The Girl with the Seal

Chapter II

I don’t believe in fate, prophecies, or holy marks.

I believe in power what I take, what I break, and what I own.

But the girl I ripped from that cult…

she isn’t something I can control with a gun or a threat.

And the moment her mark burned against my skin,

I knew one thing for certain:

I hadn’t saved her.

I had claimed something far more dangerous.

Cassian Pov

I’d seen a lot of blood on stone.

This was different.

The cult compound shrank in the rearview mirror, nothing but shadows and smoke curling up into the mountain air. Bodies on the ground, guns cooling, my men moving through the wreckage like they were sweeping a warehouse, not a nest of fanatics.

Efficient. Clean. Controlled.

Exactly how I liked things.

Except for the girl shaking beside me.

She tried to hide it. Most people begged, sobbed, bargained. She just stared out the tinted window like if she didn’t blink, none of this would be real.

Liana.

She’d said it like she almost believed the name mattered.

I rested my arm along the back of the seat, fingers idly tapping the leather, watching her from the corner of my eye. The cabin smelled faintly of gunpowder, dust, and that cheap incense the cult burned in every corner of their little temple.

And underneath it, her.

Fear had a smell when it was sharp enough. Acid and cold sweat. But there was something else threaded through it—old smoke, dried herbs, candle wax. A life spent locked away from the world I ruled.

Outside, the mountains gave way to the first signs of civilization—rusted road signs, narrow switchbacks, the distant glow of the city bleeding into the sky far below.

“You’re going to pass out if you keep breathing like that,” I said finally.

Her gaze snapped from the window to me, pupils huge in the dim light. There was dried blood on her lower lip where she’d bitten it. The red mark on her shoulder was hidden again, bandage crooked but covering most of it. The heat had faded from my thumb where I’d touched it.

The memory hadn’t.

“What do you care?” she rasped.

Good. The shock hadn’t broken her tongue completely.

“The upholstery is expensive,” I said. “You throw up or faint on my seat, and we have a problem.”

It was a joke. A thin one. It slid right past her.

She shifted, rope at her wrists scraping against the seatbelt. The knot wasn’t tight enough to cut off circulation. I wasn’t in the habit of damaging things I meant to use.

“You… burned,” she said after a moment, voice small. She glanced at my hand like it offended her. “When you touched it.”

I turned my palm over, flexing my fingers. A faint, angry red circle still lingered where the symbol had seared my skin. Not a normal burn. No blister, no broken flesh. Just a mark, like the ghost of a brand that didn’t belong to me.

“It’s nothing,” I said.

It wasn’t nothing.

Across from us, in the front passenger seat, Rian twisted slightly to look back. Dark hair, sharp eyes, jacket open; he’d been with me long enough to know when I was lying.

“You sure about that, boss?” he asked. “Symbol lights up, you touch it, you get branded. Doesn’t exactly scream ‘nothing’ to me.”

“Keep your eyes on the road,” I replied.

“I am.”

He wasn’t. Not entirely. None of us had expected the Mark to react like that. We’d seen sketches, blurry photos smuggled out by the undercover asset I’d planted in the sect months ago. Some cultists had symbols tattooed on them, carved into the walls, painted in blood.

But only one bore the seal in flesh.

The stories said it wasn’t ink. It wasn’t scar.

It was an agreement.

The engine hummed, tires eating up the cracked mountain road. In the back, between me and the girl, silence stretched taut. The men in the SUV ahead checked the perimeter. The ones behind us cleaned up.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

The truth was simpler: I’d signed their death warrants the second my asset confirmed the Mark had awakened. The cult had been playing with something old, something buried, something that could unbalance things I’d spent a decade building.

I didn’t like unbalanced.

“You didn’t have to kill them,” the girl said suddenly.

There it was. The crack.

I turned my head fully this time, studying her. Wide eyes, raw voice, fingers clenched so tight around the frayed edge of her robe that her knuckles had gone white.

“You don’t know what I had to do,” I said.

“They were praying,” she whispered. “They were trying to protect the seal. To keep… whatever’s below from getting out.”

“And how’s that been working out for them so far?” I asked dryly.

She flinched, anger flickering behind the hurt. Interesting. Most broken things didn’t spark.

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“You’re right,” I answered. “I don’t. That’s why your people killed my asset when he tried to leave with more information. Shot him in the back, dumped his body in a ravine, and painted it like an accident. Remind me again, little saint, were they praying before or after they did that?”

Shock crossed her face, quick and unguarded. She hadn’t known.

Good.

Ignorance could be molded. Fanaticism was harder.

“I didn’t…” She swallowed. “We weren’t told—”

“Of course you weren’t,” I cut in. “High priests don’t stay in power by admitting they’re murderers. They wrap it in holy words and hope their flock never sees the knife.”

