewhere the whole pack could get together, and, for its central location, that had been the museum.
“You’re saying that these aren’t just demons, but Djinn?” Theo asked, frowning at the update I’d given them all. Facing the dozen pack members, I nodded.
“Ifrit,” Jackson added.
Theo snorted. “All right, I can get behind it being a demon. I’ve been protesting that the loudest. But Djinn don’t exist. Demons are warped things, borne from excess magic that doesn’t find a host from previous wielders. I can understand where they come from, but djinn are stories of myths—”
“Bryce Calloway told us that’s what they are, and I’m inclined to believe her.”
The room fell silent. I swept my focus over them all, daring them to say something about her. Daring them to oppose me. None did—until Theo burst out laughing, shaking his head. He followed his arms over his chest, muscles straining against the white t-shirt he wore.
“Right. And did she get her information from the magic lamp she rubbed to summon the djinn?” he snorted. “I’m not believing her. I’m sorry, but no. Put research in front of me, and I’ll believe it, but not her.”
“Theo.” My voice was hard, a threat laced in it.
“What?” he asked, laughing. “Did she finally put down the candy long enough to pick up a book and think she’s clever?” Around him, others began to snigger. Next to me, Jackson surged forward, a growl coming from him, but I pulled him back. Irritation flared through me.
“Shut it down,” I snapped. “Be respectful, or excuse yourself, Theo.”
“Why?” he shrugged. “She’s nothing to us. She left the pack. What, Bryce bounces her way back onto the complex, and we all pamper her? Why? Just because some poor idiot got her knocked up, and she needs to protect her kid?”
“I’ll come over there and punch your teeth out if you don’t shut up,” Jackson snarled.
“I don’t want any fights over this,” I shouted, quietening the room. “You want to be angry? To fight? Take it on the search for demons. Take it out when the fights come to us. Theo, you’ve tried to get me to believe that demons are behind the attacks, and now we have actual proof—”
“What proof does she have, though?” Theo countered. “Her own conceptions? Sorry if I don’t believe her.”
“Grow up,” Nate muttered. “I’m willing to take on any information we get. Anything’s worth looking into.”
I glared at Theo. He always had to oppose me, and I hadn’t forgotten that he’d been the loudest voice to give an opinion on Bryce years ago.
“Theo, you’re on duty at the library tomorrow,” I muttered. I was too tired to deal with his bullshit. I pinched my brow as he began to protest, but was quickly shut down by Jackson moving over to him.
In a low voice, I heard Jackson threaten him. “If I ever hear one more derogatory word come out of your mouth about my sister again, then I’ll pitch you as bait for the demons myself, and hope all those muscles you have instead of a brain are enough to satisfy whatever hunger they have. Got it?”
“Fuck off, Jackson,” Theo muttered. “I was poking fun, but fine. Whatever. I’ll be on my best behavior.”
“Good,” I growled. “I don’t want to hear it again.”
He looked like he was ready to say more, but he only stared at me coolly.
I had gone along with them years ago, stupid and immature, but I refused. Bullying Bryce was a mistake I would never make again. Not shutting my pack down with their cruelty was a mistake I would never make again.
“Now that we know the specifics,” I continued, “we can anticipate them better. Jackson’s
going to confer with Bryce regarding more information on djinn and how to look out for their signs.
But for now, look out for the usual things.
Heat waves, scorch marks, the supernatural fire, and an absence of cause for those fires.
Honeycreek can’t continue to be at risk.
I can’t continue having you all at risk. ”
“And Bryce Calloway?” Theo asked. “Where does she fit into this?”
“Nowhere,” I said. “She’s just here to be closer to Jackson.”
“Not you?”
I took a step towards him, tired of him. I let out a low growl and watched
as he squirmed. He had no choice but to concede.
“Now,” I continued, “are you going to pull your weight here, or are you going to continue trying to be a smart ass?”
Theo just shrank further into his seat, glaring back at me, under my orders, but his own
will banked in his scowl. Eventually, he nodded.
“Not one more word from anyone about Bryce Calloway,” I announced to the room, ready to wrap up the meeting. “We have bigger problems to deal with.”