Chapter 22: Knotting His Mate
The name ‘Riordan’ hit the air like a thrown knife. Cassian’s growl cut off, replaced by a silence more threatening than any sound. Chester felt the change in him instantly; the man who had just cradled her with trembling reverence was gone, replaced by a sovereign whose territory had been breached.
“Get out,” Cassian said to Kieran, his voice a low, deadly vibration. “Tell them we’ll be there in twenty minutes. Not a second sooner.”
Kieran gave a sharp nod and vanished back into the trees.
Cassian stood, lifting Chester with him as if she weighed nothing. He didn’t set her down. He carried her, striding back through the path with a predatory speed that made the shadows blur. The tenderness was gone, subsumed by a furious, focused energy. The slick evidence of their joining dried cool on her thighs as the night air whipped past.
They didn’t go to her modest room. He shouldered his way into the Alpha’s quarters—a sprawling space dominated by a massive bed of dark polished wood, the air smelling of leather, cedar, and him. He set her on her feet by the en-suite bathroom.
“Wash. Quickly.” He was already moving to a heavy oak wardrobe, yanking out clothes: dark trousers, a simple black shirt for himself; a soft, long dress of deep green wool for her. “Riordan is a political snake from a pack that covets our mineral borders. Him asking for you is not a request. It’s a probe. A challenge.”
Her mind, still hazy with spent passion and the echo of his claiming, struggled to catch up. “Why would he ask for me?”
Cassian turned, his eyes glowing faintly in the dim room. “Because the rumor of a weak witch-mate for the Blackwater Alpha is the juiciest piece of gossip in a decade. He wants to look at you. To assess a potential weakness in me.” He stalked over, cupping her face. His thumb brushed her cheekbone, a stark contrast to the fury in his eyes. “You are not weak. What happened on that stone… the grove doesn’t lie. But he will try to make you feel it. And I will not tolerate it.”
He pushed the dress into her hands. “Now wash.”
The shower was swift, the water barely warming before she was out and drying, the soreness between her legs and the deeper, stranger ache beyond a persistent reminder of the grove. She pulled the dress over her head; it was simple, but the fabric was expensive, the cut flattering. It felt like armor.
When she emerged, Cassian was dressed, his damp hair pushed back. He looked every inch the Alpha, but his gaze raked over her with a possessiveness that was purely the mate. He crossed the room in two strides.
“He will smell me on you,” he said, his voice rough. “He will smell the grove, and the claiming, and the child. Good. Let him.” He leaned down, his mouth capturing hers in a kiss that was hard and branding. It wasn’t about pleasure; it was a re-staking of his claim.
He broke the kiss, his forehead against hers. “Stay by my side. Say nothing unless directly addressed. If he asks you a question, look to me. You are my mate, not his diplomatic toy.”
She nodded, her throat tight.
The great hall of the Pack House was a cavern of stone and timber, lit by a central fire pit. The air, usually warm with pack camaraderie, was thin and cold. A group of five strangers stood near the hearth. They were all large, but the man in front commanded the space. Riordan. He had iron-grey hair cropped close, a face like weathered granite, and eyes the color of a winter sky. He wore authority like a second skin.
His gaze locked onto them the moment they entered, bypassing Cassian entirely for a half-second to scan Chester. It was a clinical, assessing look that made her feel like a specimen under glass.
“Cassian,” Riordan said, his voice a smooth baritone. “You keep unusual hours for a greeting party.”
“The Glimmer Moon has its own demands,” Cassian replied, his tone effortlessly casual, though Chester felt the tension thrumming through the arm he had draped around her waist. “You’re early.”
“The roads were clear. And my curiosity was… keen.” Riordan’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “So this is the one? The witch who tamed the infamous Blackwater Alpha?”
Cassian’s fingers tightened on her hip. “This is my fated mate, Chester. Chester, this is Alpha Riordan of the Northern Peaks.”
Riordan took a step closer. The smell of pine and cold stone rolled off him. “A pleasure. We’ve heard so little about you. Your family? Your coven?”
Chester felt Cassian’s silent command. She kept her mouth shut, simply offering a slight, neutral nod.
“Her lineage is her own business,” Cassian cut in, his smile sharp. “The moon accepted her. The pack accepts her. That’s the only pedigree that matters here.”
“Of course.” Riordan’s eyes flicked down her body, and Chester knew he was cataloging the scent Cassian had mentioned. A faint, almost imperceptible flicker of surprise crossed his stony features. He’d expected something fainter, perhaps. Not the potent, layered signature of deep claiming and nascent life. “Still, in these times, an Alpha’s mate is a pillar of strength. Magical strength is often a cornerstone of such alliances.”
The insult was veiled in political silk. Morrigan’s words echoed in Chester’s mind.
“Strength has many forms, Riordan,” Cassian said, his voice dropping to a dangerous purr. “Perhaps your mountains have made you narrow in your definitions.”
A tense silence stretched. Riordan finally broke it with a low chuckle that held no warmth. “Perhaps. Forgive an old wolf his traditionalism. We are, after all, here to discuss the new vein of silver on the border. Shall we?”
The discussion that followed was a tense, grinding affair of quotas, rights, and patrol boundaries. Chester stood silently, as instructed, but she listened. She watched Riordan’s calculating eyes, the way his betas hung on his every word. She saw the respectful but rigid set of Kieran’s jaw. And she felt the simmering, protective rage emanating from Cassian, held in check by sheer will.
