Brute 298

Atasha’s POV 

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I knew his strength should have frightened me, but for some unknown reason something inside me snapped, and the fear that had been squeezing my ribs since this nightmare began finally burned out. 

I knew it was not courage. It was anger so sharp it made my vision settle into focus, and in that focus I saw him for what he 

was. 

I narrowed my eyes at him and let the words cut free. “You are disgusting.” 

The effect was immediate. 

The thing wearing Xylas blinked as if it had not expected that from me, then paused with that same ugly curiosity it had used when it studied Cassian. Its head tilted slightly, like it was examining a new wound on an animal it planned to skin later. 

A chuckle rolled out of his throat. 

But that pause was all I needed. 

I tightened my grip on his forearm, anchored my palm against skin that felt too warm, and I pushed. 

Not healing, nor was it to repair him. 

I pushed my ability into him the way I pushed it into ruptured lungs and broken bones, except this time there was nothing to mend, only something that did not belong. 

The heat surged out of my hands and slammed into him. 

For a heartbeat, the blackness under his skin shuddered. The air around us reacted like it had been disturbed by a stone thrown into deep water. Xylas’s smile faltered. His mouth tightened. The skin around his eyes pulled back in an expression that looked almost like pain, almost like disgust, except it came too fast and too violent to be human. 

His face turned ugly in an instant. 

The black sheen on his jaw rippled as if it was trying to retreat from my touch, as if my ability was forcing it to reveal itself beneath the mask. 

Then his hand jerked. 

He did not try to pry me off. He did not try to outmaneuver me. 

He kicked me. 

The impact landed hard enough that my ribs screamed. My feet lifted off the ground, my body snapping backward toward the cave wall. My mind barely had time to register the fall before something slammed around my waist. 

Cassian. 

He caught me in midair with an arm locked around me, and instead of letting my back take the hit, he twisted his body, turned his shoulder, and took the wall for ine. 

His back struck stone with a brutal crash that knocked dust loose from above. I heard the grunt forced out of him, felt the jolt run through his frame. The second my boots hit ground again I was already grabbing him. 

1/6 

11:58 am DD 

Chapter 298 

My hands found the damage under his armor without needing to see it. 

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Heat poured out of me, sealing bruises that were already forming, forcing muscle back into place where the impact had torn it, pushing stability into his spine and ribs before he could even inhale fully. 

Cassian’s breath hitched. Then it steadied. 

His fingers tightened briefly at my side. When I lifted my gaze, our eyes locked, and there was no space for explanations or questions. 

There was only understanding. 

He gave a single nod and I answered it without hesitation. He had felt it too. The creature had reacted when I pushed my ability into it. It had not brushed it off. It had recoiled. 

That was not nothing. 

The thought struck hard and fast. If my ability could disturb it, if it could force that thing beneath the King’s skin to falter even for a heartbeat, then this was not random. It was not luck. 

And the warmth of the stone pulsing at the edge of my senses suddenly felt less like coincidence and more like connection. 

Xylas noticed. 

His expression shifted the moment our silent exchange ended, as if he had understood that something had just aligned between us, and whatever he saw in our faces did not please him. 

The thing in him hissed, the sound dragging through teeth like it hurt to produce. The rage that twisted his expression startled me because it was not the casual hunger he had been showing earlier. This was personal. 

In fact, he looked offended, as if I had crossed a boundary he believed no one had the right to touch. 

“You filthy creature,” he spat at Cassian. Then his gaze snapped to me with something like revulsion. 

His lips peeled back. 

The blackness surged up his neck again, coating the side of his face as if it wanted to hide from my touch. His eyes sharpened with hatred that felt older than this mountain. 

“How dare you try to stain me,” he growled, voice vibrating with a fury that shook the air more than the tremors did. “How dare you push that into me, as if you have the right to touch what is above you.” 

My stomach tightened, but it was not fear now. It was disgust layered over anger. 

He stepped forward. The pressure around him thickened, pressing against my skin like the cave was bending to make room 

for him. 

“I will flay you alive,” he said. “I will peel you open and let you watch your own blood drain while you beg for the mercy you do not deserve. I will strip every piece of you until you forget your name, and then I will take what is inside you and make it 

mine.” 

He narrowed his eyes before he moved. 

He came in fast enough that my eyes could not track him cleanly. The first clash happened in a burst of motion and sound. Cassian met him head on, steel striking whatever black–coated strength Xylas used as a guard. The ring of impact ran through the stone. 

2/6 

11:58 am 

Chapter 298 

Cassian drove forward, refusing to give ground, forcing the fight away from me by inches at a time. 

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Xylas answered with savage counters, trying to slip past Cassian’s blade, trying to reach me through gaps that Cassian sealed with his body and his sword. 

Their movements were so fast that all I caught were fragments; Cassian’s shoulder dipping to avoid a strike, Xylas’s hand flashing out like a claw, sparks jumping when steel met that black surface again. 

