The tension in the room ratcheted up another notch.
“Yes, I do,” I seethed. “So, did you buy all of us, or just me?”
Khush didn’t even blink. “We take whatever approach is most likely to be successful with the least consequence. In your case, it was clear that the males in your family were open to… negotiation. They saw it as something like an arranged marriage,” he said with a shrug.
“That’s not marriage, that’s trafficking!” I hissed.
‘Don’t let him see your emotion. It will only weaken you in his eyes.’
~ CASIMIR ~It was the first time I’d drawn on the power in full since I’d claimed her and it almost washed me away. My body thrummed with it. A tsunami of strength and compulsion and sheer might. I sucked in a breath and had to work to keep myself from dropping to my knees in submission to myself.Feet planted on the stone floor for a moment I ignored Khush and all the others, just let it hum through my veins as I wrestled it under control.I was panting, I realized, my skin throbbing as the power coursed through me like electricity in my veins.Dear god,
~ CASIMIR ~Mind still open to Rake and Jesse so they’d hear every word, I stepped forward to put myself right in front of Khush. The male was larger than me by at least fifty pounds. If we’d been men, I would have needed to use skill rather than brute strength to defeat him.But we were not men. And he did not stand a chance.Snapping a thread of compulsion at him like a whiplash, I smiled as Khush’s eyes glazed, then he blinked and focused on me again.“Tell me the things you’re holding back—the things you think I wouldn’t approve of, or that protect someone else’s interests,” I said casually. I kept the others in the room ignorant to the conversation, their ears sto
~ CASIMIR ~‘Very good, Khush. You’ve pleased me.’His large body relaxed, the compulsion keeping his mind away from the apparent contradiction in that statement.‘Now you’re going to please me even more.’‘Tell me. I’ll do it,’ he replied as my power surged in his veins and the talons of it sank into his consciousness.I felt Rake and Jesse both tense and alarmed—confused—but they would see.I took the final steps to completely close the distance between Khush a
~ CASIMIR ~I regarded my council of Advisors for a moment, considering my options. They were all far too important for me to wash their minds clean and risk taking parts of them or limiting their capacity, so I’d only used the compulsion to keep them still and silent. And unaware of my conversation with Khush.But now I spoke to them through the link we’d maintained, letting that thread thicken slightly to take a small, needle-like path into their minds.‘You’ll remember nothing except that Khush was brought to me and we discussed the Reaping. I am unhappy with how he went about it, but pleased that he did not subvert me, only took the most efficient route to find the Queen.’
~ CASIMIR ~ When the whole scene had finally played out and Khush was excused, Jesse stood at my side with folded arms, smelling a little uneasy. “Rake, would you please escort the Queen back to her chambers?” I asked quietly. “Then come back here. We need to determine the best and fastest way to remove those who are a threat—” “No, Cazz, don’t!” Rake was nodding and beginning to pull at Jesse’s elbow, but she ignored him and stepped towards me. My hackles rose. I had to swallow back the urge to bark at her not to interrupt me—or contradict me in front of others when her opinion hadn’t been sought. “I will come to you as soon as we’re done here,” I t
~ JESSE ~Cazz wasn’t happy, but what else was new?But then I realized, what was actually new was that I could tell he was unhappy without looking at him. He was carrying a tension and disapproval that was reaching me through the bond. Because for the first time I could remember, he was keeping the bond open. He’d held it since we started talking and he hadn’t let it go. Hadn’t shut me down.My heart beat faster.It had been thrilling—and a little bit scary—to discover that we could talk in each other’s heads. But then he opened the bond further and started letting me feel him… I didn&rs
~ JESSE ~“Cazz, please!” I tightened my grip on his shirt and he froze. “I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want to be away from you. I love it when we’re together,” I admitted carefully. “But… a few hours ago you did incredible things to me that made me feel for you. And then you just walked away! And you keep doing that. Every time we’re together you leave me like a bad smell.”“I am King, Jesse. It is my life to serve the pack and Ghere had found—”“That’s not what I meant and you know it!”Cazz’s jaw was tight, his eyes wary
~ JESSE ~Cazz in that very first moment I’d ever seen him, walking towards me out of the dark like an apparition manifesting out of hell itself—tall, broad, so strong, and so cold……Cazz, staring at me intently, his arctic eyes chill and his tone so full of self-satisfaction. “Kitten, I can make them do anything. I can heal—or I can stop their hearts with a word. I could, if I wished, tell you to die, right here. Right now. And you would…”…Cazz standing with his head dropped between his arms, and his hands so tight on the bar in that room off the Den, his knuckles were white. The door shuddered with another barrage