Chapter 227
Cassian's POV
"Elowen..." I whispered her name like a prayer, but she was already gone.
The door clicked shut with a finality that made my chest tight. My wolf Zero stirred uneasily, sensing the same thing I did—that we'd just made a catastrophic mistake.
What if she's right? The thought slithered through my mind like poison. What if everything I've planned, everything I've calculated, is just going to get her killed?
I'd been so fucking sure. So confident that I could outmaneuver a goddess, that I could protect Elowen and our children through sheer force of will and strategic planning. But her words kept echoing in my head, sharp and cutting as broken glass.
The babies. The threat from Sarah. The impossibility of keeping Elowen safe while pretending to choose another woman.
Every single point she'd made was valid. Every single flaw she'd exposed in my plan was real.
You fucked up, Zero growled softly. We should have listened to her from the start.
"Shut up," I muttered, but there was no heat in it.
A movement caught my attention, and I looked up to see Casper standing near the window. My twin brother looked... lost. Completely fucking lost.
The sight of him hit me like a punch to the gut.
Casper had just learned that our parents had been lying to him his entire life. That the wolf he'd always thought was a demonic implant was actually supposed to be his all along. That he'd been betrayed by the people who were supposed to protect him most.
And now, on top of all that trauma, he was facing the possibility of losing Elowen. Of watching her walk straight into a demon's trap because we—because I—couldn't come up with a better solution.
The pain radiating through our twin bond was so intense it made my teeth ache.
"Casper," I said quietly.
He didn't turn around. His shoulders were rigid, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Through our connection, I could feel the war raging inside him—grief, rage, confusion, and underneath it all, a terror so profound it threatened to swallow him whole.
He's breaking, I realized with growing alarm. He's breaking right in front of me, and I don't know how to fix it.
I crossed the room in three strides and pulled him into my arms.
He tried to push me away. "Don't—"
"Shut up and let me hold you, brother," I said roughly, tightening my grip.
For a moment, he stayed stiff and resistant. Then something in him just... collapsed. His forehead dropped to my shoulder, and I felt his whole body start to shake.
"I can't believe they lied to me, Cassian," he choked out. "All this time, I thought I was... different. Broken. That Mom and Dad had to make some terrible bargain with a demon just to give me what everyone else had naturally. But it was a lie. All of it was a fucking lie."
My own eyes burned. "I know."
"And Elowen..." His voice cracked on her name. "What if we lose her? What if she goes to Raven and he—"
"We won't let that happen." The words came out harder than I'd intended, but I needed him to believe them. Needed to believe them myself. "She's our mate, Casper. We'll fight for her, for our family. No matter what."
He pulled back just enough to look at me, and the raw vulnerability in his amber-gold eyes made my chest constrict. My normally confident, charismatic twin looked young and scared.
"You really think we can fix this?" he asked quietly.
I wanted to say yes. Wanted to promise him that everything would be okay, that I had a plan that would save everyone. But I'd learned my lesson about making promises I wasn't sure I could keep.
"I think we have to try," I said instead. "Together."
Something shifted in his expression—a flicker of the old Casper, the one who could smile through anything. "Together," he echoed, and the word carried the weight of a vow.
I nodded and stepped back, but kept one hand on his shoulder. "Let's go find Elowen. We need to talk to her, to figure out our next steps. As a team this time, not with me making decisions for everyone."
"Together," Casper repeated, and this time his voice was stronger.
We started toward the door, but I paused when I caught sight of the clothes I was wearing—Casper's favorite shirt, rumpled and stained from everything we'd been through in the past few days.
When was the last time any of us had a proper shower or decent sleep? I wondered absently. The past four or five days had been such a whirlwind of trauma and revelations that basic self-care had fallen by the wayside.
"I need to grab some clean clothes," I muttered, more to myself than to Casper.
He emerged from the bathroom just as I was contemplating raiding his closet again. He'd changed into loose shorts and a tank top that clung to his muscular frame in a way that would have every female in the pack drooling.
I felt a sharp pang of jealousy despite myself.