Chapter Thirteen

Talia's POV

The next few days passed in a blur of almost catatonic disassociation. I drifted through the confines of the opulent suite like a silent wraith, mechanically eating and bathing only out of base survival instinct. My mind simply couldn't process anything beyond replaying those harrowing final moments with Cassius over and over again.

The way his grip had tightened inexorably around my throat, stealing my very breath as that soul-scouring obsidian gaze bored into me. How he'd stood unflinching and resolute, even as my nails scored crimson furrows across his chiseled features in futile desperation. And those last haunting words about the "future of his bloodline"—the inescapable mandate he planned to visit upon my unwilling body eventually.

Each time the memory loop cycled through again, a fresh wave of crippling horror would leave me doubled over and dry-heaving. Because deep down, I recognized the fundamental truth in Cassius' dire revelations about the unavoidable brutality awaiting me on this path.

I was his "mate"—a celestially-bound breeding captive sentenced to an eternity of birthing a new imperial progeny. No matter how much my very essence revolted against the degradation of my autonomy, the alpha's unyielding will could not be defied forever.

That was, until a new variable unexpectedly shattered my spiral of despair and resigned introspection.

It was early evening when the sharp rap at my chamber door roused me from another fitful slumber. I tensed, half-expecting—half-dreading—the imposing sight of Cassius filling the entry once more. But the figure silhouetted against the corridor's ambient glow was shorter, more lithely feminine.

"Vera?" I croaked out in surprise as the familiar maid slipped inside carrying a simple woven basket.

"Please forgive the unexpected intrusion, Miss Talia," she said with a tight smile, setting the basket on the small sitting table. "But it's come to my attention that you haven't been...well, yourself as of late."

My brows hiked inquisitively as she began unpacking the basket, revealing an assortment of fragrant herbs and plants laid over a thick leather-bound tome. I watched mutely as her deft fingers swept across the pages, ancient text and illustrations slowly coming into focus.

"You look weary to your very soul," Vera continued in a gentle murmur, refusing to meet my questioning stare. "Weighted down by revelations no outsider was ever meant to shoulder, especially alone."

It was a simple statement of fact, devoid of censure or accusations. Yet Vera's quiet acknowledgment of whatever inner turmoil I was grappling with produced the same effect as lancing a putrid inner wound. An agonizing release of pent-up pressure that somehow soothed as much as it stung.

Before I could stop myself, the story came spilling out in a torrent of hoarse whispers and halting half-sentences. How I'd discovered the true depths of Cassius' obsession over reproductive servitude. Of ensuring a "new imperial bloodline" flowed from my body whether I consented or not.

By the time I trailed off into silence, there were fresh rivulets of moisture streaking my hollow cheeks—the cathartic release of emotional poison I hadn't even realized was steadily toxifying my veins.

Vera still hadn't looked up from her meditative study of the tome's pages. But her delicate features had taken on an unreadable, mournful cast as she absorbed every harrowing detail of my truth. When she finally did meet my desperate gaze, there was something ancient and infinitely sorrowful glimmering in her deep emerald eyes.

"You have suffered greatly at the callous hands of fate, my child," she said, her dulcet voice cracking like eroded stone. "No womb should ever be treated as a mere instrument for vanity or conquest."

Before I could react, she reached out and splayed her palm over my abdomen in a gentle cradle. Her touch shockingly tender despite the weighty tension still thrumming between us.

"But there are forces at play here...celestial cycles and blood oaths interwoven into the very fabric of existence itself." Vera's voice had taken on a wizened, almost oracular edge. "To defy them is to court the utter damnation of your lineage across infinite realities."

A violent shudder rippled through me as those ominous words settled into my marrow like a terminal cancer. What fresh hell-tinged revelation was she imparting now? Another inescapable layer to my predestined enslavement?

Instead, Vera simply grasped my clammy hand with surprising strength and placed it over her own upon my lower abdomen. Our palms now flush against my flat plane of taut, quivering flesh.

"Can you feel it?" she whispered with sudden intensity. "The flickering ember of your womb's innate power—the sacred gift to twist and weave new lives into being?"

I shook my head slowly, unable to comprehend whatever mystic energy she seemed to detect flowing within me. All I knew was the dehumanizing reality that Cassius intended to exploit this very part of my anatomy against my will.

"You will feel it soon enough," Vera stated with eerie conviction. "And when you finally accept your divine purpose, the path forward shall become clear. As will the fortitude required to walk it with grace and nobility."

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I tossed and turned for hours after Vera's cryptic departure, her parting words echoing through my psyche like the maddening toll of a haunted bell. Pondering the deeper truths she seemed to read from that ancient leather-bound tome.

Somethingabout the way the maid's emerald eyes had bored into my soul while speaking of "sacred wombs" and "divine purposes" made my very bones ache with solemn premonition. As if she was an acolyte to some long-forgotten feminine mystery that cast my dilemma with Cassius in an entirely new, cosmic light.

Just as the first fitful inklings of exhaustion began pulling me under its weighted cloak, a thunderous boom shook the very foundations of the compound. I jolted upright, heart pounding, as a cacophony of shouts and stamping boots filtered in from beyond the chamber doors.

Another resonating blast rocked the walls, this time accompanied by a brilliant amber glare that painted the room in an apocalyptic burn through the narrow window slits. Realization slammed into me with visceral force—we were under attack!

