Chapter 11 - Bryce #2
“One time, my dad took me to a conference with the other alphas,” Mason went on.
“We went to one of the bigger cities. I forget where, but it was a long drive. When I got there, I met up with all the other alpha kids, and then some others from lower-ranked members of their packs. I saw how some of the other alpha kids behaved—poised, collected—but there was one who looked as though he already carried the weight of his future role. We couldn’t have been more than thirteen.
His father was unwell, and this kid knew he’d be the alpha soon enough.
But there was a moment when he came over to me, and he said, ‘For just one afternoon, I want to be a child. I want to kick a ball, get dirt on my clothes, slouch, and sneak some food from the buffet’.
It sounds stupid, I know, but we didn’t get to do a whole lot of that.
We always had to be the perfect image. Be everything our fathers raised us to be.
“So, we snuck out of the conference, did whatever the hell we wanted—just for an afternoon. And when our fathers caught us, we were dragged away. My father shoved me into the car, drove back to Honeycreek in silence, and when we got home, he sat me down, told me to remember how an alpha’s son behaved.
How an alpha behaved. I never stepped out of line again.
That’s why I asked Cassandra first what she wanted to do.
I won’t take it for granted that she wants to go where we think. ”
Part of me weakened, my heart softening.
There was a deep, piercing ache in my chest. I couldn’t risk my daughter growing close to him, only to be hurt.
But I had never thought of Mason as having feelings like this.
I had always seen him as handsome, superficial, and only caring about his next tormenting session.
But…
But was I being proven wrong?
What if I let him into our lives again based on this moment of sincerity, only to have him destroy everything I had escaped to protest?
And then there was the bakery… He’d fought for me, acknowledged that his pack hadn’t always been what he wanted, but he was learning, as were they. Hope sparked in my chest, a flicker of it, and I was terrified. I wanted Cassie to have a dependable father more than anything. Was Mason that?
“What are you thinking?” Mason asked me gently. Out of the corner of my eye, I was aware of Cassie peering into my discarded pastry bag, pulling out the remainder of my food. I let her, too, fixated on how Mason looked at me.
“That…” I hesitated, unsure of whether to trust him with my thoughts. In the end, I did. He’d already hurt me. I was stronger now, and I could offer up this one thing. “That you seem different to the boy who watched me leave this town years ago.”
Mason only let out a quiet laugh. “I told you I’ve changed, Bryce.”
“I know,” I said. I just need to keep seeing it to make sure it's not a pretense. I need to protect our daughter. I want to tell you more than anything that she’s yours, but I never want you to know.
The conflict warred in my mind, and I only nodded, and he let my gaze drop.
I realized our time was coming to an end, and, for once, I wasn’t eager to get as far away from Mason as fast as I could.
“Do you… Do you want to walk us home?” I asked him. Mason only grinned at me.
“Yeah, I want to walk you home,” he murmured, glancing at Cassie.
There was that furrow of his brow again, as if he questioned her every time he looked at her.
I knew he wondered who her father was, but were they sensing one another?
Their scents, their energies, the DNA of his that coursed through her.
Quickly, I stood up, gathering Cassie to my side. “Let’s go.”
***
It was early evening by the time Mason and I dropped to the sofa. He’d made us coffee while I had put Cassie to bed, smiling down at my happy daughter, who asked if she’d see the wolf man again. I had only pressed a kiss to her forehead and told her she would. I was still way too guarded, though.
Downstairs, a sort of exhaustion settled within me. Physically, I felt alive—maybe, in a way, more alive than I’d felt in so long, utterly aware of Mason sitting next to me. But mentally, I was tired from running myself in circles, overthinking Mason’s presence in my life.
I had told myself Honeycreek was temporary, but it had almost been a week, and nothing was looking to be changing about my living situation.
“Jackson will probably be down any minute,” I said, wondering how he’d feel about Mason and me spending more time together.
Mason just laughed, raising an eyebrow at me. “He’s on another date. Don’t you know your brother’s become a—” He cut himself off, clearing his throat. “He’s popular, let’s just say. He spends most weekends out with a new girl, down at Hennesey.”
“That bar’s still going?” I asked, surprised. I didn’t know why I kept expecting things to change. Maybe Mason hadn’t, either. Maybe he was the only thing that had.
