Chapter 24
Cassian
When Hollis called me in, I took a moment to center myself before standing.
This was it. The final bond that would complete our pack.
The moment I’d been both longing for and dreading because what if I wasn’t good enough?
What if my lack of experience with healthy relationships meant I failed her when she needed me most?
I’d spent my entire life planning, analyzing, strategizing. Every decision calculated for optimal outcome. Every relationship transactional. Every interaction managed with rigid self-control that kept emotions at bay where they couldn’t be used against me.
But Talia gave me the chance to stop being so controlled. To feel with her instead of just thinking. And that terrified me more than anything else we’d faced.
Still, I’d made lists. I’d prepared. I’d coordinated with Jace and Hollis until we functioned as a seamless unit. And more importantly, I’d learned over these past months to trust that Talia wanted me despite my flaws, not because I’d somehow convinced her to overlook them.
I stood and walked to the bedroom, pausing in the doorway to take in the sight before me.
Talia lay in her nest, skin flushed pink with heat, a fine sheen of sweat making her glow in the dim light.
Two fresh bite marks adorned her neck, one on each side, already beginning to heal but unmistakably present.
Claimed by Jace and Hollis, but not yet by me.
Her scent called to me with physical force, vanilla and honey mixed with arousal and slick and the musk of two other alphas who’d already bonded her.
Mine. She needed to be mine too.
The alpha instinct was overwhelming, demanding I claim her immediately, mark her as mine before anyone else could. But I breathed through it, used every technique I’d learned over thirty-five years of rigid self-control to stay centered.
“Hey,” I said, settling in the chair I’d pulled close to the nest earlier. Not crowding her, not rushing, even though every instinct screamed at me to climb into that nest and take what was mine.
“Hey.” She reached out her hand, and I took it, marveling at how small and delicate her fingers felt wrapped in mine. Through her skin I could feel her pulse racing, could sense her heat building. “Thank you for waiting. For being patient while I was with the others.”
“I’d wait forever if that’s what you needed.” I brought her hand to my lips, kissing her knuckles with deliberate gentleness. Testing my control, proving to myself I could be careful with her. “How are you feeling?”
“Good. Really good.” She smiled, and the expression transformed her face from beautiful to radiant. “Jace and Hollis were amazing. But I need you too, Cassian. I need all three of you to feel complete.”
The words settled something deep in my chest, filling a hollow space I’d carried for so long I’d stopped noticing the ache. She needed me. Not my resources or my help with the bistro or my strategic planning. Me. Just me, exactly as I was.
“Tell me what you want,” I said, thumb stroking over her palm in slow circles. “We can do this however you need. Whatever would make you feel safest, most cared for.”
She pulled at my hand, tugging me toward the nest. “I want you close. I want to feel you.”
I kicked off my shoes and climbed into the nest, settling beside her but not yet touching beyond our joined hands. Hollis had left the room to give us privacy, and it was just the two of us now.
“I want you,” Talia said, reaching up to touch my face with her free hand. Her fingers traced my jaw, my cheekbone, the line of my nose. Learning my features through touch. “But I need you to stop being so controlled and careful and just feel with me.”
The request hit me harder than any physical blow could have.
She was asking me to let go of the rigid self-discipline that had gotten me through childhood with my family, through business school, through building a life in opposition to everything I’d been raised to become.
She was asking me to trust that emotions weren’t weaknesses to be managed but experiences to be shared.
“I don’t know if I know how,” I admitted, voice rougher than I’d intended. Vulnerability felt like standing naked in a spotlight. “I’ve spent so long keeping everything locked down, managed, controlled. It’s how I survived my family. How I function.”
“Then let me help you.” She started unbuttoning my shirt, her movements slow and deliberate. Not hesitant, but savoring. Like unwrapping something precious. “Let me in, Cassian. All the way in. Trust me enough to lose control.”
I let her undress me, piece by piece, until I sat naked beside her in the nest. More vulnerable than I’d been with anyone in my life. No armor, no defenses, no careful presentation of the self I wanted people to see. Just me, flawed and uncertain and desperate to be enough for her.
She ran her hands over my chest, following the planes of muscle. Down my arms, tracing veins and tendons. Across my stomach where it tensed under her touch. Exploring me like I was a map she was learning to read.
