Cassius (The Wildflower Series Book 3)

by Rachelle Mills

“She’s irritating.” He goes on with things I have no interest in. “She has beautiful eyes.” His voice lowers reverently. I have to push up my glasses that start to slip down the bridge of my nose.

  Cassius steps closer to me before stumbling—long rough fingers curl around my waist. “Shhh,” he says, with whiskey-minted breath to himself, because I didn’t make the sound.

  Sounds a dangerous thing…

  The coarse hair on his face reminds me his soft lips are close to mine. The feeling of him this close will linger long after he’s asleep. To him this is nothing. To me, it’s everything.

  Closing my eyes, I lean back slightly into him while he bends himself around my body.

  “Are you going to try to sleep in your bed tonight, Specs?” He waits for a different answer than the one I always give him. I shake my head no.

  He sighs. “One day you’re going to have to sleep in your own bed and not underneath mine.” My shoulders curl in from what he says. If I try to sleep in the bed they bought for me, I’ll never sleep again. There’s no safety on top of the bed, only underneath it. Cassius keeps me safe with his body over mine between the mattresses and wooden bed frame.

  “I’ve met someone, Specs. Her eyes…” He says it like a prayer, but I feel the sin of this tragedy. Not the words I was expecting tonight. My mouth opens with wanting to say, “I’m happy for you,” but I just can’t get the sound out.

  His chin rests on the edge of my shoulder. He’s all brimstone and fire, and I’m, I’m the ash that’s been left over from the way he burns through me.

  Letter 1

  Dear Cash,

  Today is the first day I stopped hating you. I don’t look at your face and hate it. I don’t look at your hands and hate them.

  I don’t like you, but I don’t hate you. The more I think about it, the more I feel sorry for you. You didn’t really stand a chance with me. Not because you aren’t strong, or capable, or anything else. You just aren’t Clayton.

  That’s the sad fact. You could never be him, ever.

  This isn’t to make you feel bad, it probably will make you feel bad reading this, but I want you to understand me and understand why I can’t love you the way you want me to accept and love you.

  You did a lot of shitty things to me, Cash. A lot.

  You let your anger get the best of you, and you took it out on me. Me too. I let my anger get the best of me as well. I said and did some really shitty things to you. Really shitty things. You aren’t a weak wolf. You aren’t all those things that I yelled at you. I was just upset, just like you were upset. We were shit to each other.

  Don’t let your anger get the best of you. You’re better than that. Remember that.

  I hated you for a long time. I hated you touching me because I felt as if I was cheating on Clayton with how much I loved the way your skin feels on my skin. He tried to tell me about the mate bond when Rya came back, how he was trying to fight the pull. How when he looked at her, he felt as if he was cheating on me. I didn’t understand what he was saying to me. I told him just don’t look at her. He shook his head and told me he can’t stop looking at her. I cried, and he held me and told me how sorry he was. He was trying to fight it, he was trying to fight the bond, but he felt himself losing himself to it.

  I didn’t understand how hard it was for him to fight for me, fight for us. He tried so hard, he tried so hard for me. And look at me. I’m pregnant, not by him, but by you.

  Now I know what he was feeling. I can’t look away from you. I feel as if I am losing myself to the bond and that I am cheating on him. I feel guilty. I feel shame that I’ve only been with you for a small amount of time and I can’t control myself around you. That all I want is to slide up against you, to have your arms hold me, let my cheek rest against your chest, but I still love Clayton.

  I’ve stopped hating you, Cash. Today I’ve stopped hating you. Instead, I’ve started to hate myself for failing Clayton. All those years he fought against the bond for me and here I am with someone else’s pups implanted deep in my belly.

  You’re my mate, but he’s everything to me. Always will be.

  So today is the day that I’ve stopped hating you. This isn’t your fault. I blamed you. I blamed you for losing him. I blamed Rya for losing him. I blame the Moon for it all.

  No one is to blame but me. I’m to blame, not anyone else.

  I might not be able to love you, Cash, but I can’t hate you either.

  Kennedy.

