Cassius (The Wildflower Series Book 3)

by Rachelle Mills

  Blinking.

  Blinking back tears because Cassius looks the way the sun does, all shiny and warmth. He’s radiating. Biting my inner cheek, forcing an exhale, forcing an inhale. Forcing a smile that shakes raw from the way I’m melting to the bones.

  Cassius’s head raises, meeting his father’s eyes first, then his mother’s. He lets them fall on number one, two, four, and five. Rya is next. I wait for my turn. It doesn’t come. He doesn’t let our eyes meet. I sink in my chair as the glasses fall from my face before I have time to catch them. They land underneath the table, but no one really pays attention to the noise. It’s Cassius they are focused on.

  Half-blind half tear-filled eyes search for the glasses with fingertips that are stretched out wide, covering as much space as quickly as I can.

  “Who is she?” Luna Grace starts to unravel the process of who she is.

  “A female that can be claimed. She’s one of the females from last night I was introduced to.” He says with this calmness that makes my heart bash up against the inside of my chest.

  Let the unraveling begin.

  “Which one?” Carson asks. His voice isn’t strong enough to compete with the blood rushing through my ears.

  I sit back up on the chair, not meeting anyone’s eyes. I can’t look at how happy everyone is.

  “Her name’s Hazel.” There is a surrender of reverence the name brings out from Cassius’s mouth. To me, it’s a common name. I hope deep down she’s ordinary.

  “That’s a pretty name,” Rya says, and I flinch, open-mouthed. No sound comes out, and for once, I am thankful for the silence.

  “Hazel is with Tommie’s pack.” Carson shows why you can always count on him knowing useless things.

  “You know where she lives?” Cassius perks up. Everything is now focused on his brother.

  “Yes, not far from here. A few hours away.” Carson’s knee is shaking. I can feel the vibrations through the floor. It competes with my own shake.

  “I want an unofficial meeting with her.” He speaks calmly, and I have my heart inside my throat with randomness that makes me feel dizzy and sweaty.

  “I’ll make some phone calls.” The Luna straightens out her shoulders.

  “I want to meet up with her later today if possible.”

  The Luna laughs. “No Luna will let that happen. I’ll ask, but I think she will make you sit for a while. I’ll let you know what she says. Rya, do you want to make the call or do you want me?”

  A pause.

  “I’ll make the call for Cash.” Rya smiles through her words to her best friend.

  “I could make the call,” Cassius casually says.

  The Luna and Rya both say, “No,” at the same time.

  “How serious is this, Cash?” Dallas asks while looking at his hair.

  “I want to see her again, unofficially.” Cassius rubs at his beard.

  “Tell us about her? What was it that made you interested?” his mother asks.

  He swallows the pause as his fingers flex away from the fist he was making.

  “Her eyes, they caught me off guard.”

  “Anything else?” His mother pursues more of an answer from her son.

  “She’s beautiful and looks like Kennedy in a way. She reminds me of Kennedy.”

  My ass presses harder into the chair.

  “Hazel is an asshole, or at least that’s what Tommie says, and Tommie likes everyone,” Carson speaks up.

  “Why would she be an asshole?” The Luna seems invested in the answer.

  “I’m not sure. He just said she was an asshole and likes to take shit that doesn’t belong to her. I didn’t ask for details.” Carson’s hand goes over his shaved head; his neck has a red flush to it. I feel like he’s sweating out all the beer he had last night.

  I feel lighter now. He won’t let an asshole around his twins.

  “I mean, she’s pretty straightforward. Nothing wrong with that.” Cassius’s voice interrupts the triumph that my heart was feeling for a second.

  A bell rings from the playroom in the basement.

  “That’s my ten o’clock appointment,” Caleb announces while looking at his watch. I follow Caleb out of the room because I’m not sure the beat of my heart can take anymore without it failing in my chest.

  “Treajure, don’t get too close to my ass. I’m still healing from the last time you shanked me.” He makes a stabbing motion with his wrist, he gets it wrong, but I don’t say anything about that. I hold my spot while he walks down the stairs backward, looking me in the eyes the entire time.

