Chapter 21 - Bryce
“You look… on edge.”
I looked up at June’s voice, my hands cupped around a mug of black tea.
“I am,” I admitted. She’d come over not long after Mason had arrived, so my opportunity for rest had been snatched away, but I’d take June’s company over anything.
She hadn’t heard about my attempt to leave town, and I hadn’t wanted to bring it up.
Not yet, at least. There was too much else happening.
June’s eyes were as tired as mine, but there was a gleam to them as she spread some papers
over the coffee table.
“Mason’s taken Cassie out for the first time,” I told her.
“I don’t want him to ask anything that’ll confuse her, and I’m just worried if they spend more time together, she’ll get close to him, and he’ll leave her, or ditch when—I don’t know, when she’s a bratty teenager and too much to handle, or when she won’t go to her room if she’s annoyed.
Just when she’s not a sweet, innocent kid who wants to do everything, you know?
He’s missed out on her being a baby. I get he wants to make up for it, but I can’t help feeling guarded. ”
“It makes sense. But… he is her dad, too, and he has to have a chance. It takes two to make a baby.” She laughed, teasing me, and I could only give a half-hearted laugh.
“Right,” I muttered, drinking my tea deeply, letting it attempt to wake me up. “What did you find?”
“Well, on top of what we were already working on, I found more records dating further back. It's true what we found. Mason stems from a powerful line of alphas, and that’ll continue into Cassie, whether she’s the first female alpha of Honeycreek or finds a mate just as strong.”
“That’s my seven-year-old you’re trying to grow too fast,” I groaned, rubbing my eyes as I moved to look at the research.
“I know, I know, but…” June was all fired up. “Freya told me there’s a prophecy through the town about the Warwick alpha line. That, one day, a girl would be born who combines both shifter and magical powers. It's well known.”
“But that also is me,” I pointed out.
“But it's the specific shifter blood in her that completes the prophecy. Here.”
With a navy-painted fingernail, June traced Mason’s lineage, right back to centuries and centuries ago, hundreds of alphas all narrowing down to my daughter. It seemed insane—insane and overwhelming to even process.
“My little girl is the bringer of a prophecy?” I asked, looking at her name printed on the genealogy sheet.
“Yep. And she’s going to be a pretty powerful leader in whatever role she fulfills. Whether she remains mostly human and pursues magic that will far surpass yours, or becomes an alpha, she’ll have many wanting to swear loyalty. She could grow the pack tenfold, should the prophecy be believed.”
“But she’s…” I laughed weakly. “She’s my baby.”
June only grasped my hand, squeezing it. “You're very powerful, baby.” She inhaled, sniggering. “I guess Mason sleeping with you was a good night.”
“Oh, my God!” I shouted. “Stop that.” June only grabbed my ankle from where I kicked my foot out at her.
I shrieked as she pulled me, and I rushed to put my tea down, but I did, I stopped sharply.
“The ifrit. That’s why they’re targeting us.
They’re trying to get to Cassie. What if her magic could be the thing to banish them for good?
What if…” The blood drained from my face.
“My seven-year-old daughter could bring about the end of djinn?”
“Something like that,” June mused. “I’ll look into it more between my other research, but it's sure looking that way.” My friend paused, glancing at me. “But… Bryce, you know that this means if the ifrit aren’t banished, then they could try to target her forever.”
I was already thinking about that, and I couldn’t stop the way my fear curdled through me. I suddenly felt ill at the thought of her being hunted forever, growing up anywhere, yet never being free.
Were Mason and Jackson right? Was Cassie safer in Honeycreek, surrounded by a pack, as she grew older?
***
Soon, Mason and Cassie returned, my daughter full of laughter, her face pink with excitement.
I couldn’t stop thinking of the prophecy and her future.
Not when she giggled with Mason over an inside joke I didn’t hear, and not when she helped him stick a bunch of wildflowers into a vase before they both presented it to me, and not when he asked me to braid a crown of sorts into Cassie’s hair for the ceremony, weaving flower petals into it.
“It's taking place tomorrow night,” Mason told me as Cassie spoke with June, eager to know more about the constellations. “Nate told me there’s a full moon. One of the pack went out to find Jackson to tell him, but they said he wouldn’t shift to speak with him.
But he knows about it, so whether he’ll show or not, I don’t know. ”
“I’m grateful that you tried,” I murmured. “How was it? Being with her?”
“Bryce, I know you think I’m this flaky guy who’s going to think that having a child is all laughter and the prestige of having a cub of my own as an alpha, but I know there’s a hell of a lot more to it.
I’m not stupid. I always swore to never be like my parents—pressuring, giving up when things were tough, only wanting a son when they were priming me to be the alpha.
Cassie could have a proper family. I’ve let you down, I know, but I think I deserve a chance. ”
“I know what you’re saying, but… I mean, Mason, you ran out on me in that cave.
Who’s to say you won’t abandon her the minute she keeps a secret from you?
She’s bound to. A child isn’t obliged to tell their parents everything.
I won’t have her grow close to you, and I want a connection with you, only for you to turn your back on her the second you don’t like something when she’s older. ”
“What can I do, Bryce, to convince you I won’t do that? You kept my child a secret from me, and I couldn’t think straight. My best friend betrayed me in his loyalty to you, and I could only hate myself for it all. I just couldn’t think straight in that moment.”
“And if you do it again?”
“Bryce,” he groaned. “Please. Please, just tell me what I can do.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. But deep down, deep down, I did. The ceremony was a commitment—it was a public display of swearing loyalty and endurance through any time. He was formally and publicly acknowledging his bond with his daughter by choosing to have it.
If you go through with it, I thought. Then I’ll take the risk. I’ll be able to know I can trust you… maybe even enough to have you in my life, as Cassie’s true parents, together, sworn to one another.