Brute 185

 

Chapter 185 

MATRON YARA’S POV 

Think! Matron Yara’s vision started to blur as she pressured herself to think of a way to get out of this! 

“I hope you’re enjoying this,” Yara rasped, forcing the words past Atasha’s fingers. “Because while you’re playing monster in his study… Cassian is going to die at the border.” 

Atasha’s fingers twitched around her throat, just a small movement, but Yara felt it. She was right. 

She pushed harder. 

“And when he dies, you will follow him. Without him, you are nothing. Just a sheep in a wolf’s den, pretending you belong 

here.” 

For the first time since the slaughter began, Yara saw something change in Atasha’s eyes. The wild hunger flickered. Her gaze lost focus for a heartbeat, as if the words had sunk deeper than any blade. 

Yara tried to suck in air through the narrow space in her crushed throat. 

Good, she thought. Remember what you really are. 

ATASHA’S POV 

Cassian is going to die. 

The words slammed through me harder than any blow. 

For a moment, I didn’t feel the blood on my hands. All I felt was that sentence, pounding in my skull, repeating again and again. Cassian is going to die. Without him, you’re just a sheep in a wolf’s den. 

My vision sharpened and blurred at the same time. 

I became aware of everything at once, the feel of skin under my fingers, the frantic pulse beating against my palm, the scraping of boots trying to find the floor. Matron Yara’s face swam into focus in front of me, her eyes red at the edges, her mouth pulled open in a sound that barely made it past my fingers. 

I was choking her, lifting her by the throat. 

My gaze dropped. 

There was blood on my arms. Fresh, thick, dark. It smeared across my wrists, dried around my nails, soaked into the front of my clothes. The rug beneath us was soaked. Bodies lay scattered around the room. 

Did I… do this? 

Almost immediately, the heat that had been driving me moments ago faltered, like a flame hit by cold water. My fingers loosened without meaning to, and Yara’s boots finally scraped against the floor as her weight settled back down. 

Cassian is going to die. 

The thought shoved everything else aside. I felt nothing through the bond he had cut, but the panic didn’t care about logic. If something happened to him out there while I was here tearing people apart like this… 

“Cassian,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “No.” 

My hand slipped completely from Yara’s throat. 

She crumpled to her knees, dragging in broken, wheezing breaths, one hand still clutching at her neck as it she could erase the shape of my fingers from her skin. 

Behind her, Grace lay half-curled on the rug, her sleeve soaked through, skin pale. Lucas knelt where they had bound him, sweat running down his temple, jaw clenched in pain. 

The room spun as memories filled my head. 

“What… did I just do?” I muttered, but the words sounded far away even to my own cars. My hands shook. The blood on them wouldn’t dry. It clung, warm and heavy, as if it refused to leave me. 

“Without him, you’re nothing,” Yara rasped from the floor, her voice shredded but still sharp enough to cut. “You can’t even reach him. He is bleeding for you at the border, and you’re trapped here, too late to save anyone.” 

I flinched. 

For a second, the heat surged again, pushing against the edges of my control, begging me to grab her throat again and squeeze until she stopped talking. 

Instead, I stepped back. 

My heel slipped on blood, almost sending me crashing onto the bodies at my feet. I caught myself on the edge of Cassian’s desk, fingers digging into the wood. 

I couldn’t feel him. 

I couldn’t feel anything from him. 

If he died out there, I wouldn’t even know. 

My chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with whatever beast had woken up inside me. It was smaller, sharper, and somehow worse. 

“Cassian,” I whispered again, this time more to myself than to anyone else. “Don’t you dare die.” 

The room, the blood, Yara’s broken breathing, Grace’s faint groan, everything blurred at the edges again. 

All I knew was that the man who had taken my pain without asking, who had walked into the border knowing it was a trap, might already be lying in the dirt somewhere far from me. 

And I was standing here with blood on my hands, not knowing whether I was about to lose him… 

…or myself. 

Yara’s broken breaths rattled against the air as she tried to push herself up, and something in me twisted at the sight of her still alive after everything she had done. And before I even registered the thought, my hand closed around the hilt of a fallen soldier’s sword. 

