Chapter 11 Eleven
Cassian's POV
I was in the empty grand hall where the wedding should have happened five days earlier.
The decorations had been ripped down in anger. Mostly, Alaric’s fury, but the twins had done their damage too. But the memory stuck, like a brand in my brain.
I could still imagine Rhea walking down the aisle in that white dress. Still see the moment our eyes met and she realized what I’d done. The betrayal. The hurt.
My hand crept unbidden to my ribs, where the tattoo smoldered under my shirt. Shining that night she'd kissed me, pulsing with silver light I could barely conceal.
I had obsessed about it ever since. Used every free minute to occupy Alaric’s library, painstakingly searching through dusty books and scrolls on mate bonds and alpha marks.
The truth was impossible. Insane.
But the proof was literally etched in my flesh.
Real alphas were marked when they’d discovered their mate. Marks that lit up with the intensity of their connection. I’d witnessed it with Alaric after he’d met Cassian’s mother, though that bond had been political, not fated.
But I wasn't an alpha. I'd been tested. Multiple times. All the tests were the same.
Omega. Weak. Forgettable.
Yet my tattoo said otherwise.
I brushed my lips, thinking of the kiss. What Rhea had tasted like: hope and desperation. How every fiber of my being had screamed at me to grab her hand and run, to save her from this.
But I hadn't.
I'd made my choice. Now I had to live with it.
The doors to the hall opened. I looked up to see Marcus, one of Alaric's enforcers looking at me suspiciously.
“Alaric needs you in the war room,” he said, brusquely.
Of course he did. I was a tool, after all. And tools got used.
I followed Marcus down the corridors but kept my face blank. That was my survival strategy. Be invisible. Be obedient. Never let them know what you’re really thinking.
The war room was packed. Alaric was half at the end of an enormous table littered with maps. On his right hand were Orin and Kieran, the alpha twins that would have been Rhea's husbands.
The tension in the room was beyond palpable.
"It's about time," Kieran said, his voice frosty as I came in. His blue eyes followed me with naked contempt. To him, I was lower than dirt. Nothing but an omega masquerading as a soldier.
"Cassian." Alaric did not raise his head from the maps. "Stand there and listen."
I sidled into the corner and tried to shrink. Invisible. It was a martial an art that I’d honed over the decades.
”The Lycan’s defences are high,” Alaric murmured, pointing at the map. “Fact is, he's counting on us to go head-to-head with him.”
"So we don't," Orin said. He was the more loquacious of the twins, but not any less dangerous. "We send scouts first. You need the inside scoop on his defenses.”
“Hmm, well and how do you suggest we accomplish that?” Kieran asked. "The Lycan are being caged off. Nobody comes in without seeing him.”
"Not no one." It was when I met Alaric’s gaze across the room. "An omega could get in. Someone weak, unthreatening. Someone they wouldn't suspect."
My blood ran cold. He was sending me. Of course he was.
"You want to send him?" Orin looked skeptical. "What good would that do?"
“He is acquainted with my daughter,” said Alaric succinctly. "She trusts him. Or she did."
Kieran's expression was calculating. "The omega would get near her. Maybe even persuade her to leave of her own accord.”
“Or slay the Lycan while he sleeps,” Orin had added with a cruel smile.
My whole body was telling me no. To explain that I wasn’t going to spy on Rhea, would never betray her again.
But I couldn't.
Because Alaric was in possession of the one thing I loved more than my own life. My mother. The woman who raised me, sheltered me, loved me when nobody else would.
One wrong word, one glimmer of defiance, and Alaric would murder her. He had made that crystal clear years ago.
"Well?" Then Alaric spun around and faced me. "What do you think, Cassian? If you can sneak into the Lycans' den?"
I will my voice not to shake. “It would be really hard, but it could happen. The enemies Lycan is meant to address are external threats. He does not wait for someone to sneak in.
"Good." Alaric smiled, and the smile on a predator. "You leave in three days. I’ll have you planted as servant in house. Someone beneath notice."
"And when I'm inside?" I asked, hating myself.
"Gather information. Map his defenses. Find weaknesses." Alaric leaned in, lowering his voice. “And bring my daughter when you can. By force if necessary."
I nodded mechanically. "Understood."
