LOGIN╔═━─────━▒ Cassius ▒━─────━═╝“But, you couldn't even protect him! Sylphie pushed at my chest. “You promised–” her voice cracking on the last word.The words gutted me like a knife cut against my chest, even though I knew it was her pain talking. I could hear it, the agony she was feeling. The sense of broken hollowness that came with losing something precious to you.I felt it too, deep inside, slowly eating away at my sanity.I was sure that I had prepared for the worst. I made sure that the house was secured. I was so sure that I could keep them safe, keep him safe.It was a promise that I made to myself and Sylphie.I hadn't counted on this.Nothing had prepared me for this, and I think nothing could have. And it was utterly devastating.What more was seeing the tear-stained streak running down my mate’s face.I had failed her once again, failed at being her protector when she needed me the most.My feet carried me again towards her but it was her bark that made me pause. “Syl
❀° ┄───────╮ Sylphiette ╰───────┄ °❀Something was horribly wrong.I felt it in my soul before my eyes tore open, my heart strumming inside my chest as I felt his warm chocolate scent fade away.My fingers coiled around his little ones and I felt… nothing.My heart jolted, freezing in my chest as my eyes opened and stared at the space next to me.I jolted upright, and a devastating chill coiled around my spine, sending a heady dread—icy and sharp—through my body.For a moment, my mind faltered. Maybe he had slipped out to use the bathroom with Edith. Maybe…But when Edith had walked in without Kian in tow, her hands holding a basket of herbs and tonic instead of Kian… when her soft gaze met mine and then the warm look on her face had frozen with fear when she looked over at the spot Kian should have been, the basket in her hands slipping and scattering its contents all over the floor. “Where is he?” The words slipped out of my mouth like a broken whisper and something wound
❀° ┄───────╮ Sylphiette ╰───────┄ °❀I woke up before dawn broke.I wasn’t even sure how I had slept—one moment Cassius had been comforting me and the next…Either way, waking up felt even more dreadful than falling asleep. Cassius wasn’t in bed either, deep down, I felt the spark of guilt rub on me before it faded.My heart felt hollow and heavy at the same time, albeit pounding softly in my chest. I slipped out of bed. Draping a silk robe over my nightdress, I made my way to the door, pulling one of the double doors open before I stepped out.The hallway was heavily guarded by guards. You’d think that there was a war coming soon, which I wasn’t too sure wasn’t, from the look of things. But despite all that, I wanted to stay positive-minded, however slight.One of the guards by the door shifted in his frozen stance, his gaze locking onto me. I instantly recognized him. It was Reis. I hadn’t seen him in a while and his presence here felt oddly familiar, so to say.I lifted a
╔═━─────━▒ Cassius ▒━─────━═╝“Did you find her?” I turned to my Beta the moment he entered my office, his eyes downcast as he strolled in, shoulders tensed.I felt it in my bones; the chill that seemed to coil around my spine and settled in.“Where is she?”For a moment, his gaze remained fixed on everything but me. My lips curled, my gaze narrowing as I watched him for a second longer.It was unlike him, the way he was acting. That's how I knew something was wrong.“What happened?” I rephrased, my voice tight as I gripped my wrist folded behind my back.Gilles finally looked up at me. His warm amber eyes flickered with something untapped. Something that had my hackles slowly stirring.“She’s… gone,” he responded quietly, but his report felt like ice shards smashing against glass—it crackled in the silence that fell between us, then stretched, painfully.My voice was grounded gravel when it came out, tight with the storm that had started to brew inside me. “What do you mean she's
❀° ┄───────╮ Sylphiette ╰───────┄ °❀Emily's body dropped with a sickening thud.For a moment, nobody moved. Nobody said a word. One could literally hear a pin drop, and I wasn't even sure anyone was breathing at this moment.Not a sound was heard. Or maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me.And then, it exploded, the chaos. The panic. Feet pattered, bodies scurried about and soon Emily’s body was carried away by Cassius’s guards.Voices boomed everywhere, around me, but none of them reached me. I sat in the chaos, staring into nothingness, my heart playing rickety against my rib cage. My breath didn’t seem to want to come out.Emily’s or rather, the voice that had spoken through her, kept ricocheting in my head. The haunting, pitch-black eyes and the sinister laughter that had boomed in the air, cut through to a part of me that I’ve never felt before.Utter and impossibly devastating fear.I had never felt fear this heavy and brutal before. It taunted me, wrecked me, and
❀° ┄───────╮ Sylphiette ╰───────┄ °❀Emily returned thirty minutes later—a trolley of food in tow and a small bouquet of my favorite flower.“From the Alpha,” she muttered, a warm smile on her face as she handed them to me. I took it, thanking her as I inhaled their soft, sweet fragrance, my face mirroring hers but it stayed hidden behind the flowers.Then, with a quiet, practiced precision, she begins to dish out the food. The aroma was warm and sweet, and it looked just as delicious as it smelled. It made my stomach growl with appreciation before I dived in.Emily attended to Kian and I watched them at the corner by my bedside as she fed him.It happened so quickly, and there was nothing that would have prepared me for the devastation I felt in that moment.I looked away for a second. One moment.It had started as a light cough, Emily had fed him water afterwards, soothed his back to ease the coughing. But it didn't stop.It got worse. A twisted nightmare that unravelled b