“You’re beautiful,” she said. “And you’re mine. Let yourself be mine, Cassian. Stop thinking and just feel.”
Something cracked in my chest, thirty-five years of careful control fracturing under the weight of being wanted exactly as I was.
I pulled her close and kissed her hard, pouring everything I couldn’t say into the contact.
Need and fear and desperate hope that I could be enough for her.
That letting go wouldn’t mean losing myself but finding something better.
She met my intensity with her own, hands tangling in my hair, body pressing against mine with desperate urgency. The kiss was consuming, all-encompassing, nothing gentle or patient about it. This was raw need colliding, two people choosing each other despite every reason they shouldn’t work.
Her heat pressed against me, the scent of her arousal mixed with slick making my head spin. I could feel myself hardening, my cock pressing insistently against her stomach. The urge to flip her over and take her was almost overwhelming.
“I need you inside me,” she gasped when we broke apart for air. Her pupils were blown wide, lips swollen from kissing. “Now, Cassian. No more waiting, no more being careful. I need you.”
“Are you sure?” I positioned myself between her legs, my cock already hard and aching at her entrance. The scent of her slick made my mouth water. “I’m not gentle like Jace. Not patient like Hollis. I don’t know if I can be what you need. I don’t know if I can control myself the way they did.”
“You’re exactly what I need.” She wrapped her legs around my waist, heels digging into my lower back. Pulling me closer, demanding I give her what she wanted. “Stop thinking and just feel. Stop controlling and just be with me.”
I thrust into her in one smooth, powerful stroke, both of us crying out at the sensation. She was hot and slick and perfect, her body still stretched from Jace and Hollis but gripping me like she’d been made for this. Made for me.
I didn’t start slow. Couldn’t. My control had finally shattered under the weight of her permission to let go, and I took her with all the pent-up intensity I’d been holding back for months.
Deep, powerful thrusts that made the bed frame creak.
She met every movement, nails raking down my back hard enough to leave marks, teeth catching on my shoulder with enough pressure to bruise.
“Yes.” She arched beneath me, taking me deeper. “Like that, Cassian. Don’t hold back. Give me everything.”
So I did. I gave her everything I’d been keeping locked away. All the passion and possessiveness and desperate need I’d been trying to contain behind walls of self-discipline. Every thrust said mine, every kiss claimed, every touch branded her as belonging to me.
“You’re mine,” I growled against her neck, one hand fisting in her hair to angle her head back. Not hurting her, but controlling the angle, the access. “Mine, Talia. Say it.”
“Yours.” She tightened her legs around me, pulling me impossibly deeper. “I’m yours, Cassian. All three of you. Pack.”
The word sent a surge of possessive satisfaction through me so intense it was almost painful. Pack. She was choosing pack, choosing us, choosing this complicated messy beautiful thing we were building together. Not despite our differences but because of them.
I could feel my orgasm building, pressure coiling at the base of my spine. My knot was starting to swell, preparing to lock us together. But I needed her to come first, needed to know I’d given her pleasure and not just taken my own. Needed proof that losing control didn’t mean hurting her.
My hand slid between our bodies, fingers finding her clit.
She was swollen and sensitive there, and even the lightest touch made her gasp and clench around my cock.
I rubbed in firm, deliberate circles while maintaining my brutal pace, watching her face for signs that I was giving her what she needed.
“Come for me,” I demanded, voice rough with need and the effort of holding my own orgasm back. “Let me feel you come on my cock, Talia. Show me I’m giving you what you need.”
“Cassian.” My name was a desperate cry as her orgasm hit, her inner walls clamping down on me in rhythmic pulses. The sensation was overwhelming, her body gripping me so tightly I could barely move. “Oh god, Cassian.”
I felt my knot lock us together as my own release crashed through me, pleasure so intense it bordered on painful. In that moment, with my knot seated fully and ecstasy overwhelming my senses, instinct took over completely.
I bit down on the front of her throat.
Not the sides where Jace and Hollis had claimed her, but the front. The most vulnerable placement possible, the spot that required absolute trust. The place where one wrong movement could cause real harm. The ultimate show of trust that she would let me claim her there.