Tempting Fate

Eight: The Roles Played

When Brynn was five years old, she tried to join a group of teenagers chopping firewood for their town's storage supply. Although young, she'd already started her schooling, and was two weeks into the start of her physical training. Two weeks made her officially a big kid. She'd wanted to do what the big kids were doing: chop firewood.

But when she went to grab the ax that was half her size, they stopped her. "What are you doing?"

"I'm helping," she'd told Ilian, the boy who took the ax from her.

"You can't help. We don't need you."

We don't need you. It was the first time she'd heard the phrase.

But it wouldn't be the last.

After being turned away, Brynn shuffled on heavy feet back to her small family home. Her mother was there, sharpening one of her blades at the wooden kitchen table. The easy shink, shink, shink, of steady, yet firm strokes of the sharpener against her mother's dagger was as familiar to her as the sound of her mother's voice.

Her mother glanced up as she came in. "What's wrong, Brynn?"

"Yelena and Ilian won't let me help them chop firewood," she'd told her mother. "But I can do it. I helped you last week."

Her mother set the blade down on the table. "Maybe they just don't need you. They're big kids, they can chop their own firewood."

There it was again. They didn't need Brynn's help.

It was the start of many similar occurrences. As she grew up, the farmers in their small town didn't need a helping hand. The other kids in her grade didn't need her to teach them how to solve the more complex math problems. Her mother didn't need her to spend time with her.

And eventually, her people didn't need her at all.

In her early years, she had learned one singular truth: if she wanted others to care about her; she had to craft herself into what the people in her life needed.

Because when she didn't, they left her behind. Just as they had when she was fourteen.

When she wasn't enough, they forgot her. Discarded her.

It was important to mold herself into the Brynn that others needed. To put on a mask, a costume—whichever version of herself made it easiest to be accepted by others, and got the most results.

The Brynn she'd presented to the Southern Shifter Territory was the same Brynn she'd presented to Daedre: Confident. Capable. Determined.

She wasn't sure yet if it was the Brynn Ronan would respond best to.

But as they were together in the wielder territory, it gave her the opportunity to observe and tweak the mask as necessary.

Just as she did the next morning as she pulled out some bread she'd left in the fridge. A jar of strawberry jam accompanied it. Her small toaster was under the cabinet and had dust on it. She wiped it down the best she could, then placed two pieces inside.

Ronan was still on the roof. Having received a ping on her tablet early this morning about the roof door opening, she'd immediately gotten up and checked the cameras, her other hand reaching automatically towards the nightstand and her handgun in the thin drawer safe.

Then she spotted Ronan's dark hair on the cameras. The leopard shifter no doubt wanted to get some fresh air.

As the toast cooked, Brynn set her tablet into a portable keyboard and opened up her work email.

Her role as an assistant meant she spent most of her time anticipating the needs of the Governor. As her role was a mask in and of itself, she'd perfected it and herself to be the assistant the Governor wanted, while also the woman Daedre needed to collect information and report back.