Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
For the first time in months, Dragon felt an element of peace slip into his soul.
Cassandra hated him, that much was clear.
His decision to prioritize revenge for himself and his team over listening to her and her concerns had derailed any shot at …
anything they might have had before it even got up off the ground.
She wasn't pleased to have him hanging around, nor did she think it was necessary, and yet he was there.
Sitting outside her house, close enough that he could breathe in her sweet caramel scent and be content to watch over her from a distance.
Content wasn’t something he could ever recall experiencing. It hadn't even been on his radar. He’d gotten so used to being unsettled, always on edge, always searching for threats, always stuck in survival mode that he’d been blinded to how badly he needed something calming in his life.
Those months when Cassandra had been in the house, he’d not just become accustomed to her presence, but the peace she brought with her.
Even though she had just learned some devastating truths about how she was conceived and what her existence had led to for her family, she’d been a breath of fresh air.
She’d breathed life back into him, and it wasn't until he’d lost her that he’d even realized the full extent of what it was exactly that he had lost.
A future with someone like Cassandra should be impossible.
This wasn't like Steel with Rose. While he hated that Rose had been suffering basically since birth at the hands of her deranged family, it was all the woman had known. Darkness lived inside her the same way those years they’d lived under Ridge Gardner’s thumb, kept locked in a cage, had planted darkness inside them.
They might have been bred from different circumstances, but deep down, they were all the same.
It made sense that Steel and Rose clicked, even if he wasn't used to seeing one of the men he considered a brother obsessed with a woman. The two of them could barely keep their hands off each other, and Rose’s presence also breathed life into their home.
But Cassandra was everything good and sweet in the world.
Despite losing her parents at such a young age, being raised by her grandparents and brothers, the weight of her mom and stepdad’s apparent suicides hanging heavily above them, she was pure joy.
That darkness hadn't tainted her soul, and he knew that he would never be good enough for her.
She deserved the world, and all he would ever be able to offer her were the broken parts left of his soul.
Which she didn't even want.
Even if he wanted her.
And he didn't. Well, he did, but he didn't. His soul craved her light, her soothing touch, her calming scent, the peace she carried so effortlessly, but his brain knew it was never going to happen.
Never should happen.
The most he could ever have was exactly what he was doing right now, what he’d been doing ever since she packed up her stuff and went back home.
Watching over her from afar, protecting her as best he could, finding a way to accept it when she found a man worthy of her and moved on with her life to find the happiness she deserved.
While he wasn't kidding himself, Cassandra wanted him gone sooner rather than later, he also knew she was affected by his presence. She kept drifting to one of the front windows of her home, looking out to see if he was still out there. Even now, in the middle of the night, he’d seen her at her bedroom window, staring out at him.
What’s running through your head, little rabbit?
Do you really want me to go, or do you wish you wanted me to go?
Can you ever forgive me for pushing you away?
Will you ever see me as anything other than a monster who hurts others to get what he wants?
There were no answers to those questions, and no way he was going to voice them aloud. Because apparently, he wasn't just a monster, but a cowardly one at that.
All his life, he’d picked avoidance over confrontation. Even now, when the stakes had never felt higher.
As he sat there and watched Cassandra’s house, he suddenly caught a whiff of something in the air that shouldn’t be there.
Rolling down the window so he could get a clearer read on it, he smelled it again.
Blood.
There was no second-guessing himself, no taking his time to figure out what it meant, his logical mind flew out the window. Acting on pure instinct, Dragon was out of the car and running for Cassandra’s house without any conscious thought whatsoever.
While Thunder’s enhanced skill was speed, they all worked out every day, and they had all been given heightened endurance, able to better cope with extreme temperatures, handle no sleep, and go longer without needing food or water.
He was at the door mere seconds after he’d first scented blood in the air.
Knocking wasn't even a consideration.
