Brute 277

Chapter 277 

Atasha’s POV 

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“That’s a no,” I glared at Cassian when he suggested that he lure the beasts away. “That’s crazy” How in the Goddess’s name did he think I would be agreeing to any of this? 

Cassian did not look offended, which almost irritated me more, because it meant he had expected resistance and suggested it anyway. He kept his voice low, his eyes flicking back toward the cliff’s edge where the beasts were gathered around the spring, then returning to me with the same calm he always wore when the world was trying to kill us. 

“We cannot walk straight into that clearing,” he said. “Not with that many bodies between us and the water.” 

“We also cannot throw you into a swarm of beasts like bait,” I snapped, and I grabbed his sleeve before he could take even one step toward the ledge again. “You are not doing that.” 

“It is easier and more efficient,” Cassian replied, as if we were discussing routes on a map rather than a plan that could leave him torn apart and poisoned in minutes. “I am quicker. You can stay hidden and safe, then you take the water while they chase me.“. 

“That is too dangerous,” I said. 

Cassian’s jaw tightened slightly, but his gaze stayed steady. “I am strong enough.” 

“I know you are strong enough,” I shot back, the words came out sharper than I meant. “I know you are fast, I know you can cut through things that would break most men, and I know you have lived through worse than this, but that does not mean I want to stand here and listen to you get hurt because you decided that your life was the most disposable piece on the board.” 

He took a slow breath, then stepped closer, close enough that the warmth of him pressed into the cold panic crawling under my skin. “Atasha,” he said. “One of us needs to draw them away, and the other needs to move fast enough to reach the water and return without getting surrounded. You can do that. You can purify it if there is poison. You can carry enough for both of us. If we try to fight all of them, we waste time, and time is the one thing we do not have.” 

werbung beca 

I stared at him for what felt like forever, because the logic was there and I hated it, because the logic was always there in plans that got people killed. 

med slightly, scanning the rock wall beside us as if he had already decided the rest. He 

Before I could argue again, Cassian 

moved us back along the narrow ridge, far enough that the beasts below would not catch our scent as easily, and he kept to the shadow of the stone where the glowing insects thinned. A few steps later, he stopped at a section of wall that looked no different than the rest until he pressed his palm against it and shifted his weight, and the rock gave slightly, revealing a narrow crack hidden behind a slab of broken stone. 

It was not a tunnel, not a real path, but it was a pocket, a cramped opening where the wall had split and settled in a way that created a small hollow. It was just wide enough for a person to squeeze into and sit with their knees pulled up, and just deep enough that the darkness swallowed you if you stayed still. 

Cassian glanced at me. “Here.” 

My stomach dropped. “No.” 

“It will hide you,” he said, as if he could make me accept it by stating it plainly. “You will be out of sight. If anything comes close, you do not move. You do not breathe loud. You wait until pull them away, and then you go.” 

I stepped closer until my boots nearly touched his. Then I tilted my head up at him like I could force him to understand with nothing but my stare. “You are saying that like I am going to sit in a hole while you run into a crowd of beasts.” 

“I am saying it because it is the best way,” Cassian answered. He sounded calm again, but there was something tight under it that told me he was not enjoying this either. “You do not have to like it.” 

20:32 Fri, Feb 6 BB 

Chapter 277 

52% 

55 vouchers 

I took another step forward, and this time I pressed my hand against his chest, right over the place where his heart would be pounding harder than he wanted to admit. I could feel the heat of him through his clothes, and I could feel how his body was already preparing, already shifting into that state where fear became focus. 

“You keep deciding what I can handle,” I said quietly, the softness in my voice made his gaze sharpen. “But you forget I am the one who has to live with the consequences. You forget I am the one who has to listen to your breathing and wonder if it will stop.” 

His eyes held mine for a long moment, neither of us spoke, because there were too many things packed between us, too many moments we had survived by inches. 

Then, without asking permission, I pushed my power into him. 