Her throat worked. She looked away.

Outside, the city crawled closer. Lights like stars scattered across concrete and steel, sprawling greedy fingers into the dark. My territory. My empire. Every building, every block, a pulse I could feel if I reached for it.

“If you hate them so much,” she said quietly, “why save me?”

That was the question, wasn’t it?

Rian glanced at me again, like he wanted to hear the answer too.

I leaned back, resting my head lightly against the seat, letting my eyes close for half a heartbeat.

Why save her?

Because of the mark on her skin.

Because of the way it burned when I touched it.

Because of the old stories my father used to mutter when he was too drunk to remember I was listening.

His voice echoed uninvited in my head: There are keys the world forgot, Cassian. Seals. You don’t break them. You bargain with them. Whoever holds the seal… holds the hunger.

I’d written most of his ramblings off as the residue of trauma and cheap whiskey.

Most.

“I didn’t save you,” I said finally. I opened my eyes, meeting her gaze again. “I relocated you.”

“To what?” she asked. “A different altar?”

Her words were sharper than before. The edge suited her.

“A different kind of cage,” I said.

She flinched like I’d hit her harder than any bullet.

Honesty. People weren’t used to it.

Rian cleared his throat softly. “Boss… HQ or the house?”

I considered.

Headquarters meant glass towers, steel, cameras, men everywhere. No privacy. No quiet. No room for things I didn’t want seen.

The house outside the city, on the other hand—stone, old wood, a wall around it high enough to stop idiots and intruders alike—offered space. Time. Distance. Somewhere to study the Mark without looking like I’d suddenly taken up archaeology.

“The house,” I said. “East road. Full lockdown until I say otherwise.”

“Understood,” Rian replied, already relaying orders over the radio.

The girl tensed. “House?” she echoed. “You’re taking me to your home?”

The word sounded wrong in her mouth.

“It’s not a home,” I said. “It’s a base.”

“It’s where you live,” she insisted. “That makes it a home.”

“You’ll find I live a lot of places,” I said. “None of them are home.”

That shut her up.

Good.

The SUV left the main road, turning onto a narrower lane flanked by trees clawing at the sky. The city lights faded behind us again, replaced by shadow and the occasional lonely lamppost. I checked the reflection in the glass—our convoy was intact. Two cars ahead, two behind.

For a moment, the darkness outside looked too much like the mountain, and something inside my chest tightened.

I hated the mountains.

They reminded me of things I’d buried.

“Cassian.”

The radio crackled softly with Marco’s voice from the lead car. Old friend, older scar, temper barely leashed. “Perimeter clear. Our ghost in the police confirmed no calls made from the compound. No one knew those lunatics existed, and no one knows they’re gone.”

“Good,” I said.

Liana stiffened. Her head jerked toward the radio like it had bitten her.

“Cassian,” she repeated under her breath.

I ignored the way my name sounded in her voice.

She turned back to me slowly, eyes narrowing. “That’s you,” she said. Not a question.

“It is,” I replied.

I watched the recognition dawn. Even hidden away in a cult carved into a mountain, they’d apparently heard enough stray radio whispers to know the shape of the monster under their bed.

“Cassian,” she said again, more to herself. “The Blood King. The Red Serpent. The man who burns cities. The one…” She trailed off, lips pressing together.

“Go on,” I encouraged. “Don’t get shy now.”

“The one they warned us about,” she finished. “The one the deep would devour first when it wakes.”

I smiled without humor. “And yet, here I am, very much undevoured.”

“For now,” she muttered.

Rian snorted. “Brave little cult girl.”

“Shut up,” she snapped.

Rian arched a brow. “She’s got teeth,” he said. “Careful, boss. You might like her.”

I shot him a look that told him just how funny I found that.

He faced forward again.

The house loomed into view ten minutes later. Three stories of dark stone and glass at the top of a private hill, surrounded by a high wall capped with discreet security cameras. The gate slid open at our approach, the metal bars whispering against their rails.

Liana watched it all with wide, stunned eyes. Her world had been candles and carved rock. This might as well have been another planet.

“Welcome to the serpent’s den,” I said as we rolled up the drive.

She said nothing.

The SUV stopped in front of the main entrance. Men fell into position before the doors even opened, a well-oiled routine. Rian popped his seatbelt, stepping out first. Cold air rushed in.

I reached for the rope at her wrists.

She jerked away instinctively.

I tightened my grip, not enough to bruise, enough to remind. “You can walk out on your own feet,” I said, “or I can have them carry you. I don’t particularly care which. But you’re going inside.”

Her jaw clenched.

“I can walk,” she said.

“Good.”

I cut the rope with a small knife from my pocket, leaving the marks on her skin as a faint echo of restraint. She rubbed her wrists, surprised, like she’d expected shackles, chains, something more dramatic.