Again, he didn't have Steel’s enhanced strength, but he was a big guy, stronger than the average man, with hours of daily weightlifting under his belt, and he simply threw himself at the door and watched as the wood splintered around him.
As soon as he was in Cassandra’s living room, his gaze fell on the two shadowy figures, right by where he’d crushed his lips to his little rabbit’s not even twenty-four hours earlier.
Inside, the stench of blood was stronger, and he saw one of the figures was on the ground. The other stood above them, the blade of a knife glinting in the moonlight streaming in through the hole the broken door left behind.
Likely the only thing that saved Cassandra’s presence was his entrance.
The man standing above her faltered for a second when Dragon stormed into the room, and Cassandra wriggled back a little, so that when the man recovered and brought his weapon down, it missed everything vital.
Caught her skin, though, if the smell of blood growing stronger was anything to go by.
His little rabbit might be light and sunshine, but she was no wilting flower. She had six overprotective big brothers who had drilled her in self-defense training, he knew because he’d worked with her on building on those skills while she stayed with them.
Her own knife came down on the man’s shoulder, and he grunted in pain.
Nothing compared to what he was going to feel when Dragon was through with him.
Not needing a weapon to take care of Cassandra’s assailant, although his gun was in its holster on his hip, he launched himself at the other man.
The rage pounding inside him insisted that he make the man suffer, that he inflict as much damage as possible, that he torture him slowly to punish him for daring to touch something that didn't belong to him.
But there was a tiny whisper in the back of his mind that Cassandra was there.
She was watching.
Already she believed him to be a monster. What would she think of him once she discovered the depths of his depravity?
Somehow, Dragon managed to cling to some measure of control, and when his body collided with the intruders and he took him down to the floor, he slammed a fist into the other man’s neck, crushing his windpipe in a single blow.
Unable to breathe, the man stared up at him, and Dragon could scent his fear along with his acceptance.
He knew he was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.
It would be a faster death than the man deserved, but the fact that he recognized his situation and was powerless to do anything about it soothed a little of his rage.
But the smell of blood was still strong in the room, and only one sluggishly oozing gash on the dying man’s shoulder. The rest of the blood was coming from Cassandra, and he found he could hardly stomach the idea of turning on the lights and seeing how badly she was hurt.
What if she were bleeding out?
She hadn't said anything, hadn't moved from where she’d been when he threw himself at her attacker. He knew she wasn't dead, but that didn't mean that she, too, wasn't dying.
If he’d gotten in there seconds too late to save her life, all because he’d been trying to respect her wishes and stay in his car when he knew she’d be safer with him inside the house with her, trying to convince her he wasn't completely a monster even though they both knew that he was, Dragon knew he would never forgive himself.
January 5th
2:30 A.M.
Dragon had come.
He’d known she was in trouble, and he’d come.
Killed for her.
As badly as Cassandra wanted to believe that meant something, she knew the man standing before her, his back to her, breathing heavily, would kill to save any innocent person. Especially if that person was part of the Prey family.
It didn't mean that he cared about her.
Didn't mean he respected her.
Certainly, didn't mean he was interested in any sort of … anything … with her.
Yet she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off his tall frame even as the pain from her wounds began to seep back into her conscious mind. What would it be like to have someone who did kill for her because they cared so deeply about her, the thought of losing her wrecked them?
Expecting Dragon to come to her, kneel beside her, and check her wounds, when instead he headed away from her, across the room and back toward her front door, Cassandra’s heart dropped.
Okay, so he didn't care about her the way she cared about him, but he wasn't seriously just going to leave her bleeding all over her living room floor while he went back to his car, was he?
“You're leaving?” she cried out at the same moment he flicked the light switch on, illuminating the room.
“What the hell, Cassandra?” he snapped as he finally turned around to face her.
“Why would you ask that? You really think that little of me, that I'm that much of a monster, that I wouldn't even perform first aid and call the cops before walking away and leaving you all alone after you were almost killed?”