  “It was a flesh wound. Stop being dramatic, number two,” Crane, the pussy smasher, taunts. He laughs to himself, and Caleb will get him, he always does, but Crane doesn’t care. He likes the battles they embark on. One day I really think Crane thinks he can one-up Caleb. I put my faith in Caleb, not Crane. He’s too young for the way Caleb can play.

  A pink child’s chair is in the center of the playroom. Caleb is singing at the front desk of Dee’s salon. She has everything out to do hair and nails. No red allowed. Caleb had a fit when he saw it was one of the colors she had. He threw a tantrum that even Chance would be envious of.

  He yelled into Cassius’s face that Dee will not be wearing red until she’s twenty-five. Cassius agreed and threw out the color.

  Dee looks over the sign-in sheet meticulously. She looks up at Caleb, then back at the sheet, taps the pen to paper.

  “Uncle Caleb.” She looks around at the pretend crowd, and he raises his hand.

  “Please take a seat.” Dee instructs him where to sit and proceeds to take his hair out of the bun, letting it fall to his shoulders.

  “What are we doing today?” She’s got the ends of his hair between her fingers, giving a shake of her head, not liking what she’s seeing. Real scissors are in her other hand because her uncle doesn’t care if the ends are a little uneven. He makes it work on him.

  “I was thinking a trim, and I need my nails done.” He looks at his bare nails; the polish already has worn off. She grabs a hand, inspects each nail, then the other one.

  “You’re a mess.” He agrees with her.

  She snips and snips, too much from the right, not enough from the left, but to her, it’s a masterpiece that her uncle praises. Nails are next, a light pink that bleeds into the skin surrounding his cuticles. She takes her time, he is patient, and before long he’s all done and it’s my turn.

  “Perfect.” Her voice is excited. She is getting better and better with each appointment.

  “That will be twenty dollars.” She holds out her hand, and Caleb puts a fake twenty in it with tip. I’ve signed in as well, and Dee looks over her list before calling my name, “Specs.”

  The rest of the morning is spent in the salon, while Chance and Ken play with their toys. They refuse to sit for hair or nails.

  Our games switch from salon to school to making a spaceship out of the box the new fridge came in. We draw windows and buttons on the inside so we can blast off into space after we eat our lunch inside it.

  One by one they each lay down, sleepy-eyed, before I curl up beside them at the entrance. Afternoon naps at their best.

  When I come out from the cardboard box, Cassius is sitting on the bottom step. I’m not sure how long he’s been there. He closes his sketchbook and holds it in his hand. His hair is pulled into a bun, and he’s taken a shower and trimmed his beard. He’s got on a few shirts that stretch slightly across his chest. Clean jeans, not joggers. He even is wearing socks. He’s still wearing his layers, but something is different. I notice immediately.

  “I’m going out this afternoon.” His words bubble up like champagne in a flute on New Year’s Eve when everyone cheers to a better New Year. I never thought while raising my glass this year that this would be his year.

  Raising my head quickly, I push the glasses up the bridge of my nose.

  “Uncle Caleb is taking all of you to his house.” The way Cassius talks, this makes me feel incl
uded. I’m not his child.

  The pups squeal. Before racing up the stairs, he grabs each one of them, nudging his cheek against theirs.

  “I’ll be back tonight,” he affirms when he turns to walk up the stairs. I get the view of material shifting with the way the muscles on his back flex and relax.

  Rya and Dallas are there, along with Carson. Cara and Cottom are also standing at the door. Cottom presses himself against the wall as Caleb goes by; he looks the same way he looked the first time Caleb entered Belac’s house. He held the scent of Belac’s spread legs on his mouth, and she held Cottom’s smell down her throat. Wary, alert, ready to run really fast because Caleb’s claws were out and so were all his teeth before Belac had to get hers out to channel Caleb away from Cottom’s neck.