I wasn’t running a movie.

“Try not to run,” I added as I opened the door and stepped out. “They’ll shoot you in the leg, and then I’ll be annoyed.”

Her eyes flicked to the men waiting nearby, guns holstered but hands never far.

“I’m not stupid,” she muttered.

“We’ll see.”

She slid out of the SUV, bare feet hitting the cold stone. The mountain air had been sharp; this was different. Cleaner. Money had a way of making even the wind feel curated.

Her thin robe fluttered around her ankles, utterly inadequate against the chill. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering.

I shrugged out of my coat and dropped it over her shoulders before she could protest.

She startled like I’d slapped her.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Preventing my asset from catching hypothermia before I can figure out how to use her,” I said. “Don’t romanticize it.”

Her fingers clenched in the fabric anyway.

The foyer swallowed us whole as we stepped inside—high ceilings, polished stone, warm light carefully designed to hit all the right angles and none of the cameras. The air smelled like leather and expensive cleaning products.

Liana’s head tipped back, eyes tracking the chandelier, the staircase, the paintings. No awe. Just quiet calculation and something like resentment.

Good.

Hope made people stupid. Resentment sharpened them.

“Third floor,” I told Rian. “The east room. Clear everything she doesn’t need. Bolt the windows. Two men on the door at all times, rotation every four hours. No one goes in unless I authorize it.”

“You got it,” he said.

“What am I?” Liana’s voice cut through the new silence. “A prisoner? A guest? A… sacrifice on hold?”

All three, I thought.

“Temporary resident,” I said out loud.

“That’s not a real answer,” she shot back.

“It’s better than the one you’d prefer,” I said. “Come on.”

She didn’t move.

Defiance looked strange on someone who had been kneeling half an hour ago. Strange… and interesting.

“Liana,” I said warningly.

Her gaze snapped to mine. I watched her swallow whatever retort she’d wanted to throw at my face.

“The woman,” she said instead, voice tight. “The one who—who raised me. You killed her.”

The image flickered in my head: the older woman lunging for the girl, fingers stretching, devotion overriding survival.

The shot. The fall. The halo of blood.

“She got in the way,” I said.

Her eyes shone, but the tears didn’t fall. She held them back by sheer force of will.

“Do you ever regret it?” she asked. “Any of it?”

A simple question.

I gave her the only answer that mattered. “No.”

It wasn’t entirely true.

Regret was a luxury men like me didn’t admit to. But it lived in the small hours of the morning, in the bottom of the glass, in the way the house sounded too large when everyone else was asleep.

I turned away before she could read anything in my face.

“Put her in the room,” I told Rian. “I’ll come up after I deal with the fallout.”

Rian nodded, stepping toward her.

She hesitated, looking between us. For a second, I thought she might do something stupid after all.

Then she straightened her shoulders under my coat and walked.

Not broken. Not submissive.

Just… moving forward because there was nowhere else to go.

I watched until she disappeared up the stairs, the Mark on her shoulder hidden but humming at the edge of my awareness like a migraine that hadn’t fully arrived yet.

Marco appeared at my side, having come in through a side door, blood still on his hands.

“Well?” he asked. “Happy with your holy mess?”

I exhaled slowly.

“We’ll see,” I said.

He glanced up the stairs. “You think she’s really what they said? The bearer? The living seal?”

“I touched a symbol and it burned me,” I said. “Either she’s the seal, or I’ve suddenly developed an allergy to cult tattoos.”

He snorted.

“What’s the plan?” he asked.

“Sell her? Trade her? Use her to bargain with whatever underground freakshow the cult pissed off?”

I thought of the way the Mark had pulsed under my thumb. The flash of white. The sense of something vast turning, just out of sight.

“No,” I said.

Marco arched a brow. “Then what?”

I looked toward the stairs again.

“First,” I said, “we find out exactly what she is.”

“And then?” he pushed.

A muscle in my jaw ticked.

“Then,” I said softly, “we decide whether I’ve just brought a weapon into my house…”

I let the second half of the thought stay where it belonged in my head.

…or something worse.

“…or a bomb,” I finished.

Marco grunted. “You always did have a talent for collecting dangerous things.”

“Occupational hazard,” I said.

He smirked and peeled off toward the security room, barking orders at the men as he went.

I stayed where I was for a moment longer, the house humming low around me, the weight of what I’d done tonight settling into its usual place under my skin.

Outside, the sky above the city was dark.

For the first time, I wondered how long that would last.

Above me, a floorboard creaked in the east wing.

The Mark answered, hot and faint against my palm, as if it remembered my touch.

“She’s mine now,” I murmured to no one, flexing my fingers.

Whether that was my victory or my mistake remained to be seen.