Chapter 20 In the Crucible #2
His eyes weren’t green anymore. They were black. Utterly, abyssally black. No pupil. No iris. Nothing. Like something vast and void-like was staring out from behind his face. Something that didn’t understand the concept of mercy.
And for one gut-wrenching moment, I felt it.
What he held back.
Monstrous. Ancient. Wrong.
Rage didn’t burn in Casimir Cimmerian.
Fire was human. Fire had edges, limits. This wasn’t fire. It was something colder. Deeper. Like the pressure at the bottom of the ocean, miles beneath the surface, where light and warmth don’t exist.
And he held it back.
Every single day. Every second. Every heartbeat.
It was why he rarely raised his voice. Never let go completely. Never fully lost his temper. It wasn’t restraint.
It was containment.
He didn’t dare let that thing off its leash.
I already guessed what happened. Despite my own fury and need to kill, I’d seen Zane’s hands shaking. Tracked his shallow breathing. Noted his pallor and sweat-beaded brow. Our fireweed had dug too far into Eluned’s shitshow brain and stayed too long, and now he was paying the price.
He’d done it before, several times now, and he always woke up, demanding wings and a beer. But if this was the time he didn’t wake up?
Cas would tear the skin off every Dark witch still breathing, Harrow or otherwise. He’d carve out hearts, dismember bodies, rip through every coven like a plague of locusts, and he wouldn’t stop until the Dark world choked on its own dead.
If the thing inside him ever got loose, if Casimir ever stopped holding it back, it would raze everything. No mercy. No limits. Nothing but blood and ruin.
And I saw it.
Everyone else just thought he was cold. Detached. A stone-faced, unflinching killer. Even Zane thought that. But I knew better, and Seri was starting to.
Casimir wasn’t a stone. He was leashed annihilation. And the only thing keeping that creature from leveling the world was his sheer, unbelievable willpower.
But someday?
Someday, I knew, that leash would snap.
“Hurt?” Cas finally spoke, his voice low and sandpaper-rough.
I blinked hard, shaking the horror off me like water.
Me, I realized. He’s asking about me.
“A bit.” I swallowed thickly. “They’ll heal in a few minutes. You know that.”
His black eyes didn’t change. His knuckles flexed. Then he exhaled. His fingers uncurled, then curled again in a movement that looked painful, like his hand didn’t understand it was supposed to let go. Like he was one inch from snapping a neck.
“Finished her?” His voice was a corpse-rattle.
“Yeah. Need to burn the pieces. I made ’em small enough to fit in the crucible. We need to install an incinerator.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t even breathe.
The thing inside him just coiled.
“She didn’t touch Seri,” I added quickly, like that would stop it. “Didn’t touch Zane, either. They’re both safe, and they’re both going to be fine.”
He nodded once, then turned like he was just going to walk out. Like nothing had happened. Like there wasn’t a tidal wave of slaughter clawing at the inside of his chest.
I panicked.
“Cas.”
He didn’t stop.
“Brother.”
Still walking.
“Casimir!” I lurched forward and grabbed his arm. “Where are you going?”
He turned. Looked at me. And his voice came out hollow.
“To find the rest of the Harrows.”
“No—”
“Why not?” His voice was dead. No inflection. No rise or fall. Like the body in front of me was just a vessel now, and the thing inside it didn’t care about pretending anymore. “They threatened what was mine. They hurt my beloved. They hurt my brothers.”
“We talked about this. Cutting the head off the snake only ends the immediate threat. We need to find out how deep the roots are. Besides, one of them is dead now—”
“One is not enough.”
My heart was pounding so hard, I could feel it in my throat, my fingers trembling where they gripped his arm. I didn’t know if I was trying to stop him or hold him together.
“Cas.” My voice broke. “Don’t. They’ll want you here when they wake up. Our brother. Our beloved. They’ll want you.”
His throat worked. For one agonizing second, I saw it, the leash fraying. Unraveling. One tug away from disintegrating entirely.
And for half a second, I thought, This is it. This is the day our brother breaks.
And then, impossibly he closed his eyes.
And slowly, so slowly, the leash tightened again.
“I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.”
Each ‘I won’t’ sounded like it was being ripped out of him, like the words were barbed and tearing him apart on their way out.
“Cas?”
“I won’t.”
His eyes were still black when he opened them. His hands still trembled. His chest still heaved. But he willed that thing down. Forced it back into its cage, even when it was howling to get free.
The air in the room shifted, the pressure easing just enough to let me breathe again. But the cold didn’t leave. It clung to him like a second skin, a reminder of what he carried.
“Hurt,” Cas hissed as he grabbed one of my hands again. “All hurt. Seri. Zane. You. Because I didn’t— I wasn’t—”
Ah. So that’s what stirred up his inner beast.
Casimir wasn’t afraid of killing. Wasn’t afraid of dying. Wasn’t even afraid of the monster inside him. He was afraid of being too late. Just once. One moment of hesitation, one misstep, one second too slow, and he’d lose everything. Me. Zane. Seri. Even Brummy.
That fear, that bone-deep, unrelenting terror, was the leash. Was what held the true monster back. Was what kept him from becoming the end of the fang-rotted world.
“Casimir,” I murmured. “Come back.”
He tightened his fingers, and little zips of lightning danced over our joined hands. It wasn’t painful, but his hold was unyielding, like he was clinging to something that was slipping away.
“She’s safe,” I all but crooned. “Zane’s safe. I’m safe. You’re safe.”
His nostrils flared like a caged animal’s, and the darkness in his eyes churned.
“You weren’t too late. You never have been.
” I swallowed, softening my tone as the muscle in his cheek jumped and his fingers flexed against mine.
“And you don’t have to carry everything all alone.
Zane and I are big boys now. We make our own choices, and we choose to stand by your side. Always have, always will.”
For a second, I thought he wouldn’t hear me. That the void in his eyes would swallow him whole. Then his grip loosened, his shoulders dropped a half inch, and the black in his eyes finally faded.
“There you are,” I exhaled. “Welcome back.”
“Koa?” He swallowed hard, fixed his gaze on the wall behind me.
“I’m here.”
“Koa?”
“Still here.”
“Don’t let me…”
“Never,” I vowed when he trailed off. “Me and Zane and Seri, we got you, brother. Now and forever, we’re right here with you.”