The meeting went on for another hour. They shared ploys back and forth, debated tactics, argued over how best to breach the Lycan’s defenses.
There in the corner, I listened and hung on every word, my mind whirling.
What if I had not brought Rhea back? And if I just took her and ran, the way she wanted in the first place?
We could disappear. We’d go to find some isolated spot where no one knew us. Start over.
But as I even thought it, I knew that would be impossible. Alaric would chase us to the ends of the earth. And my mother would suffer the consequences.
I was trapped. We all were.
After the meeting ended, I went back to my rooms in the servants' wing. Small, modest; exactly what an omega deserved in Alaric’s opinion.
I was yanking my boots off when I saw her. Ellyn, a young servant girl, perched on the edge of my bed as if she had every right to be there.
"What are you doing here?" I demanded.
"I wanted to tell you." She rose, her face beaming as though the words were a song. "I've been accepted. As a servant in the Lycan domain.”
My blood froze. "What?"
“Using the one they told me to use, remember? She said it would be a good time.” She was smiling, apparently unaware of how mortified I was. "I start in two days."
I had told her that. Weeks and weeks ago, when Alaric had first begun scheming to betray their enemy. I proposed Ellyn would be useful, that she could collect information from within.
But that was before. Before I'd kissed Rhea. Before I'd begun to get an idea what she was to me.
Ellyn now was a weapon aimed at Rhea’s heart. And I'd armed her.
"You shouldn't go," I said.
Ellyn's smile faltered. "But you said—"
"I was wrong." I walked towards her, searching for something to stop her leaving. "It's too dangerous."
"The Lycan's sworn not to harm a servant," Ellyn replied. “Every one declares he’s fair to those in his debt.
She had no idea. She had no clue that she was going to be sent there as a spy, to betray... would assist in destroying everything Rhea found.
"Ellyn," I said carefully. "Theoritically, that mean if you go there directly and see Lady Rhea, do you have any message for her?"
The question was risky. But I needed to do something. Had to warn Rhea a little, even if in such subtle style.
Ellyn considered. “Do I need to pass anything on for you?”
My heart stopped. I could warn Rhea. And she could tell her that Ellyn was a plant, that Alaric was on his way and that she must run.
But Alaric would murder my mom. He had spies all over, and would find out if I did anything to help Rhea.
I compromised, hating myself.
“Tell her,” I began, then trailed off. The words stuck in my throat. "Tell her I'm sorry."
Ellyn looked confused. "Sorry for what?"
"She'll understand."
After Ellyn exited, I took my seat back on the bed and fished a vial out of the pouch Alaric left with me. “Silver poison. Potent enough to kill a Lycan if you spike him with it right.”
“When you are near enough,” Alaric had told him. "Use this. End him."
I put the vial up before the candle-light. The liquid within was the color of mercury, lovely and lethal.
I could use it on Theron. Complete my mission. Give Rhea back to her dad.
Or I could use it on Alaric. And finally finish him, kill the man that had dictated my life, manipulated me, put a threat on everyone I cared about.
But if I use it on Alaric, that would condemn my mother to death. He had contingencies. Orders that would be executed if anything were to happen to him.
I was a prisoner of my own creation. Every choice led to suffering.
The tattoo on my ribcage seared, reminding me of what I’d sacrificed. Rhea had been mine. My mate. The goddess of the moon had determined us for one another.
But I'd betrayed her. Knocked her out and dragged her back to Alaric as if she were some wayward dog.
And now, I was being dispatched to betray her once more.
I laid the vial on my little table and looked at it. In three days, I'd be behind Lycan lines. I would see Rhea again.
And I would have to choose. My mother’s life or Rhea’s freedom.
My duty, or my heart.
I knew what I would do already. The same decision I always did.
Survival. Obedience. The path of being safe and keeping the people I loved alive, even if it killed me.
But lying there that night, the tattoo burning into my ribs, I gave myself a moment of vulnerability.
I imagined a different world. One where I had taken Rhea’s hand that night and just run. Where we’d escaped each other and found freedom.
Where I’d had the courage to follow what love desires and fear avoids.
Contents NOVEMBER 17, 2019 In that imaginary world I was happy. We both were.
But in this place, the world of reality, I was a tool to Alaric. And tools did not lead to happy endings.
They were just used until they wore out.