21: Iris/Cassian
My blood ran cold, and my tongue felt thick in my mouth. I opened my mouth, but I could not make a sound, not to speak of giving a cohesive
His eyes narrowed at me, his jaws ticking. “Answer mr, Iris,” he wamed.
I swallowed to clear my throat, looking away from him. “Yes, I have been pregnant before.” I replied.
I closed my eyes and braced for a hit or chains, anything that I would be punished with
“By whom?” He asked instead, remaining where he was, “Who was his father?”
Thesitantly turned to him, my hands shaking. “Alpha Kavriel.”
A tense silence enveloped us and I held my brother close. The sound of his heartbeats grounded me before I lost my mind to fear.
“The man who sent you here was the father of your clubd?” I asked.
I nodded
The expression on his face was unreadable. “And he threatened you with the life of your mother and brother? That was why you were so desperate to go back”
1 nodded açılsı, surprised that he had been sensitive enough to understand. I had really underestimated his sense of empathy. I had always believed that Lycans lacked it. But it seemed that the more time I spent here, the more I was proven wrong.
Cassian breathed a sigh before turning away from me and Abel. “He killed your mother, tris.”
My eyes stung with tears again, but I pushed them as far back as I could manage. “He did, I know,”
“Do you wash for revenge. Iris?”
It took longer than it should have before his words sunk in. My eyes widened so wide that they might have occupied half of my face. “Revenge?” I
chord in disbelief.
“Yes,” There was certainty in his intense gaze. A seventy that carved harsh lines into his face. “As your mate, you can ask that of me,” he reiterated. “It is your right.”
My brows furrowed as I tried to understand what he was saying to the. “You want to avenge my mother,”
“No, I wish to avenge you,” he corrected
My heart stopped at his pronouncement. This had to be the first time that a man offered something like that. Neither Kavriel nor my father had been the type to do such a thing for me I could say nothing but stare up at him as though I was only seeing him for the first time.
1.don’t know what to say,” I mumbled.
Cassian turned back to me, his eyes searching my face for any sign of my resolve. “You don’t have to decide now,” he mid softly, his earlier harshness tempered with some foreign understanding. “But know this, Iris. You are not alone anymore. Whatever you choose, I will stand by you.”
I nodded numbly, feeling a strange mixture of relief and confusion. The room seemed to close in on me, the walls pressing in as my thoughts spum wildly. Could I truly consider revenge? The thought felt foreign and terrifying.
“Take some time,” Cassian continued. “Think about it. You deserve justice, In. And if it’s revenge you seek, I’ll ensure it’s swift and merciless.” The hardness that pitched his voice told me he would deliver on his promise. The realization filled me strangely with both dread and security. My chest was tightening, and I could not explain why.
He left me with those words, his presence a beavy, comforting weight that I hadn’t realized I’d been leaning on. My brother’s quiet breaths were the only sound in the room, grounding me in the present moment. 1 looked down ac Abel, his small form curled against me, he had fallen asleep during
die conversation.
“It is obvious that the mate bond is taking a toll on you,” mother was saying, pacing in front of me in my study. “You are already seeing her for more thain she actually is. She is a werewolf, we are lycans.”
“I am aware,” I replied, my tone dismissive,
My mother paused in her pacing to face me. “You don’t seem to be,” she walked towards my cable, but I noticed the trepidation in her eyes when she got too close. She always tried to mask her dread for my presence, but I could always see it as clear as day. “That maggot is not worthy of being a Craven’s wife, not to speak of a Lycan Alpha.”
It rubbed me the wrong way my mother used that shur on Iris. She was not the first werewolf to be called that. It was a norm in the pack. But it grated on me nonetheless. Yet you claim that the moon goddess is never wrong,”
Mother pursed her lips the way she always did when she did not like a comeback. The mate bond is making you blind to her insidious nature. She is just like the rest of her kin. You know what their type does to us. You know what they did to us in the past. It is in your heritage, in your scars and in
your curse
I said nothing as I continued to process paperwork on my desk.
Mother went red in the face. “Your brother would never have disgraced me in the presence of a marroi.” She spat at ine.
21–Ins Cassan
Right there, this was when she was actually being truthful. She was bitter that I had shut her down. Her concern was not with me but with herself.
Like it always was
“Then he should have taken father’s throne.” I retorted, with more venom than intended.
“He should have, he was the true heir
Thated this part. It always made old wounds throb. “Yet, you made me take the throne.” I reminded her. “And now I am Alpha and not Rolan,”
“Don’t give me that tone,” she said defensively. “I did you a favor.”
Inured impassive, dead eyes on her. “You can deceive yourself but not attempt to feed me that bullshit, not when we both know the truth. I told
“You don’t know what you are saying.” She said. “You should be grateful you got the thronel She yelled.
“And I got the curse for it.” Ideadpanned.
