Chapter 10: Claimed by Pack
The silence after the shockwave was a physical thing, a weight pressing on Cassie’s eardrums. The only light came from the dying blue flames and the faint, witchfire glow still emanating from her own skin. She looked from her glowing hands to Brook’s unconscious form sprawled against the wall, a dark streak of blood smeared from his wrist to his elbow. Aiden was already moving, a shadow detaching itself from the fallen bookshelf with predatory grace.
“What the fuck did you do?” His voice was low, a gravelly tremor of controlled rage.
“I don’t know.” Cassie’s own voice sounded alien, layered with a resonance that wasn’t hers. The thorn in her chest throbbed, cold and pleased. The chaotic energy was settling, but it had left a strange, metallic taste in her mouth and a buzzing agitation in her limbs. She felt overfull, crackling, dangerous.
Aiden reached Brook first, kneeling beside him, fingers going to his throat. “Pulse is thready. You didn’t just take blood, Cassie. You siphoned his magic. You could have killed him.” He glared up at her, his amber eyes reflecting the witchfire glow. “Get over here. Your saliva. It’ll help seal the wound.”
Cassie stumbled forward, the world tilting slightly. The feed had been too much, too wild. She knelt on Brook’s other side, the stone cold against her knees. His wrist was a mess, the puncture wounds deeper than they should have been, the flesh angry and inflamed. A witch’s blood was potent; a witch’s wound inflicted by a thing like her was something else entirely.
She bent her head, pressing her tongue to the ragged tears. Her saliva had clotting, healing properties—a vampire’s physiological apology. As she licked the wound clean, she tasted it again: his blood, but also the foreign, sparking signature of his stolen power now circulating within her, braiding with the Queen’s dark gift and her own latent magic. It was a volatile cocktail.
Brook gasped, his eyes flying open. They were glazed, unfocused for a second, then sharpened on her face hovering over his arm. “Christ on a cracker,” he slurred, his usual flamboyance stripped away by weakness. “That was… aggressively personal.”
“I’m sorry,” Cassie whispered, the words feeling inadequate.
“Don’t be.” He tried to sit up, winced. “Told you to take what you needed. Didn’t expect you to take the kitchen sink too.” He looked at his wrist, where the flesh was already knitting under the influence of her saliva, leaving shiny pink scars. “Well, that’s a new party trick. My magic feels… thin.”
“It’s inside me,” Cassie admitted, sitting back on her heels. Her glow was fading. “I can feel it. I don’t know how to give it back.”
“You don’t.” Aiden stood, his body a tense line blocking the firelight. “That’s not how it works. It’s in the soil now.” He stared at Cassie, his expression unreadable. “You need to get control. Before you really hurt someone.”
“I’m trying,” she shot back, the buzzing agitation sharpening into anger. “You think I wanted this? Any of this? I’m a fucking chemistry set gone wrong.”
“Yeah, and we’re standing in the splash zone.” Aiden ran a hand through his hair. “We need to ground you. Burn off some of that energy before it boils over again.”
Brook pushed himself up fully, leaning against the wall. His color was returning. “He’s not wrong, darling. That little tantrum nearly brought the roof down. Your aura is… sparking. It’s like static cling on a cosmic level.” A sly, weakened smile touched his lips. “And we all know the best way to burn energy.”
Aiden’s gaze snapped to Brook, a warning growl forming in his chest. “Not now.”
“Why not?” Brook challenged, his voice gaining strength. “Look at her. She’s vibrating. She’s full of my magic, your blood, and whatever else that demon queen put in her petri dish. Sex is a release. A conduit. It’s alchemy 101. Or,” he added, his eyes flicking to Aiden, “are you too pissed to get your dick wet?”
The air in the vault thickened. Cassie felt the challenge hang between them, felt the thorn in her chest pulse with a sudden, icy interest. The buzzing energy inside her coiled, redirecting, focusing into a sharp, desperate need. The memory of the Queen’s violation was a dark stain, but it had also unlocked a hunger that was more than just for blood. It was for sensation, for dominion, for losing the terrifying new shape of herself in pure, animal feeling.
Her green eyes lifted to Aiden. “He’s right.”
Those two words, cold and simple, seemed to cut through Aiden’s anger. He looked at her, really looked. He saw the fear she was cloaking in defiance, the wild energy shimmering just beneath her skin. He saw his Cassie, but also the creature she was becoming. The protector in him warred with the predator. The predator won.
Without a word, he closed the distance between them. His hand, rough and warm, cupped the back of her neck, pulling her up to meet him. His kiss wasn’t gentle. It was a claim, a battle. She met it with equal ferocity, biting his lip, tasting his familiar earthy warmth. The buzzing energy in her veins sang, reaching for him.
Brook watched, his breathing slightly ragged. “See? Alchemy.”
Aiden broke the kiss, his lips smeared with her sharp saliva. His eyes were fully wolf-amber now. “You stay,” he ordered Brook, his voice thick. “You grounded her magic once. You’ll do it again.”
Cassie didn’t wait. She pushed Aiden back towards the larger divan, her hands fumbling with the buckle of his belt. The clumsy need in her动作 was a far cry from the Queen’s cruel precision. This was hunger, pure and simple. She got his jeans open, freed his cock. It was already fully hard, thick and heavy in her hand. The sight of it, so familiarly him, sent a jolt of pure lust through her.
