Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
CASSIAN
Promising to protect someone meant showing up tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day after that.
It meant making plans. It meant building a future sturdy enough that someone else could lean against it without falling, when for three years I’d refused to think further ahead than the next sunrise.
You are ours to protect
The promise wouldn’t leave me alone.
I’d made it on instinct, more my wolf than me at first, without weighing the words or considering what they meant, because Soren had been staring at me with frightened pale-green eyes and trusted me with his daughter and his future.
He hadn’t asked me for forever. He’d asked me for safety and somehow, after talking to Raff, after making sense of things, I’d answered with my life.
He had the impossible belief I could keep them alive and safe, and it made my wolf strong and calmed my human self.
Only afterward had I realized what I’d said.
I hadn’t promised to protect them until we found somewhere safe for him.
I hadn’t promised to keep them safe until the snow vanished.
I’d promised them my life over theirs. I’d accepted that promise the second my wolf thought them and the words left my mouth.
There hadn’t been any hesitation, just a deep, steady certainty that had been missing from him for three long years. Ours. Protect. Family.
The way Soren sat on my lap and clung to me, seeking comfort, felt as familiar as the bond I once shared with Raff. A connection so deep I couldn’t begin to unravel it. A week after Asha arrived, the house had settled into a rhythm neither of us had planned, but both of us had come to depend on.
The mornings belonged to routine. I shifted before dawn and patrolled the property while the world was still quiet, my wolf checking the perimeter with relentless focus.
By the time I came back, Soren was usually awake, Asha tucked to his chest, coffee waiting after he’d learned I always wanted coffee before I spoke to anyone.
He’d smile when I walked through the door, tired but genuine, and somewhere along the way, I’d stopped being surprised to find someone waiting for me.
Habit had me glance at the monitors every ten minutes I was awake. Empty road. Empty gate. Empty trees. Another day nobody had found Soren, another report from Decker saying no one was asking after me.
I should’ve felt relieved. Instead, it only made me wonder how much longer our luck would hold and wishing the winter would thaw enough for us to get Soren and Asha out of here, whilst worrying about that same thing leaving us exposed.
The days filled themselves. Feedings blurred into naps, laundry appeared from nowhere despite there only being three of us, and every room began to lose the feeling of being frozen in time.
Soren moved carefully, still healing, still under strict instructions not to shift until the full twenty-eight days had passed, but each day he walked a little farther through the house.
He spent hours curled into the armchair by the north window with Asha asleep in his lap, reading whatever books he found on Raff’s shelves or the two of us watching a random episode of The Den, arguing with the characters’ decisions as though they could hear us.
Aldric was most definitely a dragon, and we were waiting for the big season finale reveal because that had somehow become very important to us both.
Asha became the center of everything. She had a healthy set of lungs when she objected to being hungry, a stubborn determination to stay awake whenever she thought she might miss something, and an uncanny ability to settle the second one of us held her.
My wolf had decided she belonged to our pack from the first moment she’d come into the world, and every day that certainty grew stronger.
The bounty climbed again.
Brec called twice a day without fail for an update, and today he’d asked us the impossible—he wanted us to weigh Asha.
On the only scales I had in the house, an old kitchen set that barely worked.
Soren stood at the table, all kinds of nervous, Asha in his arms, and Brec tried his hardest not to laugh when I grumbled that this was going to be impossible.
“I’m not convinced this is how pediatric medicine works,” I muttered.
“It’ll do for now,” Brec replied. “Unless you’ve secretly got a baby clinic hidden up that mountain.”
“Nope, just kitchen scales.”
Brec snorted a laugh. “I’ll lower my expectations on accuracy.”
Soren bit his lip. “I scrubbed them twice, but are you sure they’ll be clean enough?”
“I’m sure they are,” Brec said, but I got the feeling he was lying, and I gave them another wipe with the antiseptic cloth. I spread the tea towel over the little plastic tray, reset the weight, and Asha made an indignant squeak as I lifted her from Soren’s arms.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I murmured. “Your idiot uncle Brec insists.”
“I heard that,” Brec faked being affronted.
“You were supposed to,” I said as I laid Asha onto the towel.
She kicked one tiny foot into the air and flung an arm free of the blanket, and the numbers jumped.
“Hold still,” I said, as if she understood.