The beasts nearby did not come closer. 

They backed away, panicked, scrambling into cracks and tunnels, their cries echoing down the stone like they were fleeing something they had been born to serve. 

But… I did not watch them. 

I watched the floating white stone. 

Even with violence unfolding in front of me, I could still feel it, that warmth pressing against my chest, that familiarity that did not fit the horror around it. The stone pulsed again, the pulse brushed my senses like a hand against skin. 

It felt like it was calling. 

I swallowed hard, forcing my feet to move. Then, I used the chaos of the fight as cover. 

Cassian knew what I was doing without me saying it. 

He shifted his stance slightly, drawing Xylas’s attention harder, baiting him into staying locked on the blade and the body in front of him instead of the woman slipping to the side. 

My goal was not to win the duel. 

My goal was the stone. 

Cassian could hold him, but not forever. I knew that. Cassian was powerful, disciplined, relentless in a fight, but this thing wearing the King’s face was not fighting like a man. It moved without hesitation, without fatigue, and without the limits that flesh should have forced on it. If this dragged on, it would outlast him. 

So I made a choice. 

I needed to understand the stone. 

I needed to know why he wanted it destroyed so badly. Why did it felt like shelter to me when everything else in this cave felt like a threat. Why its warmth did not carry the same corruption as the passage behind it. 

If breaking it would free him, then touching it might reveal the truth. 

And if the stone was the lock, then I had to learn how to close it properly. 

I moved along the edge of the clearing, keeping low, keeping my breath steady, dagger still in hand. 

Behind me, steel rang again. 

Xylas snarled. The sound carried through the chamber like a threat meant to follow me even if he could not reach me yet. 

Cassian held him anyway. 

3/6 

11:58 am DD 

Chapter 298 

Then I ran. 

I did not run away from the fight. 

I ran toward it. 

Xylas noticed immediately. 

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His head snapped in my direction, and something eager flashed across his face as if he believed I had finally chosen the wrong instinct. 

He lunged for Cassian. His arm sliced through the air in a brutal arc meant to break ribs, but Cassian pivoted at the last second and let the strike glance past him. Stone behind Cassian shattered where Xylas’s blow landed, fragments spraying across the clearing. 

Their blades collided again, steel grinding against that black–coated guard. Cassian drove forward with his shoulder, forcing Xylas half a step back, and in that half–step I closed the distance. 

To anyone watching, it looked like I had rushed in to fight beside him. 

Xylas laughed when he saw me approach. 

“Brave,” he mocked. “Or foolish.” 

He swiped toward me with his free hand, fingers curled like claws meant to tear, but Cassian twisted between us, 

intercepting the strike with the flat of his blade. The impact rang through the cavern, and Cassian’s boots skidded over stone from the force. 

I ducked low and cut at Xylas’s side. My blade sliced fabric and skin, and the blackness beneath writhed again, irritated by 

the intrusion. 

We moved like we had done this a hundred times before. 

Cassian forced him to guard his throat. 

I slashed at his leg. 

Xylas snarled as if the coordination offended him more than the wounds. 

He lashed out again, faster now. This time his strike landed against Cassian’s shoulder. Cassian staggered half a step but did not fall. He rotated his body, dragging the fight toward the center of the clearing. 

Toward the stone. 

I matched his movement, staying just behind his shoulder, close enough to be shielded, close enough to look like I was reacting instead of preparing. And close enough to heal. 

Xylas pressed harder. 

He drove Cassian back with a flurry of strikes that were less swordplay and more controlled brutality. Cassian parried two, deflected a third, but the fourth slammed into his guard hard enough that sparks burst between them and the vibration ran 

up my arms. 

The creature’s grin widened. 

Cassian only grunted as I touched him, immediately healing what damage the King gave him. Then he let himself give ground. 

4/6 

11:58 am 

DD 

Chapter 298 

One step. 

Then another. 

We were close now. 

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Close enough that the warmth from the floating white stone brushed against my skin like breath. The hum deepened in my ears, no longer faint, no longer distant. 

Xylas’s eyes flicked to it for a fraction of a second, then back to us. 

Suspicion sharpened his expression. 

Cassian suddenly shifted. 

He dropped low under Xylas’s next strike and drove his shoulder into the King’s torso, forcing him to pivot. The movement spun all three of us in a tight arc. In that rotation Cassian’s hand snapped around my waist again. 

Xylas saw it. 

He misunderstood it. 

He thought Cassian was pulling me out of danger. 

He moved to intercept. 

But Cassian did not retreat. 

He planted his foot. 

Then he threw me. 

Not away from the fight. 

Not toward safety. 

He threw me straight at the stone. 

The motion was sudden and violent. One moment I was grounded beside him, and the next my feet left the floor as he used his full strength to launch me upward. The world tilted. The clearing spun. The white stone filled my vision. 

Xylas roared. 

“No!” 

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