  Chapter 2

  Mint turns into Wildflower Bruises

  Waking up in a silent room is not something I like. For a moment, everything freezes into a stillborn breath.

  Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

  Muscles start to seize up before they relax and realize I’m underneath the bed—not on top of one.

  Cassius’s discarded shirts are within reach. My fingers extend to pull the material to my nose like a sin. Inhaling like a true prayer.

  My sanctuary in scent.

  The fabric rubs between my fingers; the smell of him fills my pores. Shielded from prying eyes, inhaling again and again to make each breath count. Pretending it’s his neck I have my nose against. My hand shoves down over the top of the material of my underwear. Fingers press, rub…not my fingers, but his. It’s so easy to imagine. To pretend…

  I’m not sure how I’ve gotten to this point, me under his bed touching myself when he leaves in the morning and pretending it’s him. Before Cassius, I’ve never dreamed of wanting to touch myself, but with his scent wrapped around me, soft as a blanket in the quietest kind of strength, I’d let myself play pretend with the image of him.

  The heat grows underneath the bed, throbbing heat, imagining his naked body, bare and pressed against mine. It’s as if I can feel the weight of him. I want to make him moan the way I just did—all throat.

  His shirt is in my mouth. I can taste him, teeth clamp down as my hand rubs between my legs, imagining it’s his finger, thick and searching. The sensation is almost unbearable now. Biting down on the fabric. No noise.

  Clutching my breast, squeezing the nipple until it hurts. Pain. This pain I crave. Shifting my legs, pushing into the slickness. Another low moan deep in my throat—eyes squeezed shut. I can see his face; it hovers above me. I’m making him shake the way my thighs are.

  Moving my legs wider apart, letting out a hard breath.

  Fingers tracing between my folds, pushing into the fabric before touching the spot that arches my back and demands to be rubbed faster, harder.

  “Hmmm.” The sound comes out with teeth clamped down on the material that smells of Cassius, that was against his bare chest. I can taste him…

  Inside and out, the heat pulses. My pulse rages.

  I can see Cassius in my mind; his eyes push my fingers faster, harder. The unbearable pleasure gaining strength. Trembling and twisting hips, arching back. My breast held tight by my own hand, pretending Cassius is the one palming it. It’s enough for the pause, that beautiful moment where everything is still and nothing matters before the first hard clench of my inner walls release the breath that I was holding.

  I come with his name on my lips, but the sound stuck in my throat.

  I’m still biting the shirt as the gentle aftershocks of pulses wave through my core.

  Clenching, unclenching until I can move from underneath the bed.

  I smell of sex with myself, and I have to open the window and take his shirt and my things out of his room to go into mine.

  My bed’s made up perfectly; nothing is out of place. It seems too cold in here, not like Cassius’s room that’s the perfect temperature.

  The blinds are drawn down. It’s a shadowed room. Not meant for anything else but to hold my clothes. The Luna thought that if they made my room bright I’d sleep in the bed, if they darkened the room I’d sleep in the bed, had a TV, music, but nothing worked. I should have told them this, but I couldn’t seem to get the words out that are stuck behind clenched teeth.

>   The day I fell asleep in the oatmeal is the day Cassius finally relented and let me sleep underneath his bed until my Belac comes back. He grumbled about how weird it was. How he’s not going to be able to fall asleep, ever. I drifted off to him complaining underneath his breath. The first real sleep I had in seven days.

  I knew Cassius was different from all other males as soon as I met him. It was the first time the Wild didn’t crouch her shoulders and pin down her ears when a male spoke. He looked so sad standing beside his brother Caleb when he first came down the basement stairs. It was the first time I wanted to ask a question to a male.

  Why are you crying behind dry eyes?

  He sat beside me on the couch as Belac and Caleb played pool. I couldn’t help but drink really fast, the nervous kind of drinking that makes you want to blur the world away. They were strong drinks, more whiskey-vodkas than soda.

  He called me Specs.

  Cassius’s voice sounded hollow, like an old faded echo with the word Specs on repeat in my head.