She responded by waving both fists and letting out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a complaint.
Soren reached down and rested one finger lightly on Asha’s tummy.
“Shh, little snow. Just for one minute.”
She blinked up at him with wide green-grey eyes and, unbelievably, settled long enough for the numbers to stop flickering.
“I’ve got it,” I said. “Five pounds, three ounces.”
There was a beat of silence, then, “That’s good,” Brec said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “That’s really good.”
Soren let out a breath. “I was worried she’d lost too much.”
“Only half a pound,” Brec replied gently. “All newborns lose. But she’s putting it back on. Five-three is exactly where I’d expect her to be. Keep feeding her when she wants it. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
Soren’s shoulders relaxed. “I can do that.”
“I’ll call tomorrow, Alpha.”
My jaw locked. “I’m not your alpha, Brec.”
“Right. Sorry. Habit.” He didn’t sound sorry, just tired of arguing about it.
The call ended, and I lifted Asha back into my arms before handing her over, one tiny fist tucked beneath her chin, her silver-white hair sticking up in every direction.
A stubborn little kink curled over her left temple no matter how often it was smoothed down, the same impossible wave Soren fought every morning after he’d slept.
“I think she’s inherited your hair,” I said.
Soren reached up to flatten his own bangs, then glanced down at Asha and laughed. “Oh.”
“It’ll never stay flat,” I said, as he kissed the top of Asha’s head, smiling to himself as the curl bounced right back into place.
“I suppose she can blame me,” Soren said with a small smile, smoothing the stubborn curl from Asha’s forehead. It immediately curled back over her brow. “There’s not much of her father in her.”
We hadn’t spoken about Malachai Dalton since Soren had told me how he’d become pregnant and how the alpha was dead. I’d researched him a little—he’d died after a car accident, but information was sketchy at best. Yet another story locked down by one of the Families.
“What was he like? Asha’s alpha father, I mean.”
Soren looked up, surprised by the question.
“Malachai?” His expression relaxed. “He was… kind. Gentle. Not what people expected from a Dalton alpha.” He smiled at the memory. “He loved his omega, Gabe, more than anything. They were fated. You could see it.” He touched two fingers to his chest. “Connected here.”
Just like we are, my wolf supplied.
He fell silent for a long moment before continuing.
“My brother wanted me pregnant. That was all that mattered to him. Once it happened…” He swallowed hard. “He let them leave.” Soren sighed. “They drove away together. Gabe and Malachai.”
“And then?”
“There was an accident.” His voice had gone flat, the way it always did when the memories became too heavy.
“Gabe died at the scene.” He stared down at Asha as he spoke.
“Malachai survived long enough to know Gabe was gone. They said he put a gun to his own head before anyone could stop him. I know my brother had something to do with it. What other explanation is there?” Soren asked.
“Alphas who lose their bonded go mad,” he stopped and glanced up at me.
“I thought they did, anyway, and if you kill the bonded omega, you destroy the alpha without ever having to fight him. They were going to kill both, but they only needed Gabe to die.”
He rubbed slow circles over Asha’s back.
“If Malachai had lived… if he’d known I was pregnant…” He shook his head. “I want to think he would’ve come for us somehow. He and Gabe would’ve claimed his child and maybe kept me safe, maybe as a nanny or something?”
“His father, Preston, is Patriarch of the Dalton family, right? Did he know about your brother using his son? Was he in agreement?”
“I don’t know.” Soren frowned, trying to piece it together.
“Everything happened so fast. I was already sick from the pregnancy. My family moved me to Center 14 and kept me medicated most of the time. I lost track of days.” He frowned.
“I don’t remember exactly when Malachai and Gabe died relative to…
everything else. I only know they were gone when Emric visited Center 14 and told me.
Unless he was lying?” He looked so hopeful, but I shook my head.
“There’s a report on their deaths.” His lip wobbled, eyes bright, and he forced himself to look back at Asha, his thumb brushing gently over her tiny hand.
“That’s awful,” he said.
“I’m sorry she’ll never know her alpha father,” I added, and he nodded. For a moment, the mountain, the bounty, and the families hunting them ceased to exist, and I tugged him onto my lap for a hug; Asha yawned herself back to sleep, and we sat there for an hour as she slept, and it was peaceful.