Chapter Twelve

Talia's POV

Warning: The following contains intense situations and adult language/themes

I shoved against Cassius' rock-solid chest, some dim part of me still trying to put distance between us. To break free of the immense gravitational pull he exerted with those seductive words and soul-scorching kisses.

"You're mine," he growled, the rich timbre vibrating against my swollen lips. "And you're never leaving my sight again."

Those large, calloused hands clamped like a vise around my upper arms, holding me inescapably hostage against the inferno raging between us.

A snarl ripped free as I thrashed in his iron grasp. "Get your fucking hands off me, you delusional prick!"

Something dark and feral flickered behind Cassius' eyes at the venom in my voice. A barely-leashed fury that should've had self-preservation instincts screaming at me to stand down.

Instead, I struck out with dizzying swings of my fists, beating against that chiseled torso as if I could physically pummel away the flames of possessive obsession binding us. The blinding need to somehow reject and accept that cosmic claim all at once.

"You manipulative, egotistical animal!" My words came out in a strangled shriek as Cassius simply stood immovable and unblinking, absorbing each blow with eerie stoicism. "I don't give a fuck about your caveman possession psychosis or what sadistic virgin-whore complex you have about—"

My tirade cut off in a shocked grunt as Cassius seized a fistful of my hair, wrenching my head back in one harsh yank. The other hand clamped like a steel manacle around my slender throat, fingertips digging in just harsh enough to steal my breath away.

"That's enough out of you, girl," he seethed through gritted teeth, obsidian eyes blazing like dark solar flares. "It's time you understood what precious little choice you have in accepting your place at my side."

His grip tightened fractionally, hoisting me up onto the balls of my bare feet until I could feel the bruising pressure of the hard oak wall crushing into my back. Every survival instinct screamed at me to submit, to do whatever he demanded in that moment to make the dark choking promise in his glare dissipate.

But I was Talia-fucking-Fisher, a fighter down to her core being. I would never lower myself to begging, even with the very real threat of annihilation sparking behind those onyx depths.

"C-Cassius..." I gasped out, clawing at his forearm with waning strength as the edges of my vision began wavering in and out of blackness. "If you t-think...killing me will set you free...of this...you're even m-more deluded than I thought."

The briefest flash of surprise flickered across his expression before that familiar vortex of smoldering lust and fury swirled back into place. His free hand smoothed a stray tendril of hair from my contorted face in an almost tender caress completely at odds with the violence gripping me.

"Stupid, naive girl," he rumbled in a tone almost pitying. "What makes you think death would grant you such a merciful release from our bond?"

He leaned in until our noses were a hairsbreadth apart, his words a silken caress feathering against my trembling lips.

"I could strip away every last scrap of your humanity. Torture and defile your body in ways that would reverberate through infinity. Ruin and remake you into a perfect, broken-souled extension of myself."

An involuntary whimper escaped as the darkness in his eyes expanded into something utterly abyssal and bottomless. The inexhaustible vortex of his dominance and depravity pulled me under into the depths of true terror.

"So if you harbor even the faintest notion of somehow escaping my world once your sister is healthy?" Cassius' grip grew punishingly tighter, his fangs lengthening as his irises blazed with crimson embers. "Forget it. You belong to me, heart, mind and womb. And I will rend reality itself asunder to keep what is mine forever."

White-hot panic surged as his words finally cracked the dam of rational thought. Every cell in my body went haywire in visceral response, like a prey animal facing its grisly end at the voracious apex predator's jaws.

I was in way over my head. This was what I'd landed myself in the middle of - a merciless, all-consuming supernatural war for dominance. And I was little more than a hapless trophy secured on the frontlines.

In that endless, soul-scouring moment of inescapable cosmic horror, I finally knew the meaning of true powerlessness.

Some distant noise jarred me from the suffocating vortex—a stern voice calling out from beyond the bedroom door. Cassius' burning glare flickered momentarily as he cocked his head, nostrils flaring as if catching a new scent on the air.