  I started to gag once those whiskey-vodkas dug into my gut. Before I could vomit on the couch, Cassius had me in his arms, carrying me to the bathroom. With the first heave of my stomach, my glasses flew off, breaking on the tile floor. I almost start to sob out loud, but the gentle palm of his hand was running over the ridge-bones of my spine. Soothing.

  He held my hair back so I didn’t get vomit on the loose strands. My spine was shaking but not from the heaving, from his touch. Deep down I knew right then and there that Cassius could never hurt me in the way I’ve been hurt. It’s not in his nature.

  I can hear the laughter from Sunday morning breakfast wisp up the stairs before climbing into the shower to drown out the noise in the rushing water.

  Scrubbing, cleaning off the scent of lone sex so none of the wolves at the table can detect the smell in the back of their throats. Once dry, the clothes are thrown in the washer and started.

  The stairs are taken with caution, not much noise, only enough to let them know I’m coming down. I hate intruding on them, but Belac left me no choice. I’m staying with the Valentines until she comes back for me. I’m getting used to that and comfortable with the Valentines.

  Cassius is at the table with each twin beside him; they are at the end of finishing their breakfast. Rya and Luna Grace are speaking over a table full of baby pictures. The mated wolves send Rya the futures that were created because of her moon gift. Fertility.

  Rya is summoned constantly to travel to packs that request her gifts be used on their sterile wolves. In return, the pack has to sign a contract that in a time of need they are to send milk to a pup whose mother has died before the wean.

  “Good morning, Treajure,” Luna Grace says while I pass her. She places her hand on my head and lets it slide along the back of my hairline. Rya smiles her best smile at me.

  “Good morning, Treajure.” Rya speaks with the hopes I say something back. I never answer. Never. She doesn’t ever give up hope, though.

  Cassius’s twins have become something more to me than just pups that I watch throughout the day. I press kisses to their heads, and the hum in my throat comes out to vibrate against their skin. I love them. It’s been six months since I really understood what that feeling was, but it was right there. Love. Something I never thought would happen again.

  Alpha Clinton is sitting in his spot finishing up his coffee, and all I can remember is when Rya giggled to me on her deck as we were watching the waves hit the shore that she thought he looked like a silverback gorilla, and as soon as she told me that, I saw it. I almost laughed out loud. Almost.

  When sitting down, I can’t help watching Cassius clean both his twins up, wipe their hands, and swat their butts to go play downstairs in the toy room. Chance starts to fuss in the highchair, and Dallas sets him down to play with his cousins.

  Caleb stretches out his spine, cracking each bone to the annoyance of everyone around the table. He’s drinking milk from a glass, looking out the big window into the backyard. Belac left for the Wilds of Valentine on a Sunday, and I think the both of us should expect her back on a Sunday. So far there’s been no sign of her. The Silverback says she’s in deep. Caleb argues about going to go get her, and his father argues back that he has to be prepared to make a choice if she doesn’t want to come back—will he be willing to live out his life in Wild form?

  I wanted to argue with the Alpha that I need Belac back, but my voice was blocked by teeth, the sound bouncing off enamel to be swallowed back down deep in my gut. The day she left, my screams were silent for days after. Chin tucked to chest, there was no hope to keep my glasses on. I didn’t want to see anything. She left me, and I hated her for it. She told me, promised me she would never leave me. Ever. I believed that promise. She lied. Caleb took the sharpest point of my anger. I stabbed him the way I felt stabbed by Belac. Caleb and I couldn’t live together in his house anymore. He felt awkward with me around him all the time. He felt strangled and suffocated. He couldn’t take a shit by himself anymore without someone hovering around his space. I paced at night. He got no sleep; neither did I. He brought me to his parents’ house and told them he was unable to handle me anymore.

  Cassius, in those early days, was the one to sit beside me while I looked out the window. He started to tell me the made-up stories I never knew belonged to me. He has a way of talking to me with a voice that clings to the deeper layers of skin. Not the dead parts that will eventually flake off. He called me a princess, and I thought of him as my prince. My body is made of scars, and in those beginning times, Cassius somehow looked at me without noticing what has been etched into my skin. He actually was looking at me, and he made it so I could never look away from him.