It was not a dramatic surge and it was not some grand healing that left me drained. It was controlled, focused on the small cuts and bruises he had sustained earlier, sealing the scratches along his neck, easing the impact soreness under his ribs, smoothing over the rawness on his knuckles where stone had ripped skin. Cassian inhaled sharply. 

When I pulled my hand back, I reached for his flask. 

“There is barely anything left,” he started. 

“Drink it,” I cut in as I held it out to him. “You will be moving fast. You will be fighting. You will be bleeding again whether you want to or not.” 

Cassian met my gaze. For a moment neither of us moved. His expression shifted into something I rarely saw, not softness exactly, but something exposed enough to make my pulse kick hard. 

Then he did what I told him. 

He raised the flask and finished the last of the water, swallowing steadily, and when he lowered it, his eyes never left mine. 

I nodded, as if that settled the argument, because it did, at least for now. While I hated the idea, he was right. Only I could purify the water. I cannot fight as fiercely as him and while I wanted to, going with him would make me a burden. 

Before he could speak again, I rose onto my toes and kissed him. 

When I pulled back, I kept my hand against his chest. 

“I will be waiting for you in this spot,” I said. 

Cassian’s gaze dropped briefly to my mouth, then lifted again. He was about to 

I caught his wrist. 

reach, everything would become sound and. 

ISIN DE INe, sharp with panic, because once he walked out of 

imagination again. 

“You promised,” I said, my throat tightened as the memory flashed through me, the ridiculous softness of it compared to 

time.” where we were. “You promised you would watch the sunset with me all th 

For a second, Cassian just stared as if he could not believe I had chosen that moment to remind him of a promise made under a sky that felt like it belonged to another life. 

Then his mouth curved. The small smile hit me harder than any battle did, because it looked real, because it looked like something he had not allowed himself to feel in days. 

“We will be watching that sunset for a long time,” he said, and his voice carried certainty that did not belong in a cave like this, but I clung to it anyway. “Together.” 

He brushed his knuckles lightly against my cheek, quick enough hat it could have been dismissed as nothing, but it was not nothing to me. 

20:32 Fri, Feb 6 BB. 

Chapter 277 

Then he left. 

51% 

55 vouchers 

Cassian slipped out of the crevice area, moving back along the ridge with the kind of silent speed that made him look less like a man and more like something built for hunting. He disappeared into the darker stretch of cave, heading toward the clearing and the spring below. 

The moment he was gone, the cold came back. 

I forced myself into the hidden pocket in the rock, twisting sideways to fit, the stone pressing against my shoulders and knees. I found a heavier chunk of rock near the entrance, rough and jagged, and I dragged it close, positioning it so it partially covered the opening without sealing it completely. From outside, it would look like rubble. From inside, it would give me enough of a view to know when to move. 

Then I held my breath and listened. 

At first there was only the cave, the distant drip of water somewhere deeper, the faint buzz of glowing insects shifting stone. My hands curled into fists in my lap, and I hated how useless I felt, because waiting was its own kind of torture. 

Then, after what felt like forever, I finally heard it. 

A low growl rolled through the cavern, followed by another, then several more, overlapping until the sound thickened into something wild. The ground trembled slightly, not from collapse this time, but from movement, from weight, from multiple massive bodies shifting at once. 

The beasts had been provoked. 

My eyes squeezed shut, and for a heartbeat I forgot the spring, forgot the water, forgot the plan, because all I could picture was Cassian surrounded by teeth and claws and poison. 

I pressed a hand to my mouth to keep myself silent, and in the darkness of the pocket I whispered the only thing I could offer. 

Goddess, keep him safe. 

The growls turned into snarls, and the sound of claws scraping stone came closer, faster, violent enough that it made my stomach twist. Something slammed into rock, and dust fell from above, drifting into the narrow space where I hid. 

Then it all started. 

The cavern shook with roaring bodies, the noise moving like a storm through the tunnels, and I stayed still, heart pounding so hard it hurt, waiting for the exact moment Cassian had created for me, because if I moved too early, I would die, and if I moved too late, he might. 

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