  If I close my eyes, I can still hear Belac telling Caleb how he ruined her life when they first met. That everything she has built is for nothing because it’s expected for her to be marked and taken away by him. The hatred I heard from her was always reserved for her brother, never anyone else. It’s the first time I ever saw her cry. Caleb had no idea what to do when she started crying. He opened up his arms, and Belac told him to go away, for now. She cried all night long; I was the one to hold her for the very first time. I held her until she fell asleep. She woke up assigned to her fate, shoulders bent, not the leader she was the day before. When her brother told her what was going to happen she spit in his face, and they fought. It’s not the first fight I witnessed between them, but I felt as if it would be their very last.

  “I wanted to do this myself.” Cassius’s voice pulls me out of those memories.

  “We want to come, plus Cara and Cottom didn’t go to the party last night. The Luna was excited for all of us to come as soon as possible. She has a beta that has been rejected by his mate, and her son lost his mate a few years ago. There are two available females there as well.” Rya points all the reasons that all of them should go, and Cassius relents with a nod of his head.

  “I’m ready. Are you guys?” Dallas is letting the pups go out the front door first with their suitcases on wheels. Caleb nudges the shoulder of Cottom before going out the door. Cottom does not move. Not even blink. He lets the male go by him. Never provoke Caleb.

  Cottom found out the hard way when he tried to joke about the situation between them. Caleb wasn’t laughing. He’s no jester.

  Caleb destroyed Cottom’s face. Dallas had to pull him off the male who couldn’t get off the ground after the altercation. Currently, they are trying to find Cottom a new pack to go to. Clayton’s pack seems like the perfect fit, but Caleb visits that pack a lot.

  Cottom doesn’t want to leave until Belac comes back, but I’m afraid for him if he stays. The violence is escalating. He wants to say his goodbyes to our leader of the Wildflower gang, as Rya likes to call her. To her, we are Wildflowers.

  Everyone makes it outside; Caleb is holding onto Dee’s hand while trying to keep the two small males out of the front ditch. He turns toward me. “Aren’t you coming?” I shake my head no and open up the passenger side door to Cassius’s truck.

  “You’re coming?” Cassius frowns.

  I nod my head, looking straight ahead while clicking my seatbelt.

  “You shouldn’t come, Specs.” His hand squeezes into a fist. I want to ask him why, but the armor of my teeth keeps everything inside; nothing is able to escape through the small gaps between enamel.

  The drive is quiet. He doesn’t talk over the radio like he always does when it’s him and me inside of here.

  I watch the way his fingers grip the steering wheel, flexing his hands at times. He actually checks his face in the mirror, and I want to tell him he’s beautiful. The words stick like thick syrup in my throat. It’s hard to swallow.

  Letter 3

  Cash,

  Dallas is back without Rya and I can’t help but feel relief for Clayton.

  I hope Clayton is happy. I hope Rya can forgive him. After all, she forgave me in her own way, didn’t she?

  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous. I am. I am so jealous it’s hard to breathe. I hate her most of the time. I hate her so much my gut hurts. When I found out Rya was Clayton’s mate, I wasn’t that jealous of her. She wasn’t anything I should be jealous of and Clayton didn’t really seem affected too much by the bond.

  We were cruel to her, we were cruel, and looking back, cruelty isn’t what love should be.

  My jealousy grew over the years, as she grew. We didn’t see her a lot, but when we did, I would watch Clayton and see if he was affected by her. Sometimes I would catch him staring at her. I’d catch how more and more his eyes couldn’t look away from her. Then she went away and I prayed she’d stay away.

  Every time Clayton tried to mark me, my hatred for Rya grew. The mark never stayed, and after some time, it hurt to be bitten by him. It hurt so bad that I had to tell him he couldn’t try to mark me because I couldn’t take the pain from his bite. When your teeth sunk into my neck, I thought I actually could die from pleasure; it was so intense that I came. You felt me come with your teeth dug deep. Your mark stayed and I fucking hated you for it, but deep down, I wanted you to do it again and again so I could pretend it was Clayton that was doing it to me.

