Chapter 17: Cassian spreads Chester's thighs wide, his thick cockhead teasing her swollen folds before slamming home in one brutal thrust. 'Scream for them,' he growls, pounding into her with punishing strokes as his hand tangles in her hair. 'Let the whole fucking pack hear who owns this sweet cunt.' Her answering scream echoes through the den as her magic explodes, the windows rattling with the force of her climax.
The drive back to Pack territory was a silent, speeding phantom through the dawn. In the back of the SUV, Chester sat rigid, her hands clasped in her lap, seeing not the passing pines but the sterile hallway, the lifeless hand, the raw terror in the eyes of the freed shifters as they stumbled, emaciated and broken, into the arms of their packmates. The scent of blood, both cold from the guard and fresh from the liberated, clung to her sinuses.
Beside her, Cassian was a coiled spring of silent violence. He hadn’t shifted back fully; an animalistic heat radiated from him, and his knuckles were raw, split open and slowly knitting themselves back together. He stared straight ahead, his jaw a granite ledge. The bond between them thrummed not with desire, but with a storm of fury, grief, and a primal, sickening satisfaction.
They’d done it. They’d brought them home. The cost was a phantom chill on her skin.
When the trucks roared into the courtyard of the Pack House, it was to a gathered, silent throng. Word had traveled ahead. The rescued—two betas, a young male and an older female—were being half-carried toward the infirmary, draped in blankets, their heads bowed. The pack watched, their faces etched with a grim mixture of relief and fury.
Cassian exited the vehicle first, his presence snapping the tension like a whip. All eyes turned to him, then to Chester as she emerged, smaller, paler, still in her tactical gear. The judgment from before was gone, replaced by something heavier: acknowledgment. She had walked into the darkness with their Alpha and walked back out.
Without a word to the crowd, Cassian’s hand found the nape of Chester’s neck, a possessive, grounding grip. He steered her through the parting bodies, up the steps, and into the great hall. The door to his chambers shut behind them with a finality that echoed.
The moment they were alone, the dam holding Cassian broke.
He turned on her, backing her against the heavy wood of the door. His body caged hers, not with desire, but with a tremor of unleashed adrenaline. “Look at me,” he commanded, his voice shredded gravel.
She forced her eyes up to his. The green was almost entirely swallowed by molten amber.
“You saw,” he stated. “You saw what I did. What I am.”
“I saw you get your people back,” she said, her own voice thin but steady.
A low growl built in his chest. “I snapped a man’s neck like a twig. I cut off another man’s hand. I would have torn the fucking building apart if I’d had five more minutes in there.” He leaned in, his breath hot on her face. “That’s the beast, little witch. That’s what’s tied to you. Not the Alpha in a fancy house. The monster in the dark.”
She didn’t flinch. The fear she’d felt in the lab had burned away, leaving something clearer, harder. “They were monsters in lab coats. You think I don’t know the difference?” She brought her hands up, pressing them against the solid wall of his chest. “Your monster came for them. Theirs just took.”
He stared at her, his nostrils flaring, the fight slowly leaching from his rigid posture. The fury in the bond morphed, twisting into something desperate, clawing. A need for absolution, for an anchor.
His mouth crashed down on hers.
This wasn’t the kiss from the night before. This was savage, claiming, a branding. It was teeth and dominance and a raw, open wound of emotion. He licked into her mouth, tasted the fear and the courage there, and groaned like a dying man finding water.
He tore at her clothes, the tough fabric yielding to his strength with sharp rips. She reciprocated, her fingers fumbling with the buckles and straps of his tactical vest, shoving it off his shoulders. There was no finesse, no slow seduction. The specter of death demanded the absolute affirmation of life.
He lifted her, her legs wrapping instinctively around his waist, and carried her to the great bed draped in furs. He laid her down not with gentleness, but with a focused intensity, his eyes devouring her nakedness as if to memorize every curve, every freckle. As if to prove she was here, whole, his.
“Turn over,” he rasped, his voice barely human.
She obeyed, rolling onto her stomach. The rich, animal smell of the furs filled her senses. She heard the rustle of his discarded pants, the heavy, thick slide of his cock, already fully erect, against her inner thigh. He was huge, hard as iron, and dripping with need.
