Claimed In The Shadows

Dravina POV

When Cassian was finally finished, I lay still too broken to move, too hollow to cry. My body throbbed with pain, and my spirit felt torn beyond repair.

As if on cue, he shifted slipping from monster to caretaker with the ease of someone who had done it far too many times. He gathered me in his arms, holding me delicately, like I was something fragile... something cherished.

The same hands that had inflicted the pain now cradled me with unnerving gentleness. He carried me to the bathroom in silence, and I didn't resist. I couldn't.

He lowered me onto the edge of the tub, careful now, as if that would somehow undo what had already been done.

Steam rose from the bath, curling into the air like smoke, but I didn't feel its heat.

The water touched my skin, but I remained cold numb in a way that ran deeper than flesh.

Cold and disgusted. Not just with him but with myself.

"You can't keep provoking me like this, Dravina," he murmured, voice low and syrupy, as though he were soothing a frightened child.

His hands glided a sponge over my bruised skin with unsettling tenderness. Each stroke made my stomach turn.

"Look what you made me do."

The blame slipped from his lips like a lover's sigh, sinking heavy into my gut. I clenched my jaw, holding the scream that wanted to rip through me. I couldn't let it show couldn't give him any reason to reignite the storm.

Cassian's rage had no mercy, and silence was my only shield.

I sat stiff in the bath, every muscle locked tight, unmoved by his false comfort.

"It's been six years," he said, voice cracking like he was the one bearing the pain. "Six years, and you still drive me mad."

He paused, and when I looked up, his face had crumpled. Tears rolled down his cheeks, carving familiar paths I'd seen too many times.

They meant nothing. They never had.

We had been here before again and again. Rage. Remorse. Promises that unraveled like smoke.

"Please... don't make me kill you," he whispered, the words trembling with what might have been fear. "Don't make me do it."

His voice, hoarse and uneven, sent a chill lacing through my spine. But I didn't speak. There was nothing left to say.

I had heard every version of this before his apologies, his regret, his declarations of love twisted with poison.

Each one had been a thread in the noose tightening around my throat.

"I hate hurting you," he said, his voice breaking as he brushed a strand of wet hair from my face.

To anyone else, the gesture might have looked tender. But I knew better.

It was just another form of control. Another performance.

"Can't you see it's killing me?"

I met his gaze, but there was nothing left in me to give. No sympathy. No sorrow. Just the cold, festering hatred I carried for the man who had turned my life into a cage and called it devotion.

"Are you planning to leave me?" he asked, voice trembling but not with grief. With warning.

I shook my head quickly, pulse hammering in my ears. The wrong answer would be dangerous.

His hand reached up again, stroking my hair in a grotesque imitation of affection. It made my skin crawl.

"Don't be like my mother, Dravina," he whispered, each word laced with poison. "She ruined everything. Ruined my father. I won't live that life again. Don't make me."

His voice cracked with desperation, but it wasn't the kind that drew pity. It was the kind that set alarm bells ringing deep in my chest. His sobs weren't new they were the aftermath of destruction. The performance that always followed the punishment.

"I'm a monster," he breathed, pulling me into his arms like a vice. The embrace was suffocating, his grip too tight. I stayed stiff, unmoving, trapped.

Did he want forgiveness? Submission? Silence?

I had nothing left to give.

Every bone in my body ached. Every bruise screamed. But it was the ache inside the hollow, splintered part of me that hurt the most.

He sobbed into my shoulder, begging me not to ruin him. Begging me not to destroy him.

But who would fix me? Who would hold me as I crumbled?

His tears were not for me. They were for the illusion of control he felt slipping through his fingers. They were for the pride he mistook for love. They were for himself.

They always had been.

That night, I lay awake in bed, the sheets twisted around my limbs like chains. Sleep felt like a distant fantasy.

Blue my wolf paced within me, restless, uneasy. Her presence stirred something deep, something we both feared to name.

She knew the truth. So did I.

If we stayed, it would kill us.

Cassian's love wasn't love. It was possession. It was fire without control, fury without limits. It was madness masquerading as devotion.

One day, his jealousy would consume him completely.

And when it did, there would be no one left to save us.