After an hour, an agreement was reached, brittle and temporary. As Riordan and his men turned to leave, he paused, looking back at Chester.
“A word of advice, my dear,” he said, his tone paternal and condescending. “The life of an Alpha’s mate is a storm. Ensure your roots are deep enough to withstand the gale. For all our sakes.”
He left without waiting for a response. The heavy door thudded shut behind them.
The room erupted.
Cassian backhanded a heavy wooden goblet off the long table. It shattered against the stone wall. “The fucking audacity! To come into my home, on the night of the Glimmer, and speak to my mate like she’s a sapling he can critique!”
Kieran was at his side instantly. “He was testing, Alpha. Probing. He smelled the claiming, the pregnancy. He knows she’s not just some passing fancy. This was about seeing if you’d be rattled.”
“Well, am I rattled?” Cassian roared, whirling on his beta.
“Yes!” Kieran shot back, holding his ground. “And that’s what he wanted to see! He wanted the legendary Cassian, cool under pressure, to show a crack. And you’re showing him a canyon!”
Cassian went still, his chest heaving. The truth of it hung in the air. He turned slowly, his burning gaze finding Chester. She saw the conflict in him: the Alpha who had just been strategically outmaneuvered, and the mate who wanted to tear Riordan’s throat out for the slight.
Without a word, he crossed the hall, took her hand, and led her from the room. He didn’t speak as they climbed the stairs, nor when he ushered her back into his bedroom. He locked the door.
The controlled fury was a living thing in the room. He paced for a moment, a caged wolf, before stopping in front of her.
“He questioned you,” he said, the words scraping out. “He looked at you and saw a liability.”
“Cassian—”
“No.” He was on her then, his hands framing her face. “I need you to understand. What you are. What you mean.” His kiss was desperate, hungry, a seeking of absolution and affirmation. He walked her backward until her shoulders hit the solid wall near the bed, the impact jarring through her.
His hands went to the hem of the dress he’d given her. He didn’t bother with buttons. He gripped the neckline and tore, the good wool splitting with a harsh sound. The dress fell in ruins at her feet. His mouth was on her neck, her collarbone, his teeth scraping.
“He smells me on you, but he still doubts,” Cassian snarled against her skin. “I need to be in you. Now.”
He unfastened his trousers, freeing his cock, already fully erect, thick and flushed. The sight of it, so soon after the grove, sent a fresh pulse of wetness between her legs. He hooked his hands under her knees, lifting her, spreading her, pinning her against the wall. The cool stone bit into her back.
He notched his head at her entrance, which was still swollen and sensitive from earlier. “This cunt is mine,” he growled, his eyes locking onto hers. “This womb is mine. You are mine. And I am going to breed you properly now, mate. Until the only thing you can remember, the only thing you can feel, is me.”
He slammed up into her.
The cry that left her lips was punched out of her. He filled her with a single, devastating stroke, stretching her deliciously, the friction so intense it bordered on pain. He didn’t pause. He set a ruthless, driving rhythm, hammering into her against the unyielding wall. Each thrust jolted her entire body, the slap of his hips against her thighs a lewd, rhythmic counterpoint to his ragged breaths.
“Tell me,” he demanded, his voice guttural.
“Yours,” she gasped, the word breaking on a moan.
“Again.”
“Yours! Cassian, please—”
His mouth found the curve of her shoulder, right over the bonding mark he’d given her weeks ago. His teeth pressed down, not breaking the skin but reinforcing the claim. As he did, she felt a change at her core. A thickening, a swelling at the base of his cock that began to stretch her even wider with each inward plunge.
“Knot,” she whimpered, the sensation terrifying and exhilarating. “You’re… knotting.”
“Gonna lock you on me,” he panted, his thrusts becoming shorter, harder, deeper as the bulbous swell grew. “Gonna fill you so full of my seed there’s no room for his fucking doubts.” With a final, brutal surge, he shoved home as far as he could go.
The knot popped past her tight ring of muscle, seating itself fully inside her. She screamed, her inner walls clamping down around the incredible, imprisoning fullness. He was locked in her, a hot, pulsing anchor.
He came with a roar that shook his frame. She felt it, a hot, relentless flood jetting deep into her womb, wave after wave, marking her, claiming her all over again. The intensity of it, the sheer physical domination, triggered her own climax, a seizing, silent convulsion that milked his knot, drawing out every last drop.
He held her there, impaled and trembling, his forehead against the wall beside her head. His body shuddered with aftershocks. Slowly, carefully, he shifted, still knotted inside her, and lowered them both to the edge of the bed, sitting with her straddling him, still fused.
The fury had bled out of him, replaced by a dazed, profound exhaustion. His arms came around her, holding her close as they were bound together by flesh and seed. He nuzzled into her hair.
“I will burn the world for you,” he whispered, the vow raw and quiet in the dark room. “But first, I have to protect you from it. And I’m scared, Chester. I’m scared that my own anger is the crack he’ll use.”
She held him, feeling the slow, rhythmic pulse of his knot inside her. The political storm Riordan represented was gathering at their borders. But here, in this painful, intimate lock, was a different kind of truth. It was messy, it was overwhelming, and it was the only root she had ever wanted.
“Then we’ll face it,” she murmured into his skin. “Together. Not just Alpha and mate. But us.”
Outside, the first grey light of dawn began to bleed into the sky, the Glimmer Moon’s power fading. The challenge had been issued. The response, they both knew, had only just begun.