Chapter 11 - Bryce
“Mason,” I began, my voice a whisper.
I thought… I had thought it had all been words back in my house. Something to say to smooth over upsetting me, gentleness in place of sharpness that wouldn’t last. A man trying to look like the good guy again, only to hide the alpha I knew underneath.
The alpha who had let his pack torment me.
The alpha who had just lectured a pack reject on how he had mistreated me.
In front of others, even as small as the group was gathered in Harveys—a place I hadn’t even let myself think of going for fear of being seen to be overindulging, of that fear that people might not comment, but they’d think, wondering if the fat girl really needed another chocolate-dipped pastry—Mason had defended me.
That wasn’t just smoothing over to appease me in private; that was a public message.
Freddie, a boy I remembered who still seemed caught in the clutches of being sixteen and no more grown up for actually being twenty-three now, only ducked his head, flushing with what I hoped was embarrassment.
“Mason,” I tried again, but my throat was tight, and emotion threatened to drag me back to that place I had to bury every day: a place where I was still helplessly in love with Mason, a place where that had lived and died alongside my hatred, distrust, and anger.
Mason’s broad smile only greeted me as he held up the pastries he had yet to pay for and strode out. I supposed they were on the house for the insult Freddie had caused. I followed him, hating the burn of stares throughout the bakery.
“Wait up,” I called, rushing Cassie along, who had been quite happy upon seeing the tall wolf man.
“I grabbed a treat for us all,” Mason said, falling into step with me along Main Street, as if nothing had happened.
Yet, with one lecture at a stupid, immature boy, he had turned my world upside down.
He came to a halt, turning to look at me, and I waited for him to say something.
To be arrogant—to say I told you I was a good guy—but he was acting as though it had been perfectly normal for him to stand up for me the way he had.
“Yes?” I pressed, hopeful.
“I want to take you somewhere,” he said. “That was… a lot in there, and I know you don’t want to eat in front of me, so you can take your pastry back home, but at least let Cassie—Cassandra—have hers. It's a nice day, so why not?”
I mustered a smile, trying to resist the growling of my stomach when I caught the scent of the pastries. “You really got them for us?”
“I was going to surprise you at Jackson’s place, but you beat me to it.”
“I guess I did.” I glanced down at the bags clutched in his hand. “I… I’ll eat with you, but not somewhere so public.”
“There’s one place I know,” he said quietly, his eyes meeting mine. “But…” It seemed strange to see him look so unsure.
“Where?”
“Honey Meadows.”
The name of the town’s large meadow of wildflowers struck me.
Situated right on the edge of town, near the exit, I had gone there almost daily as a teenager.
Being right there, overlooking the sign—you are now leaving Honeycreek…
don’t stay away too long!—that should have been friendly but only felt threatening; I had felt as though my dream of escaping had been within touching distance.
People rarely left Honeycreek, and if they did, then, like me now, they somehow always ended up coming back. I could go there, have it be proof that I had made it out; I’d escaped my bullies, and now that I was back, I could remake my life on my own terms.
And that included deciding what to do about the alpha next to me.
“What’s Honey Meadows?” Cassie piped up.
“It's this pretty great place your mom used to like,” Mason told her, offering her the pastry bag. Cassie snatched it happily. Mason went to offer me mine, but I shook my head. Not yet. “You want to check it out?”
“Don’t use my daughter as a way to get what you want,” I said sharply, my defenses rising. “Ask me, not her.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“You’re counting on her young curiosity to want to go, so I’ll feel guilty if I don’t want to go, and then it’ll be c’mon, your daughter really wants to go, don’t you, Cassandra?”
“Bryce.” His voice was quick, snappish, and it made me realize how spiraled I was about to become. “I asked her because it matters that a child goes where they want to instead of being forced to go where their parents want to.”
There was a flicker of vulnerability, there and then gone, painted across his face.
I hadn’t considered that at all, and eventually, I nodded. “Sure. Let’s go there. For argument’s sake, though, if I disagreed, how would you handle her excitement that you started?”
Maybe it was a test; maybe it was just a challenge, trying to find another lie in his words to do better than what I expected of him.