Her eyes widened a heartbeat before I drove the blade straight through her leg. The metal slid into flesh, and her scream tore across the room. She grabbed at the sword with both hands as if she could pull it out by force, but her fingers trembled too much to make it budge. 

“You beast!” she spat at me, voice shredded by pain, 

Her insult didn’t hit like the others she had thrown at me before. It hit deeper. I looked down at my arms, at the blood staining my skin and dried under my nails, at the bodies sprawled around us, and something inside me simply accepted it. 

“I am,” I said quietly, not bothering to defend myself. 

She flinched at the admission, and for once the fear in her eyes wasn’t calculated. It was real 

But I didn’t waste another second on her. I dropped to my knees beside Grace, lifting her gently and pulling her against me.. Her skin was cold, her breathing faint, and the cut on her arm had soaked through her entire sleeve. 

I pressed my palm over the chest, pushing healing into her the moment I felt the pulse of her blood against my fingers. It took effort to break through the residue of the binding the stone had left in the air, but the resistance cracked after a moment, and the wound sealed quickly under my hand. Grace didn’t wake, but her breathing steadied, and that was enough. 

I moved away from her and crawled straight to Lucas. His body was still rigid from the binding, muscles locked and trembling from the strain. Sweat ran down his brow, and his jaw clenched so tightly I thought his teeth would shatter. 

“Lucas,” I said, gripping his shoulder as I forced him upright. “Look at me.” 

His eyes shifted toward me slowly, unfocused and strained. I pressed my hand to the side of his neck, letting my healing spread through the muscles crushed by the stone’s pressure. It took a moment for the tightness to break, but when it did, his entire body sagged as he exhaled hard. His limbs loosened enough that he could sit upright without support. 

As soon as he blinked more clearly, I spoke. 

“Do not let her leave this room,” I said, nodding toward Yara, who was dragging herself toward an overturned table while clutching at both wounds in her legs. “She will answer for everything she has done. Stay with her.” 

He didn’t hesitate. He pushed himself up, still shaky but aware enough to follow the order. 

I didn’t watch what he did next. I snatched another sword from the ground and sprinted out of the room. The hallway looked worse than the study. Bodies from both sides lined the walls. Blood smeared across the floorboards in long streaks. Several guards groaned where they lay slumped against the steps, and others didn’t move at all. 

1 stepped over them and ran harder, the cold air hitting me the second I reached the mansion doors. 

The courtyard outside made me stop moving. 

Earlier, the snow had been clean and untouched. Now, it was drowned in blood, stained so dark in places that I couldn’t see the white beneath it. Bodies lay across the open space, some sprawled on their backs, others face-down in the slush, their weapons still in their hands. The metallic smell hit so hard I had to breathe through my mouth for a moment. 

I didn’t stop because of the bodies. 

I stopped because of the man standing at the center of it all. 

Cassian. 

His figure stood solid in the middle of the bloodbath, a sword hanging loosely from one hand. His coat was torn in several places. His hair was matted with streaks of red that didn’t belong to him. The snow around him was churned from heavy movement, and the bodies near him lay in a half-circle, as if they had fallen while trying to reach him. 

He lifted his head the moment he sensed me. His eyes locked with mine across the courtyard. 

And everything around us, faded into the background. 

He was alive. 

He was standing. 

And he was looking directly at me. 

Cassian’s eyes stayed locked on mine, and for a moment everything in me pulled toward him. My legs finally responded, and I stepped forward, ready to close the distance between us. The cold air burned down my throat, mixing with the scent 

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of blood in a way that made my stomach twist, but none of it mattered because Cassian was standing there, alive. 

I opened my mouth to call his name, but the sound barely formed when his expression changed. 

His jaw clenched. His grip on his sword loosened. His shoulders dipped as if something inside him suddenly gave way. He tried to straighten, but his knees wavered under him, and his head bowed forward sharply. 

“Cassian?” I whispered, taking another step. 

He didn’t answer. 

A wet cough tore from his chest, deep and rough, and he bent forward slightly. For a heartbeat I thought it was just exhaustion catching up to him. Then he coughed again, harder, and a dark spray hit the snow at his feet. 

Blood. 

Thick, red, and far too much of it. 

“Cassian!” My voice cracked.