  Letter 2

  Cash,

  The doctor was honest with us. Be honest with yourself. I’m not going to make it. You know it, and I know it. He said not to give up hope, but it’s more for you, not me.

  I felt the Wild slip away today. I felt her give her last dying bit of energy to the pups, not to me, but for the pups so they have a better chance at living when my time comes. I couldn’t tell you this when you asked me about my Wild, if she was all right, because you couldn’t feel her anymore. Forgive me for keeping that from you. I wanted you to keep your hope.

  She sacrificed herself for them, and I can’t believe what I’ve put my Wild through. I hope to make peace with my Wild in the Moon. I hope she can forgive me. Do you think she can forgive me?

  The Wild loved you; she loved you right from the beginning, the moment we inhaled your scent in the clinic. Before our eyes even opened up and saw your face. You were holding my hand, but she thought that it was her paw you were holding. I remember you brushing the hair away from my forehead. It felt like love. It was the second before I opened my mouth and turned your eyes into something that looked like hate.

  The Wild never hated you. It was impossible for her to hate you, no matter what you put me through, put us through. I put her through more. She hated me more. She didn’t blame you for the hate, the rage, the violence, because it was nothing compared to what she did within me. All those years she had to endure Clayton. All the years his hands were on me she had to suffer under them. She didn’t feel his hands the same way I did. She only felt a sickness that came from his touch, not the desire I felt.

  Clayton brought me great pleasure, and my Wild suffered because of it.

  Every time you touched my skin, she would try to hold onto that feeling, that excitement you gave us deep down. It was her first time to experience those raw primal feelings. She wanted you. No matter how much I spewed at you, she always only wanted you. No one else. She was loyal to you and your Wild, Cash. I need you to know that.

  The Wild was your biggest supporter…me, not so much.

  There was a time I wished I could sever her from my soul somehow, a way to get rid of her so I could be with Clayton. To be human, maybe? They are the lucky ones; they have a choice. They get to love who they love a
nd not have it dictated to them.

  Now that she is gone, really gone, I can’t stop the loneliness I feel. I can’t stop my suffering inside at losing something that for the longest time I wanted dead.

  I’ve been so selfish. Selfish to the Wild, selfish to you. I never thought love could turn you into something you hated.

  Kennedy

  Chapter 3

  Bruises in the Color of an Overripe Peach

  Cassius shifts in his seat. His family all notices that he has something important to say. I hold the stillborn breath in. Carson, and Crane, the pussy smasher, hold onto their coffee cups; they have a smell of a hard night of beer seeping from the pores of their skin. They look heavy-lidded and wrinkled up.

  Cassius clears his throat—the vein in his neck is pulsing.

  He takes a drink of water, pulling in his bottom lip with his teeth. I’d love to feel those teeth on me, pulling my flesh into his mouth.

  “Do you want to say something, Cash?” the Alpha asks, and Cassius opens his mouth up, closes it, takes another drink of water. Swallows.

  The Luna looks at her male, and Dallas stops everything to look at number three. Caleb cracks his neck before sitting down. Carson and Crane put their cups of coffee down.

  Something in the pit of my stomach says this isn’t going to be good for me. There is a stutter to the beat of my heart; it’s trying to find its normal rhythm.

  “I met someone,” Cassius tells the entire table on Sunday. The family’s special day. The table hears what was told to me last night. I was hoping what he said was just whiskey-drunk lies—that he’d forget in the morning. For a terrible moment, I’m afraid my spine will push through the back of the chair.

  The burn in the middle of my chest spreads, growing malignant, unstoppable.

  I don’t want to burn, not like this. Not this way. The Alpha brings his hand to cover his Luna’s. It’s hard to watch the squeeze of his fingers. Tight smiles spread around the table. Mine shakes, but that doesn’t matter because no one is looking at me. Hope spreads crystal clear on his face with a promise of happiness attached to the smile on his lips.