Brute 186

Chapter 186 MADELISMERETLETNET 

ATASHA’S POV 

“Cassian!” 

Cassian dropped to one knee before I could reach him, and by the time I closed the distance, he was already coughing again. More blood spilled from his mouth and splattered across the snow, turning the white into a dark smear that spread under 

his hands. 

I dropped to my knees in front of him so fast I barely felt the impact. My fingers grabbed his shoulders to steady him as his body lurched with another cough. His breath rasped harshly in his chest, each inhale thin and strained, as if the air itself was refusing to stay inside him. 

“Cassian, look at me,” I said, my voice shaking as I slid one hand to the side of his face. “Tell me where it hurts.” 

His eyes flicked toward me, unfocused but still trying to find mine. He opened his mouth to say something, and instead another wave of blood poured out, thick and dark against his teeth. His whole body shuddered with the effort, and I felt the tremor run through his muscles under my hands. 

Panic clawed up my throat. 

I pressed my palm over his chest, right above his heart, and pushed my healing into him. The warmth rushed out of me fast, desperate and hard, but the moment it touched whatever was wrong inside him, it met resistance. 

It felt like ramming into something dense and rotten, like there was a layer under his skin that rejected everything I sent in. My power slid along the surface of it, searching for a way through and finding nothing. 

“What is going on?” I whispered, more to myself than to him, as I tried again. “Why can’t I heal you?” 

I pushed harder, forcing more warmth into him, ignoring the dizziness that pressed against my temples. For a moment I thought I felt something shift inside him, but then Cassian coughed again and blood spattered across my hand, hot and slick, proof that nothing had changed where it mattered. 

“Stop… wasting… strength,” he managed to grit out between ragged breaths, but his voice sounded wrong, hollow and strained, as if each word scraped his throat on the way out. 

“I am not wasting anything,” I snapped back, refusing to pull my hand away. “You are bleeding in front of me, and you will not tell me to stop.” 

I tried again, sending my healing deeper, digging past the skin, past the muscles, reaching for whatever had been damaged. Instead of finding a tear to seal shut, I felt something else. 

It was not just injury. It felt like something gnawed at him from the inside, eating the life I poured in as fast as I gave it. Every bit of warmth I pushed into him vanished into that dark, dense presence before it could knit anything back together. 

It felt like something was taking him from me piece by piece. 

“Cassian,” I said, my voice breaking as his head dipped forward. “Stay with me. Do you hear me? You stay with me.” 

His breathing grew even more shallow. His chest rose and fell in short, sharp movements that never seemed to fill his lungs. I pressed my other hand against his back, trying to steady him, trying to anchor him, trying anything that felt like I was not just sitting there watching him crumble. 

“No…” I needed to ask someone to help us! Mendez, maybe Grace or Rio! 

Around us, the courtyard still echoed with the clash of steel. I heard shouts from the far side, the wet sound of another body hitting the snow, the grunt of a man taking a blow. I forced myself to look up for a heartbeat, because if there was anyone 

near who could help hold the line while I focused on him, I needed to know. 

A cluster of Cassian’s men were still fighting near the gate, backs to each other, blades flashing as they tried to push back Yara’s soldiers. Blood stained their armor and the ground around them, but they were still moving, still fighting, still holding 

And then, beyond them, I saw them. 

Agape and Kae. 

They stood near the base of one of the stone pillars, robes untouched by blood, hands empty, eyes fixed on the chaos around them. They were close enough to see what was happening, close enough to hear the screams and the steel, close enough to see Cassian on his knees in the snow. 

They were not fighting. 

They were not helping anyone! 

They were just watching us… everything! 

For a second anger flared so hot I almost released Cassian just to stand and scream at them, to demand why they were there and why they were doing nothing. My jaw clenched, and my grip on him tightened, but the sound of his next breath dragged me back down. 

He coughed again, weaker than before, and more blood spilled past his lips. His body sagged forward, and I had to brace myself to keep him from collapsing completely. 

They could stand there and stare all they wanted. I didn’t have the time to care what they were doing. 

I turned my attention back to Cassian and pressed both hands flat against his chest, ignoring how badly they shook. 

I poured everything I had into him again. The warmth rushed from my palms into his body, chasing whatever darkness had sunk into his ribs, his lungs, his blood. It felt like throwing water into a bottomless pit. The moment my healing reached it, it disappeared, swallowed whole and leaving nothing behind. No repaired tissue. No easing of his breathing. Nothing. 

“What is this?” I whispered, voice raw as I pushed harder. “Why won’t it let go of you?” 

His eyes fluttered under heavy lids. He tried to focus on me and failed, his gaze drifting over my shoulder before dragging back to my face as if it took everything he had left. His mouth parted, but all that came out was a shaky breath that tasted like blood. 

I leaned closer, one hand moving to support the back of his neck. “Cassian, don’t say anything. Just stay with me.” 

But he shook his head once, stubborn even like this. His fingers fumbled against my wrist, gripping weakly but with purpose. He exhaled, slow and uneven, and forced the words out. 

“Atasha…” His voice broke halfway through my name, but he kept going. “I didn’t save you because you were my mate.” 

My heart clenched so hard it hurt. 

He swallowed, blood sliding down the corner of his mouth. Still, he held my wrist like he needed me to hear him before anything else. 

“I saved you… because you are the most important thing to me.” 

The world around us blurred for a second as his gaze locked onto mine, unfocused but honest, and the truth in it hit me harder than any blade had. 

I couldn’t breathe. 

The feeling that something was being taken from me kept growing. Every second felt like another thread s..apping inside my chest. I couldn’t feel our bond, but I could feel him, fading in ways I didn’t know how to stop. 

“Cassian,” I said again, because I needed his name in the air, needed it to anchor him to something, anything. “Stay. Do you hear me? Stay.” 

Somewhere near the wall, metal clashed again. A scream cut short. One of Cassian’s men yelled his name with panic thick in his voice, but I didn’t even turn this time. 

I pressed harder against his chest, pushing healing into him with everything I had left. “Come on. Come on, Cassian. Stay 

with me.” 

“You should stop wasting your time…” 

The voice sliced through the air so sharply it felt like a hand yanking me backward. 

I looked up. Prince Kaelith was standing only a few steps away, close enough that I should have sensed him the moment he 

got near. 

I hadn’t. 

He glanced at Cassian, then at my hands shaking against his chest. 

Then he said. “He has been corrupted.”