Chapter <b>10 </b>


    ATASHA’S POV


    “How is she?”


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    “I told you,” I murmured, the taste of iron still thick in my throat, “I’m fine.” I eyed the body of the maid. “I think we should find out who sent her. I mean- she just- she just made me think it was you who wanted me dead.”


    Cassian didn’t respond. He didn’t even nce my way.


    Instead, he turned to the doctor kneeling beside me, a graying man with a worn leather bag and eyes that flicked between my face and the blood–drenched floor. His fingers pressed gently against my arm, then my ribs, checking for damage that wasn’t there.


    His eyes were sharp, clinical, the kind that had seen too much to flinch at spilled blood. He wore the same ck and crimson that marked Cassian’s men, but something about him felt colder, like he had long since traded empathy for efficiency. His fingers prodded at my ribs and arm, methodical and detached, as if I were just another body on a battlefield.


    Cassian’s silence pressed on me heavier than the girl’s corpse.


    My gaze dropped, heat creeping up my neck as doubt swirled in my chest. Had I overstepped? Was I too bold? Too reckless? The words echoed in my head, and suddenly, I couldn’t tell if I should apologize or stay silent. Every second of his silence made the air feel tighter.


    What if he thought I was a burden now? What if he realized someone out there wanted me gone and decided I wasn’t worth the risk? Would he leave me behind?


    The thought coiled around my ribs like a vice. I didn’t know the rules here. I didn’t know him. And in this ce, one wrong step could cost everything.


    After a long moment, the pack doctor exhaled sharply through his nose and rose to his feet. “She’s not wounded,” he said, with the kind of disbelief only years of experience could wear thin. “Her clothes are torn, and there’s blood everywhere, but there’s not a scratch on her body.”


    Cassian’s eyes never left me. “Then tell everyone,” he said, voice low, cold. “That my bride is mortally wounded. Say she’s unconscious. Fading. I don’t care how you spin it. Just make sure no one suspects she survived.”


    “What?” I shot up, heart lurching, “Why would you–Cassian, what are you doing?” I wasn’t even wounded! Why would he want everyone to know that I was dying?


    He didn’t answer. Instead, he turned to the guards at the door, who hadn’t moved since


    <b>11:03 </b>Wed, Sep 10


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    <b>81 </b>


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    entering. “No one enters this room,” he ordered. “Not until I say otherwise. Tell them we have done our best to help her and call Lucas, I need him here.”


    “Cassian!” I stepped forward as his men started moving out. “I’m fine. The Demon Fang are attacking, we don’t have time for this. Why are you acting like—”


    “Foolish girl,” he cut in sharply, his tone slicing through my words like a de. “Do you think I care about the Demon Fangs and your pack?” he snorted.


    I flinched, words dying in my throat.


    He stepped toward me, not rushing, but with a kind of coiled intensity that made me instinctively retreat. There was heat in him now, not the kind that warmed. His anger wasn’t loud, but it was clear, like standing too close to molten steel. It radiated from him in waves, and my feet backed up before I could think better.


    “I—I’m sorry,” I stammered. My hands curled into the shredded hem of my tunic. “I didn’t mean to question you. I didn’t mean to offend-”


    He said nothing, but kept moving until the space between us was narrow enough that I had to tilt my head to meet his gaze. I tried to say more, to fill the silence that pressed between us, but my throat closed.


    “I didn’t mean to say anything at all,” I whispered instead, the words tumbling out. “I swear, I won’t speak out of turn again—”


    His hand lifted, and I closed my eyes, bracing instinctively, but he didn’t strike. Instead, his fingers slid under my chin and tilted my face upward. “Open your eyes,” he ordered and I immediatelyplied. His gray eyes now burned with something more vtile as he met my eyes. Fury yes, but also urgency.


    “Someone wants you dead,” he said. His voice sounded like a low snarl against my skin, as if speaking louder would ruin the fragile control he held over himself. “You killed an assassin. And you healed like a cursed thing. Flesh sealing where it should’ve split. Blood pulling itself back into your veins like it obeyed you.”


    “You are not fine,” he growled. “You exposed yourself, you’re marked. Someone wanted everyone to think that once again… I killed my bride on my wedding night.”


    What does that mean? Did he not killed his previous bride? I tried to pull back. He didn’t let


    me,


    “Someone wanted to use you, but you lived,” he snorted. “If someone finds out how you lived after being attacked by someone stronger than you, then they’ll cage you and use you. Break you open piece by piece until there’s nothing left but screaming and science. They’ll turn you into a relic maybe a weapon. Or a myth that bleeds onmand.”


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    I shuddered, breath catching. But he wasn’t finished.


    “I won’t allow that.”


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    His darkened, shadows flickering like me behind gray steel. “You belong <i>to </i>me now, Atasha. You signed your life away the moment you bled for that contract. Your name, your body, your pain. You are mine. And no one touches what’s mine. No one uses what’s mine. No one even looks unless I allow it.”


    He stepped in closer. I took a step back, but he followed, like a predator who knew the kill was already his.


    “The only way to protect you is to make them believe you’re dying,” he said. “Because if they think you’re strong, they’lle. They always do. Power draws vultures.”


    I swallowed, my throat dry. My knees felt weak, not from fear but from how easily he made the rest of the world fall away.


    “So y the part, little bride,” he murmured, thumb dragging along my bottom lip like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss it or rip it open. “Look fragile, look broken, let them lower their guard.”


    He leaned in, eyes gleaming with something unholy. “But when the timees… you fight. You w, you bleed, you kill. Because no one’sing to save you, not me, not fate. In this world, the only thing that keeps you breathing is your will to tear it apart first.”


    His hand curled under my jaw, forcing my face up to his. “Let them think you’re weak. And then remind them, monsters don’t need saving.”


    Then, without warning, a sharp knock rattled the window. I jolted. A man burst through the frame a secondter, d in the same crimson and ck uniform as the others. His boots hit


    the floor with a thud.


    “My lord,” he said breathlessly. “The Demon Fangs… they’ve started using poison. It’sced with silver and wolfsbane.”


    His voice cracked. “Our men… our men are falling.”


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