Page 49 of Fired at the Heart

Cassian catches the reaction, his features tightening. “I’ve waited. I’ve been patient. I’ve stood by you, fought for you, bled for you. Despite that, one word from him, and you?—”

“That’s enough.” I move to step around him, to end this conversation before it goes somewhere we can’t come back from.

His hand shoots out, slamming into the wall beside my head with enough force to send a jolt through me. I freeze, trapped between his arm and the wall, the warning signals in my brain flashing red.

“I’m. Not. Done,” he growls.

For the first time in all our years together, fear creeps along my spine. Not the calculated awareness of danger that keeps me alive in my line of work, but a deeper instinct hardwired into my secondary gender.

Cassian has never used his size to dominate, never leveraged his Alpha status to intimidate. That unspoken respect has been the foundation of our working relationship.

Until now.

“Move your arm.” I fix him with a glare to show him how serious I am. “Now.”

His other hand comes up to complete the cage of his body around mine. “Not until you listen.”

I press my palms flat on his chest, pushing him back. “Get off me.”

He grabs my wrists, pinning them to the wall on either side of my head. The action is so sudden, so at odds with the man I believed him to be, that I don’t react before he traps me.

Cassian inches closer, his breath hot and alcohol-soaked. “His pheromones are all over you. Is he still in your body? Are you wet from him?”

“You’re going too far.” I struggle in his grip, but he’s stronger, the combination of adrenaline and alcohol making him impossible to budge. “What the hell are you doing? Let go of me!”

His demeanor shifts, anger softening, and that’s almost worse, this tenderness a lie after the violence of his grip.

“Avery,” he says, my name a plea on his lips. “Don’t you see what he’s doing? He left you once. He’ll do it again.”

“This isn’t about Raphael!” I strain to break Cassian’s hold. “This is about you crossing a line. What are you thinking?”

Instead of answering, he leans in and presses his mouth over mine, his lips rough and demanding, nothing like the Cassian I know. His tongue shoves past my lips, flooding my mouth with bourbon-laced betrayal.

Shock freezes me for a heartbeat, my brain unable to reconcile my trusted second with the man forcing himself on me. Then instinct takes over, and I bite down, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to force him to pull away.

His eyes widen in surprise, as if he can’t understand why I’m fighting him.

“What the fuck?” I spit, twisting one hand free and shoving at his shoulder. “Get off me!”

He doesn’t budge, his grip on my other wrist tightening. “You don’t mean that.” A strange calm settles over his features. “You’re just confused. After seeing him today, your Omega instincts are all mixed up. But I’m here. I’ve always been here.”

The words hit me like ice water. Omega instincts. As if everything I’ve built, everything I am, can be reduced to biology. As if five years of proving myself means nothing because of Raphael’s scent on my skin.

Rage replaces fear, white-hot and clarifying. I bring my knee up hard, not quite connecting with his groin but hitting his thigh with enough force to send him stumbling back. The space gives me room for leverage, and I plant both hands on his chest, shoving him backward.

“You don’t have the right to lay a hand on me.” My hand drops to my knife, like I should have done the second Cassian followed me down this hallway, but I had stupidly trusted my second-in-command. “You don’t control who I choose. And you sure as hell don’t get to use your strength against me.”

Cassian regains his balance, drunk with confusion and hurt at not getting his way. “Avery, please. We’ll be so good together. We’re unstoppable as a team.”

“There is no ‘we,’ Cassian.” My hand tightens around my knife hilt. “There’s my crew, which you’re a member of. That’s it.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend anymore.” He takes a step toward me again, and I tense, ready to fight if I have to. “I’ve noticed how you look at me sometimes.”

“You see what you want to see,” I snap, my wrists stinging from his hold, but I refuse to rub them while he’s watching and show that he hurt me. “Stop with your expectations. Nothing is happening between us.Nothing.”

Anger darkens his features. “I’ve waited five years, watching you pine for a man who threw you away. I deserve more than that. I deserve you.”

“You deserve nothing.” My stomach churns with the sense of entitlement oozing off him. As if I’m a prize to be earned, a possession to be transferred from one Alpha to another. “Not one damn thing from me. You’ve just destroyed five years of trust in five minutes.”

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