“Fuck me,” she demanded, her voice guttural. “Now. Before I explode.”
She didn’t wait for him to maneuver her. She turned, bending over the back of the divan, presenting herself to him. Her leggings were already torn from earlier. She shoved them down her thighs, along with her panties. The cool air of the vault hit her wet skin. She was already dripping.
Aiden didn’t need further invitation. One large, warm hand spanned the small of her back, holding her in place. The other guided himself to her entrance. He pushed into her with one long, brutal stroke.
Cassie cried out, her hands gripping the worn velvet of the divan. He filled her completely, a stretching, burning ache that was the perfect counterpoint to the chaotic energy scrambling inside her skull. This was real. This was anchor. He withdrew almost all the way, then drove back in, setting a punishing rhythm that shook her whole body.
“Yes,” she hissed, pushing back against him, meeting each thrust. “Like that. Don’t you fucking stop.”
From the floor, Brook watched, his own breath coming faster. He saw the way Cassie’s body absorbed the impact, the way her back arched, the red hair falling like a curtain over her face. He saw the raw power in Aiden’s movements, the possessive fury. And he saw the magic. It crackled around them now, a faint, visible haze of gold and violet energy that sparked where their bodies joined. Cassie was conducting it, shunting the overload out through the violent physical connection.
“It’s working,” Brook murmured, more to himself. He could feel the tautness in the air lessening, the wild magic being funneled into a single, earth-shaking circuit.
Aiden leaned over her, his chest pressing against her back, his mouth at her ear. “This what you need, Cassie?” he growled, his thrusts becoming deeper, harder. “You need to be fucked back into your body?”
“Yes,” she sobbed, the word breaking on a sharp cry as he hit a spot that sent lightning up her spine. The pleasure was a white-hot wire, melting the cold knot of the thorn, grounding the stolen magic. She was nothing but sensation: the slap of his skin against hers, the brutal fullness, the coarse fabric of the divan under her cheek.
Then she felt another presence. Brook had moved. He was in front of her now, kneeling on the floor. His hands, cool and slender, framed her face. His eyes, usually so full of levity, were dark, serious.
“Look at me,” he said, his voice steady.
Cassie’s glazed eyes focused on his. Aiden’s thrusts continued, a relentless piston driving her forward. Brook held her gaze.
“You took my magic,” Brook said, his thumbs stroking her cheeks. “Now use it. Channel it. Don’t let it chew you up from the inside. Feed it into this.”
He leaned in and kissed her. It was not a lover’s kiss. It was a transfer. As his lips met hers, she felt a surge pass between them—not him giving, but her releasing. The wild, sparking energy of his stolen power flowed out of her mouth and back into him, a completed circuit. It was intimate and profoundly strange, a magical feedback loop conducted through a kiss while another man fucked her senseless from behind.
Aiden felt the change too. The air pressure dropped. The crackling energy surrounding them solidified, then dissipated. Cassie’s body, which had been rigid with tension, suddenly went pliant, then convulsed. Her orgasm ripped through her with silent, shocking force. Her internal muscles clamped around Aiden’s cock in rhythmic, milking pulses, her back bowing.
The sensation tipped Aiden over the edge. With a ragged groan that was almost a howl, he drove into her one last time, his release hot and flooding inside her. He stayed there, buried to the hilt, his big body shuddering as he emptied himself.
For a long moment, the only sounds were their ragged breaths and the crackle of the fireplace. Brook broke the kiss, sitting back on his heels, his eyes wide. He looked drained, but whole. The stolen magic had returned, settling back into its rightful vessel.
Cassie went limp over the divan. The buzzing was gone. The thorn was quiet, a dormant sliver of ice once more. She felt hollowed out, scraped clean, and utterly spent. Aiden withdrew from her slowly, his hands gentle now on her hips as he helped her turn, guiding her down to sit on the edge of the divan. He sank down beside her, his head in his hands.
Brook stood up, wobbly. He looked between them—the vampire and the werewolf, both marked by her, both bound to her in ways that defied any normal geometry. He adjusted his shirt, a ghost of his old smirk returning.
“Well,” he breathed, “that was a… comprehensive solution.” He walked to the table, picked up his forgotten flute of blood wine, and drained it. “Feel more grounded now, darling?”
Cassie nodded, unable to form words. The raw physicality had done its job. The magic was settled, for now. But as she looked at Aiden’s bowed head, at the new scars on Brook’s wrist, she felt a different kind of chill seep into her bones.
She had used them. They had let her. The lines between need, love, and utility had blurred into oblivion in that vault. The Queen’s promise echoed in the newfound quiet of her mind.
My bed is always open.
Here, in this safehouse, with these men who loved her, her bed was a complicated altar. And she had just proven, beyond any doubt, that she would lie upon it to get what she needed.
Aiden finally lifted his head. He looked at her, his gaze weary, resigned, fiercely protective still. “The energy’s down,” he said, his voice rough. “But the problem isn’t. That thing inside you… it’s just sleeping.”
“I know,” Cassie whispered.
She reached for his hand, lacing her fingers with his. They were cold. His were warm. The contrast was everything. She was a creature of contradictions, of stolen power and desperate hungers. The journey hadn’t ended in this vault. It had just found a darker, more treacherous path.
Outside their sanctuary, somewhere in the vast, unknowing city above, something waited. And the thorn in her chest dreamed its cold, hungry dreams.