“Then I’d have probably asked you if I could explain to her that her mom wasn’t up for it, and we could always go another day.”
“Young kids are stubborn and persistent.”
He grinned at me. “So are adults.”
***
Honey Meadows covered a great expanse of ground, far from anything, except it wasn’t so secret anymore. I didn’t know when Mason had figured out it was my favorite spot—or at least a place I had found comfort in—but the fact that he had reminded me of it made me feel somewhat grateful.
Cassie looked brighter, and part of me did battle the guilt inside of keeping her cooped up in Jackson’s house out of my own fear. The pack has nothing to do with her, I reminded myself. At least not yet.
Not until they found out their alpha was Cassie’s father.
I reminded myself of that again as I looked at the two of them.
Cassie was sure she had found a four-leaf clover, and Mason was being…
kind of sweet in helping her look for it.
I could hear Cassie chatting away, trusting, and yet there was a certain guardedness to her face.
I knew that look from my own weariness. It was an I’ll endure your company as long as it benefits me, but I still don’t fully know or trust you.
“And if you find it, what will you wish for?” Mason asked, combing through the grass.
“Hmm.” Cassie sat back into a crouch, tapping her chin. “For Mommy and me to be safe.”
“Well, let me tell you a secret.” Mason glanced back at Bryce. “With me and your uncle around, you won’t need a lucky clover for that.”
“Yeah,” she stressed, “but you can’t fight all the shadows.”
“I know, but I promise you I’ll try my damned hardest.”
Cassie gasped. “Mommy! The wolf said a bad word.”
I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at that. Cassie looked stricken, a hand dramatically clasped over her mouth.
“Oh no!” Mason cried, making a big show just as much as she was. “Someone strike me down! I said a bad word!”
He made a show of dying, falling onto his back, his arms limply flung to the sides, and Cassie giggled, shrieking with glee as she crouched next to him. She shook him vigorously, and I couldn’t help bout of laughter as Mason suddenly scared her, sitting upright in a quick motion.
“Come on,” he laughed, coming back to where I sat. “No lucky clovers today.”
“Can we come back another time?” Cassie asked. “I want to look again.”
“Sure,” Mason said, and quickly added, “if your mom agrees.”
“You can look further if you come and eat this pastry Mason got you,” I teased her. “Or I might just have to finish it myself.”
I rustled the wrapper, enticing her, and Cassie bounded over to me, grabbing the chocolate pastry.
Within seconds, she was tearing into it, as surely as Mason tore into his own.
I looked between them, the similarities unsettling.
I told myself it was just the confident way of eating when nobody had made them feel bad for it, but it was something else.
A similar way to how their pinkies crooked, how they both chewed to the right side, and then the left, as if wanting the full flavor, and how they both sighed afterward.
Even the dusting of their hands was the same. Left hand higher, brushing their right, only to do it three times.
It unsettled me, and I knew I couldn’t deny them bonding, but seeing this… seeing so much of Mason in Cassie, seeing how he made her laugh after rejecting me, seeing what sort of a family we could have been… it was too much.
Without thinking, I tore off small pieces of my own snack and quickly chewed while Mason looked out over the town. From our vantage point in the meadow, all of Honeycreek lay behind us, and while I chose to keep my back to it, he didn’t.
An alpha looking out at his domain.
“I was the kid who was always dragged wherever his parents had to go,” Mason told me quietly after a moment.
He turned to look at me out of the corner of his eye.
Like this, the high, midday sun caught the blue of his eyes, turning them almost to ice.
“No matter where they went. Hunts as wolves, conferences as adults, parties, work meetings… I was never the kid who got to hang out at the park on the weekend. No, it was right in my dad’s car, and off we’d go somewhere.
Always important, always the son of the most important man and woman in the room.
Nobody ever asked where I wanted to go. It was just…
bags packed, loaded in the car, and going.
Smile, dress nice, and greet people politely.
Talk about being the future alpha, tell them what they want to hear, grow up too fast.”
I bit my lip as I listened, hearing the roughness of his voice.