“Everywhere’s still going,” he snorted. “That’s the beauty of a small town, isn’t it?”
“More like the monotony,” I muttered.
“You never did like it here,” Mason noted.
I shook my head. “Not really, no. When everyone’s insistent on constantly being in your business, you develop a particular lack of love for the place. Small towns are good; small-town minds… not so much. Everyone follows the leader, right?”
“The leader being… me,” he pieced together, regret flashing through his eyes.
I shrugged; there was no use in properly denying it.
“I was an ass, but now the leader has to step up, right? The demons are burning the town down, and it's only a matter of time before I’m dealing with the loss of life as well as destroyed buildings.” A shadow crossed his face, and I had the urge to reach out to hold his hand, to squeeze it.
“Can I be real honest?” Mason asked quietly, not looking at me anymore.
“Honesty is what I’ve always wanted from you.”
“Sometimes I feel like the weight of responsibility is going to crush me.” He let out a long, shaky sigh.
“Sometimes I can’t… I can’t handle how heavy it is.
I wake up, and it's there, a weight in my chest. The need to keep going even when I just want to crash, but I can’t.
I never can. I have to just…” His hand gestured in a straight line, his voice faint.
“Just have to keep going, no matter what it costs me. As long as it doesn’t cost the town, then I’ll handle it. ”
“You can’t live your life carrying everything for everybody.” The words came out, unbidden. I pulled back, surprised at myself for comforting him aloud. Mason’s gaze cut to me, just as surprised as I was.
Mason let out a dry laugh, shaking his head. “I’m the alpha. It's my job.”
“Your job is to lead your pack,” I said carefully. “You can’t command the whole town. You can’t be everywhere at once.”
“My job is to also lead the fire services. I have to be everywhere at once, because if something—if something happens, then it's all on me. Every member of my pack looks to me. And when they have cubs…” He stopped short, swallowing hard. “But my father endured it, and he was the best alpha there ever was. If he raised me, surely I can’t be all that bad, right?” He caught himself, looking up at me again. “At least not anymore.”
My thoughts spun together, clashing between wanting to believe that and knowing that my distrust was valid. Biting my lip, I offered him something else, something I wanted to use to help him relieve some of the burden.
“You’re not alone, Mason,” I told him. “There have been times in these last seven years when I’ve felt what loneliness truly feels like.
Knowing that if something ever happened to Cassie, then it was my fault, swinging between anger at not having support, and knowledge that I had made my choice, and hating why I needed to make it. ”
Mason opened his mouth to speak, but I shook my head.
“I enrolled her in ballet classes when she was five,” I continued.
“Every time I dropped her off at the studio, I cried. For the first month, I stayed in the parking lot. Extreme, I know, but I kept convincing myself that she would fall and hurt herself, that she would be hurt by another girl, and if I left that parking lot, then I wouldn’t be there when she needed me.
I’ve been her one and only sturdy, constant.
To see her now, surrounded by more people than just me, who can look out for her…
It's hard. But it's comforting. Yet that weight doesn’t go away. The responsibility still falls to me, but I know I can ask for help.”
“As I can, you mean?”
“Do with what I’ve said what you please,” I snorted, lightening the air between us. “You always did as you pleased. There’s something else I want to talk to you about.”
Something flickered in his face, a tightness that was only visible for a moment. “Anything.”
“After Cassie was born, maybe a year or so, I was asleep one night—and then I realized I was awake, but I was still dreaming. The dream didn’t end even though I could feel myself tapping the wall to jolt myself awake.
I looked up everything. Sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming—everything.
It lasted a few minutes, but it terrified me.
“The dreams continued, and I finally turned to another consideration, one I’d only heard whispered about in even older towns than Honeycreek.”
“Clairvoyance,” Mason murmured, surprising me.
“You know?”
“I’ve seen you have visions,” he admitted. “While I’ve watched you. I recognized the symptoms from my grandmother.”
“I’m still learning to navigate visions and read them properly, but I’m actively learning. I write down each one after I come back around from it. This new ability gave me the knowledge of the Ifrit. I couldn’t detect it before it came into my house, but I knew what it was.”
“And the visions you’ve had here?”
“The same. I can’t ever see anything specific enough.”