Chapter 20 - Mason
The day after the meeting where Bryce announced a portal, I had ordered Freya and June to find out what they could about either closing the leyline for good or at least finding a way to subdue the portal.
Bryce had worked with them through the night, directing them on a map of where to go in the levels beneath the museum, of where to tread.
Freya, a witch who had clearly fascinated Bryce, had cloaked herself and June in protection spells, and the two of them had delved below, with Bryce staying back with me.
Had Jackson been there, I’d have sent him and Theo.
Instead, I had Theo and Nate go ahead with them, much to all of their grumbling.
But now, I needed my focus back on my family. Approaching Jackson’s house, I noticed his car back in the driveway, the damage fixed. I knocked on the door, right as Bryce opened it with an excited Cassie bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“She said she felt you coming over,” Bryce explained, wincing a smile. She looked exhausted.
“Have you slept at all?” I asked Bryce, stepping in when she moved back, motioning for me to go in.
“Barely.” She groaned and pushed her hair back off her pale face, tying it into a simple ponytail. “With last night, plus the fact that Jackson still hasn’t come back, I couldn’t quite fall asleep.”
I frowned. I hated the fact that Jackson was staying away.
Not only from me, and, essentially, the pack, but from his own sister.
Whether it was guilt or worry, I didn’t know.
Part of me wanted to hunt him down and force him to talk to me, but the other part only worried the alpha in me would take over and tell him to leave the pack if he truly didn’t want to be there.
But to leave Bryce like this…
I hated it.
I hated that she’d even gone back to Jackson’s house at all when I had made up a room for her, but she had only said she didn’t want Cassie having the wrong idea.
“We’ll figure out what to do about Jackson,” I assured Bryce. “He’ll have to shift back sometime.”
“Can’t you go after him?”
I winced. “I think I’m the last person he wants to see. Plus, if he won’t shift back to speak with me, my wolf will take over, and he’ll be forced to submit and come back. I want him to come back because he’s ready to, not out of force.”
Bryce nodded, frowning as she stroked Cassie's hair. I noticed she did that a lot, as if it was a comfort to remind herself that her daughter was there.
I spoke up again. “Bryce, I know you’re still weary of me and Cassie. You think I’ll let her down the minute I get close to her, but I need you to know I won’t. I want to bond with her, and I would like to today. Let me take her out for a couple of hours while you rest.”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “I… I’m used to doing it alone, Mason, I—”
“You don’t have to anymore,” I told her, knowing she might not be ready yet to believe me, but I had to try regardless. “Let me spend time with my daughter.”
Hesitating, Bryce took a moment to nod. I wanted her to sleep, but I really did also wanted Cassie with me for a specific purpose today. The woods were part of her DNA—I wanted her to really get into her terrain and start becoming familiar with them.
“I don’t want you to shift around her,” Bryce said. “It’ll come with too many questions.”
“I’d be prepared to answer anything, but if that’s what you want, then I won’t. For what is worth, I wasn’t planning on it.”
“And make sure she eats.”
“Come on, I eat enough for six guys at a time. She can’t not eat with her father.” I tried to grin at her, but it fell short when Bryce only mustered a weak one. But she nodded. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “Mostly because I’m too tired to argue with you on it. But you’re right. You’re her father. You should… You should spend time with her.”
“Cassie,” I said, calling her from where she’d scurried off to the sofa. “You want to hang out with me for the day? Let your mom have some rest?”
“Yeah!” she cried, hurrying to her feet. “What do I need?”
“Just yourself,” I told her, laughing as she raced to put on the small shoes by the front door. She hopped as she tugged on thick boots, child versions of combat boots, and I thought she’s like me already. “All right, let’s go. You ready?”
Cassie threw her arms around Bryce, kissing her cheek.
“Bye, Mommy! Okay, I’m ready.” She gave me a very serious, business face and nodded.
I held out my hand for her to take, and she paused for a second before taking it.
As soon as she did, that tether between us flared, and I smiled at her. “You feel that, too?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’ll be useful if we’re ever parted, like the other day. Listen to it. I can also teach you to help read emotions through it.”
Her eyes went wide as I laughed, glancing back at Bryce.
“I’ll bring her back within two hours, okay?”
I could tell this was a huge trust test for her, but it was also significant for me, too. It was the first time I was spending time with my daughter alone. As an alpha, looking at his firstborn cub, that was a big deal. Even just as a father, it was a big deal.
“You like running, right?” I asked her as we neared the treeline.
“Yeah!”
“All right, see if you can keep up with me.” I grinned down at her as I slow jogged into the trees, keeping her in sight as she blew past me, her childish giggles filling my heart with something I couldn’t name.
Something I’d not felt before. My chest ached, and I could only catch up easily to her, keeping pace as she zig-zagged between the trees, her small feet kicking up sprays of dirt.
We ran up until I had us stop in a particular clearing where the sun fell right through the canopy of trees.
“Okay, so,” I told her, crouching down as Cassie promptly dropped to the floor, her cheeks pink. “Very soon, I’m going to have a ceremony. You know what that is?”
Cassie shook her head.
“It's like… a party. But it's to celebrate something.”
“Like a birthday party?”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking before I nodded. “Sure. And it's for you. For you and me, really.”
“Like my birthday party that got ruined?” Her voice turned pouty.
“Sort of,” I sighed. “I’m sorry that happened, Cassie. But this one will be awesome, too. Your mom will be there, maybe your uncle Jackson, and you know those guys I promised would always protect you? They’ll be there, and they will make that safety official. How does all that sound?”
“Scary,” she admitted. “But exciting.”
“That’s a good response,” I told her, smiling. “We’re going to need some flowers, so do you have a favorite?”
“I like tulips because Mommy used to grow them in our yard back in our other home.”
“Tulips sound awesome,” I told her. “You want to look for some with me?”
Her eyes brightened as she got back to her feet, already hunting for them.
“You know,” I began, “when your mom and I first met, I found out her favorite flower was tulips, too. I should have gotten her some for her birthday, but I didn’t get the chance. How about I pick her a bunch now?”
“I think she’ll like that. Uncle Jackson bought her some a while ago, but she cried.”
My hand paused where I went to reach for a cluster of flowers that I guessed weren’t tulips, but I could order some ahead of the ceremony. For now, I just wanted this time with my daughter. I sighed, wondering just how often Bryce had thought about me over the last seven years.
“Did you ever do anything like this with your mommy or daddy?” Cassie asked, surprising me.
I thought back to when I had been seven, pushed into a dressed-up outfit and forced to sit with other kids at my parents’ black tie galas. Sometimes, my dad had been the kind to run through the woods with me, but I had discovered a lot about my wolf alone.
“Not really,” I told her. “But I did go to a lot of parties with them. They enjoyed being like this. Human. Not wolves, but they still took their roles seriously within the pack.”
Cassie nodded, humming a tune under her breath. “That’s a shame. I like it.”
“You like doing this with me?”
“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 me about 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.