Then, just as abruptly as the consuming madness had descended, it lifted like a veil being whipped away.

Cassius released his grip and I collapsed onto wobbly legs, gasping and sputtering as precious oxygen flooded my aching lungs. Distantly, I was aware of his towering silhouette retreating towards the door, but I dared not meet that scorching gaze again so soon.

"Gather yourself, Talia," he tossed over his shoulder in a toneless rasp. "We're needed elsewhere."

I shot him an incredulous look just as the heavy oak slab swung open to reveal Julian's hulking frame filling the doorway. The smug beta didn't bother trying to mask his amusement as he took in the scene, those piercing amber eyes flickering over both of us with undisguised understanding.

"There a problem here, Alpha?" he rumbled with a slight quirk of his scarred lips.

Cassius straightened his shoulders, jaw flexing as he regained his composure with visible effort. "Nothing that concerns you. Now state your business quickly so I can attend to it."

Julian's gaze slid to me meaningfully, as if silently asking if I required rescue from my supposed captor. I hugged my robe tighter around my shivering frame and averted my gaze, unable to speak the bitter truth that it was too late for rescue.

"News from the western front," he said after a tense beat, attention sliding back to Cassius. "Matthias has uncovered whispers that the Obsidian pack may be amassing allies to strike within the next cycle."

"Understood." Cassius' tone was clipped with forced calm. "Tell him to send updated reconnaissance reports as they arrive. I'll convene the war council in the morning to review our strategies."

With a deferential nod, Julian slipped back into the hallway and drifted away, once again leaving me alone with the colossal storm I had no idea how to weather.

Cassius didn't move from his rigid stance facing away. For several charged moments the room was swathed in a weighty, oppressive silence that only amplified the desperate pounding of blood in my ears. Then finally, without turning...

"My kind are quite literally forged in the crucibles of ancient bloodshed and strife," he said in a low rumble. "War is ingrained into our very cellular structures and souls."

His words hung in the stillness, seeming to vibrate against my clammy skin with baleful resonance. When he finally did turn to face me once more, the hollowed emptiness in those onyx depths drained any bravado still left in me.

"So you see now, don't you, little huntress?" Something like sorrow seemed to war with the possessive hunger etched in every hard angle of his chiseled features. "This path you've become ensnared upon is lined with barbs and horrors beyond any in your human delusions."

My breath hitched as he closed the distance between us again, but this time with an unhurried and almost contemplative gait. Not the vengeful alpha determined to subjugate my very existence.

Fingertips whisper-light as sin traced the faint finger-shaped blooms of bruising beginning to pale the slender column of my throat. A mirthless half-smile tugged at the corner of his sensuous lips as he absorbed the toll of his handiwork.

"You've been given the rarest of cosmic gifts in being chosen as my mate. A transcendent essence who will bear the heirs to forge my legacy anew amidst the pyre of this coming darkness."

Horror and revulsion churned violently in my gut at the bone-chilling finality of his decree. That single-minded obsession over breeding me like some ritualized broodmare was infinitely more revolting than any of his earlier feral threats of violence.

Before my brain could fully process rational thought, my hand lashed out to slap him with a resounding crack across that arrogantly handsome face. A tiny, hollow victory as Cassius didn't even flinch—only turned his burning gaze back to me with scorching languor.

"Hit me all you desire, fissina," he rumbled in a tone that was almost tender beneath the menace. "Let yourself rage and thrash as fiercely as your fiery spirit demands."

A massive hand splayed over the flat plane of my abdomen, initiating a flush of visceral panic so potent I nearly vomited at his feet right then.

"Just know that when your resistance finally runs its course, I'll be there to catch you. To cradle the future of my bloodline in the safest, most reverent embrace."

And with those last haunting words hanging in the air like a death knell, Cassius turned on his heel and departed with the same eerie nonchalance as he'd arrived. Leaving me to crumple helplessly amid the ashes of my remaining shreds of hope.