  I hated Rya when my heat came. Clayton couldn’t get me pregnant. We would pray to the Moon together to give us a miracle at first, then we would curse the Moon for her selfishness. Clayton and I could have made a beautiful family.

  I’m looking down at my belly right now, watching the twins move inside me, and sometimes I pretend they are Clayton’s, and you are just a dream, a terrible dream.

  You thought things would change when I became pregnant, that I’d come around. The look on your face when you found out I tried to get rid of them. All I ever wanted was to be a mother, and here I was trying my best to kill what was inside me. You took the silver hook from my hand and I honestly thought you would put it through my throat. I begged you to do it.

  I knew that changed you. I knew seeing me with my legs spread and the blood on my hands that it changed you. If I ever hoped of being loved by you, it vanished that day. I don’t blame you for everything that happened after that. I blame myself more.

  The way you screamed at me, it shook my wall I built to combat you, the bond, everything. Your finger pointed at me and you yelled, that all I wanted for the longest time was to be a mother. Then I screamed back, that you were right, I wanted to be a mother but not to your pup. I told you that the pup would come out weak just like you. I told you I could never love something so weak and small. I told you that you could never measure up to Clayton. You let me slap you that day. You let me hit you over and over again until I fell down. I think I bit you, and you didn’t hit me back, you went quiet, and I think that was the scariest I ever saw you. Something inside you broke that day. I felt the snap.

  You shaved your head, and I wanted to die.

  That scene always plays out in my mind. If you didn’t come at that time, I think I would have succeeded in killing them. I don’t think I would have ever been able to forgive myself if I did that.

  I apologize for saying all those terrible things to you. They won’t be weak because they came from you. I was angry. Anger drives you to say things you don’t mean. Not an excuse. I shouldn’t be excused for what I have said to you. I just want you to know I’m sorry.

  Sometimes I think my love made me become this monster willing to kill anything that stood in my love’s way—even my own children.

  I’m sick. I feel sick that I could even go there, to try and kill my pups because they came from you and not him.

  When you read this letter, burn it. Never let the twins see this because it would fuck their minds up if they knew their mother wanted to kill them. They would be fucked up for the rest of their lives if they knew I tried to get rid of them. Tell them their mother always wanted them and that I love them.

  Kennedy

  Chapter 4

  Peach Bruises
Form after the Study in Scarlet

  It feels as if I’ve started to bleed internally when the truck stops.

  “Are you all right, Specs?” The palm of his hand cups the back of my head to trail fingers down my neck to rest on my shoulder. I feel the weight of it. Heavy, warm, tender.

  I want to say, “Look at me, I’m right here,” but I can’t say it because he’s staring right at me.

  He frowns, clearing his throat.

  “Have a drink of water.” He twists off the cap, handing me the bottle. It’s hard to drink, even harder to swallow. I choke, and he rubs my back in small circles with his fingertips.

  “Don’t be nervous; I’m right here. Nothing is going to hurt you in there. Nothing. The evil queen can’t get you when you have your knight by your side.” He brings his made-up fairytale story between us as he searches my face. Cassius gives me a crooked smile, and I have no choice but to follow his lead and give him mine back.

  It ends with him getting out of the truck and me closing my door. I follow behind him, watching the nerves knot along his spine. Even his breathing is changed, and he wipes his hands on his jeans. He never gets nervous. Never.

  It starts with me pressing the flat part of my palm between the shoulder blades of his back, trying to ease the tension. He leans his spine into the touch. I wasn’t prepared for that.

  “Thanks, Specs.” The smile he gives me curves at the edge of his mouth, and I want to curve myself sideways just watching that face.

  Dallas’s knock on the door draws the smile away from Cassius. Rya is holding a jar of honey that she gives as gifts to the packs she visits. They are from the wildflower garden she planted in a barren spot that was hard to grow anything in the territory. Now it’s full of life and the best honey is made from it. The farm even makes wildflower soap now.

  Cassius takes a long breath and fixes his face straight.