Scrambling from the bed, I grabbed the nearest blouse draped over a chair and hastily tugged it over my tank-top. My bare feet slapped against the hardwood as I rushed to the heavy oak door and flung it open.

Chaos reigned in the corridor outside. Scores of armed sentries in charcoal battle-leathers rushed past in organized phalanxes towards the source of the escalating sounds of warfare. Smoke and the acrid stench of scorched ozone choked the air in dizzying plumes.

"You there!" I shouted at a passing warrior, snagging his arm. "What in the bloody hell is going on?"

He paused only long enough to pin me with a withering glare from his lupine yellow eyes before shaking off my grip with brute force. "The eastern ramparts have been breached by Obsidian forces. Now get to the safe room until Lord Cassius can neutralize this incursion."

With that, he sprinted off down the hall leaving me to reel in stunned disbelief. This was it—the war that Cassius had been warning about for weeks. It was kicking off right here, right now with our sanctuary under full siege.

Part of me briefly considered tucking tail and fleeing to wherever these supposed "safe rooms" were. Let the alphas and their twisted pack politics burn the whole compound to ash while I tried to slip away amidst the madness.

But just as quickly, another rogue instinct took hold and had me moving in the opposite direction. One didn't survive the harsh existence of a displaced orphan on the streets of Brooklyn by mindlessly following orders, after all.

I broke into a sprint towards the unmistakable sounds of escalating battle, using my sense of bearings to wind through the fort's catacombs and stairwells. Something deep in my bones knew where the fighting was fiercest—where Cassius himself would be at the chaotic epicenter, embodying the ferocity of a leader ever-ready for war.

The first tingles of adrenaline sparked to life, fueling reserves of reckless bravado I hadn't felt in ages. Whatever primal essence had allowed Vera to glimpse my soul perhaps also guided me straight into the blazing hellmouth. If I was fated to remain in Cassius' sphere through eternity as his mate, then I'd be damned if I stayed safely ensconced away like some wilting-flower trophy bride.

No, I would see this side of my fearsome captor first-hand. Understand the alpha's true nature as a bloodied conqueror facing down enemies intent on usurping his dominance. Only then could I know exactly what existence as his eternal mate would demand of me.

The corridor opened onto a vast entrance parapet overlooking the fort's craggy outer ramparts. Fiery tendrils of smoke licked the night sky as siege engines pounded away at the parapets. Below, a seething horde of battle-crazed warriors in black leathers and crimson armbands swarmed the walls.

For a split-second, a flicker of uncertainty nearly had me turning back to retreat to safety. But then a resounding battle roar echoed across the maelstrom, drawing my eye inexorably to the chaotic front lines.

There stood Cassius, looking every bit the regal Norse warchief decked out in fatigue leathers and ceremonial blades. His hair was wild and skin streaked with ash and blood—some splattered from his foes, some seeped from fresh wounds of his own. Yet none of it seemed to dull the utterly feral magnetism rolling off him in crashing waves.

Even from this distance I could feel that scorching obsidian glare blazing like supernovas as he squared off against an advancing wave of enemy forces. A true alpha without equal, utterly in his element of carnage and dominance.

The air left my lungs in a sharp exhale, every fiber of my being transfixed on witnessing Cassius' savagery first-hand. I was powerless to look away as his muscular frame tensed and shifted in a bonechilling metamorphosis.

One minute he was standing amidst his pack kin in humanoid form, legs braced with two razor-sharp battle scythes crossed at the ready. Then with a thunderous growl that vibrated straight to my core, a truly mind-shattering transformation took hold.

Blackened fur erupted across Cassius' entire body as his skeleton elongated and rearranged into that of a gargantuan alpha lycan warrior. Fanged maw and volcanic amber eyes locked onto his foes as the lupine monster let loose a glass-shattering howl of challenge. Powerful bone-plated forelegs tensed, prepared to launch a killing pounce on the first foolish enough to enter striking distance.

My mouth went utterly dry, heart hammering as if to escape the ratch confines of my rib cage. There was zero trace of the conceited alpha who had tormented me with sweet words and vicious threats by turns. This was Cassius in his most raw, primal incarnation—an absolute apex predator with an insatiable will to rend and conquer all that dared challenge his supremacy.

Even having glimpsed the infinite galaxies swirling beyond his impenetrable eyes those few times before, I realized in that endless spiraling moment, that I knew absolutely nothing about the true cosmic scope of my supposed "mate." I had been so resolutely focused on resisting the human side of his mystical bond that I'd underestimated the true, all-powerful entity to whom I was fated.

It was a breathtaking and gut-wrenching epiphany—like peering over the edge of existence itself into the yawning, endless cosmic abyss...with Cassius alone poised to plunge me into its abysmal depths for eternity.

So this was the crucible the maddening maid Vera had been alluding to, I realized with dawning lucidity. A trial by searing spiritual immolation to test the impermeability of my inner essence, no matter how far it was pushed to the edge.

Well, no one could say Talia Fisher didn't have a flair for seeking out her own reckoning. If this blood-drenched maelstrom was the fire I'd be forged anew within, then so be it. With a deep, settling breath, I lifted my chin with flinty determination and eagerly stepped over the threshold into the abyss…