His weight came down on her, not fully, but enough to press her into the pelts. His rough hands ran from her shoulders down her spine, over the flare of her hips, and grasped the full curves of her ass. He kneaded the flesh, a growl of pure appreciation rumbling through him.
“Mine,” he snarled, and his palm connected with her cheek in a sharp, stinging spank.
The sound cracked through the room. A gasp tore from her throat, the pain blooming into a shocking, immediate heat that pooled between her legs. Before the sensation could fade, he did it again on the other side, harder. She cried out, pushing back against him, her body arching.
“Yeah,” he breathed, his voice thick with lust. “That’s it. Give me the sound. Let the whole fucking pack hear who you belong to.”
He spread her cheeks, his thumb finding her core, slick and ready. He plunged two thick fingers inside her, curling them, and she yelped, her walls clamping down around the invasion.
“Still so fucking tight,” he muttered, pumping his fingers, the crude, wet sound obscenely loud. “Still wet for me after all that? After what you saw?”
She couldn’t form words, only a broken moan as he scissored his fingers, stretching her. He was preparing her, but barely, his patience threadbare. He withdrew his fingers, bringing them to his mouth and sucking them clean with a dark, filthy groan. “Taste like heaven and hell, witch. All mine.”
He positioned himself, the broad, blunt head of his cock pressing against her soaked entrance. He didn’t push in. He rocked, sliding his length through her slick folds, painting himself with her, teasing them both.
“Cassian,” she begged, the word ragged.
“What do you want?” he demanded, leaning over her, his mouth at her ear. “Say it.”
“Fuck me.” The vulgarity felt like a release. “Please.”
“Since you asked so nice.”
With one brutal, rolling thrust, he sheathed himself inside her to the hilt.
The air left her lungs in a punched-out sob. The stretch was immense, burning, perfect. He filled her completely, a solid, claiming presence that pushed every thought of horror from her mind. There was only this: the stretch, the fullness, the hot weight of him on her back.
He didn’t wait for her to adjust. He set a punishing, piston-like rhythm from the start, each drive of his hips slamming her forward into the furs. The bedposts creaked a frantic, rhythmic protest. His grunts were animalistic, sharp bursts of air against her neck.
“Take it,” he growled, one hand fisting in her hair, not painfully, but with absolute control, turning her head to the side. His other hand gripped her hip, his fingers sure to leave bruises. “Take all of me. Let them hear. Let them know whose scent is all over you. Who fucks this sweet cunt so deep.”
She was fracturing into pure sensation. Each slam jolted through her, sparking lightning along her nerves. The delicious, rough friction, the sting of his possession, the sheer ownership in his every move coalesced into a pressure that built at her core. She was being remade, piece by piece, not by gentle hands, but by fierce, unapologetic need.
“Gonna come,” he warned, his rhythm starting to falter, his thrusts becoming harder, more erratic. “Gonna fill this pretty pussy up. Mark you from the inside. You want that? You want my come dripping out of you?”
“Yes,” she keened, beyond shame, hurtling toward the edge. “Cassian, yes.”
His roar was muffled against her shoulder as his hips stuttered and he plunged deep, holding there. She felt the hot, pulsing rush of his release, flooding her, a tangible claim that made her own climax detonate. It tore through her with silent violence, a convulsing, endless wave that milked him through his own pleasure, her body clasping his in rhythmic, desperate spasms.
He collapsed on top of her, a suffocating, sweaty, welcome weight, his breaths heaving. They lay there, joined, for long minutes, the only sounds their ragged breathing and the settling of the bed frame.
Slowly, he rolled off, pulling her with him, tucking her back against his chest. He nuzzled her hair, his lips soft against her temple now, the beast momentarily sated.
Outside the door, in the silent hallway, the faint sounds of the pack going about their business resumed. They had heard. The message was received.
Chester lay in the circle of his arms, spent, his essence leaking from between her tender thighs. The ghost of the lab was still there, in the corner of the room. But here, skin to skin, the bond sang a different note—solid, fierce, and alive.
“Never doubt it,” he whispered into her hair, his voice hoarse but clear. “You are the match to my fire, Chester. The only one who doesn’t get burned.”
She believed him. And for the first time, she wondered if she wasn’t the gentle water to temper his flames, but the oil that would make them blaze brighter, hotter, and consume everything in their path. The thought should have scared her.
It didn’t. It felt like power, dormant and deep, beginning to uncoil in her womb.