Chapter 9
Jul 4, 2025
The cell was basically a five-star review of “How to Make Someone Feel Like Shit.” Dark, damp, and decorated with the lingering scent of previous occupants’ despair. My ribs felt like someone had used them for drum practice, courtesy of Guard #2’s helpful elbow to the side.
But the physical pain was nothing compared to the weird-ass supernatural system that had apparently been installed in my chest. The bond. Every heartbeat felt like it belonged to someone else. Every spike of pain wasn’t mine.
“Congratulations, Lucy,” I muttered to the darkness. “You’ve officially unlocked the world’s worst superpower.”
I pressed my forehead against the stone wall, which was about as comforting as hugging a glacier. “What did you do to him? What did I do?”
The bond pulsed like a live wire, dragging my thoughts back to that moment in the training court. The gold flare. The look of complete devastation on Cassian’s face when he realized we were cosmically tied together.
Then I heard it.
Screaming. Steel on steel. The wet sound of things breaking that shouldn’t break.
Then silence that felt like held breath.
Then—
BOOM.
The door didn’t just open. It exploded. Like someone had decided the concept of “doors” was personally offensive and needed to be destroyed immediately.
Dust filled the air, and through it stepped Cassian, looking like he’d been dipped in someone else’s blood and left to dry.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I breathed.
Behind him, the guards were scattered like discarded action figures. One was twitching. The other… wasn’t.
“Did you just—” I started.
He crossed the cell in two strides, dropping to his knees beside me. His hands were gentle, which was weird considering they were literally dripping with evidence of recent violence.
“Cassian, what did you—”
He lifted me before I could finish the sentence, cradling me like I was made of spun glass instead of spite and poor life choices.
“I felt it,” he said, voice rough. “Every time they touched you. Every sound you tried not to make.”
“Yeah, well, I tried to give them hell.”
“You shouldn’t have had to.” He touched his forehead to mine, and for a second, the bond hummed with something that wasn’t pain.
“You called to me,” he whispered. “Even in chains.”
He carried me past the carnage, down corridors that had suddenly become very, very quiet. Funny how quickly word spreads when someone goes full murder-mode in a confined space.
“They said you wouldn’t come,” I said against his shoulder. “That you’d cut your losses and run.”
His jaw ticked. “Then they were idiots.”
“You killed them.” It wasn’t a question.
“They touched you.”
Simple. Matter-of-fact. Like he was explaining the weather.
We stepped into the courtyard, and suddenly we had an audience. Every wolf in the stronghold stood frozen, weapons lowered, trying to look anywhere but at the blood-soaked Alpha carrying his Omega like a bride.
Cassian walked back to the center of the training court—the exact spot where Valen had drawn first blood—and stopped.
“You’re still bleeding,” I said, noticing the gashes across his chest.
“I’ll heal.”
He set me down but kept one arm around me, like he was afraid I might disappear if he let go completely.
Then he looked out at the crowd—warriors, nobles, elders—all of them suddenly very interested in their own feet.
“She’s mine,” he said.
Not loud. Didn’t need to be. The words hit like a seismic shift, rearranging the entire social order in two syllables.
I felt every wolf in the courtyard flinch.
“Touch her again—” He paused, let the silence stretch until it was tight enough to snap. “And I will end you.”
