Chapter 18: 18: Never Speak Of This Again
His teeth pressed against the thin skin of my neck.
Just a little bit more force, and it would’ve broken through the flesh, sealing our bond with a mating mark. His warm breath fanned over my skin, and I felt goosebumps instantly flare across my entire body.
"Rowan..." I whimpered.
Gone was my human mind. Gone were the last slivers of my sanity. All I wanted was for Rowan to sink his canines into my flesh and mark me as his. He was my fated mate, the man the Moon Goddess herself had chosen for me. Our bodies were more than compatible, a fact that had just been proven.
I couldn’t think rationally, but irrationally, I wanted him.
However, it was as though my voice finally snapped Rowan awake from his trance-like state. He paused, holding his position over me, but not moving at all to complete what he had started.
"Rowan?" I carefully asked, my voice still thick with our activities.
We barely even had time to register what our next move should be before the door suddenly slammed open. The sudden sound caused Rowan to jolt, and he pushed himself off me, his eyes cautiously veering to the door.
"Rowan, we’ve been looking everywhere for you― What the actual fuck?!"
Cassian stood at the doorway, his eyes wide as saucers and his jaw stretched so far that it nearly touched the floor. He didn’t stay shocked for long. With just a few long strides, he quickly crossed the room and wrenched me off the bed in one swift movement.
I gasped in pain as his fingers dug into my wrist. If he had used even a little more force, I wouldn’t even be surprised if my wrist snapped in two.
Ruthlessly, he chucked me to the ground, his eyes filled with hatred as he glared down upon me. I landed on the cold tiles, desperately trying to shield my naked form from his view.
Cassian’s intrusion had snapped me awake from the trance, and the cool of the floor was the final splash of water to draw me back to reality. My body felt as though I was plunged into a tub of ice. All of the heat that had rushed through me mere seconds ago evaporated just like that, leaving me shivering in fear.
Just what had I done?
"How the hell did you get into this room?" Cassian demanded, his eyes practically glowing as his wolf threatened to surface. "Did you really think that you could seduce your way into getting our sympathy?"
I clenched my teeth, forcing my eyes to look at the floor and nothing else. Tears threatened to spill, and I had to use all my strength to keep them in. I wasn’t even sure why I felt the desire to cry. I should’ve known that this would happen. The Triplets never had any good feelings for me, and I was more than used to this sort of cruel remarks.
So why did it suddenly feel as though someone had driven a hot, silver dagger straight into my heart before twisting it?
"What, are you just going to pretend we don’t exist now?" Cassian hounded.
He bent down and roughly grabbed my cheeks, pinching them hard as he swiveled my head over to face him. Our gazes collided, and every time I tried to worm away, he forced me back in place, unwilling to let me play the role of an ostrich.
"I... I don’t know!" I tried to speak, my words distorted due to the way Cassian held my cheeks. "I woke up here. I don’t know how it happened―"
My words were abruptly cut short when a sharp slap landed on my cheek. My head veered to one side, and my hand instinctively rose to clutch the reddened flesh. With my lips slightly apart, I panted heavily, trying to calm my heart rate down. There was a sharp ringing in my ear due to the force of the hit, and my vision blurred for a second.
"You’re truly nothing more than a despicable scum on this planet," Cassian seethed. "How could the Moon Goddess―"
He stopped himself short, though I could already guess what he had wanted to say.
’How could the Moon Goddess pair you to be our fated mate?’ was what he probably thought.
Yet, speaking it out would mean admitting it. And there was probably nothing else they wished to deny more than that at the current moment.
"That’s enough."
The cold voice caused Cassian’s head to snap back to look at his brother. Even my eyes slowly lifted from the ground to peek at where Rowan was.
He had stood to his full height, and in the short span of time Cassian had been interrogating me, Rowan had already picked up the fallen pieces of his clothing. Everything was back in place, and if not for his slightly ruffled hair, he looked as though he had just walked in himself and nothing had happened between us.
"Rowan―" Cassian tried to say, but was completely ignored by his older brother.
Instead, his eyes were looking straight at me, even while his hands worked to button his cuffs properly.
"You are never to speak of this ever again, understood?" he said.
Just one look at him, and I felt my body pressed against the floor by an invisible force. The aura that radiated off of him felt deadly, and I was starting to sweat nervously the longer I remained quiet. Even my lungs felt as though they were weighed down, squashed, and squeezed so much so that I could no longer breathe.
"Yes," I shakily wheezed out.
"Good."
As soon as that word left his lips, it felt as though the air was lighter again, and I could finally breathe properly. I placed a hand on my chest as I tried to even my breathing. In the background, I could hear Rowan’s shoes clicking as he left the room, leaving just me and Cassian in his wake.
I didn’t have much time to calm down, however, before Cassian grabbed me by the neck. He didn’t put much force this time, but it was enough for me to stiffen my body in fear of what he could do.
He could snap my neck so effortlessly. He could also make sure I didn’t die immediately, and instead, felt agonizingly in pain until I breathed my last.
"I don’t know what you did to seduce my brother, but don’t even think for a second that our opinions of you have changed just because you were a good fuck," Cassian snarled.
