Chapter Twelve

There it was. Castus rammed into the room.

I'm not even sure how I recognized him. Over the short span of two years his apparent characteristics had changed so much. He was visibly older now. His skin was darkly tanned, he was a canvas of rippling taut muscle.

An aura of dominion followed him in dark clouds, it was shattering my will to find myself an exit to the situation at hand. It was sinking in. I needed to get away.

He was the leader.

He was the alpha.

He was my mate.

And he was here to kill me.

I shuffled further backwards, finding my knees week and Roy too close to move. He was frozen. He was scared. He had nothing to do with this, he was a little human, he didn't deserve to keep getting crushed by our customs. He had nothing to do with us. I needed to get him out of here.

I fell back into Roy and he gasped as I sprawled out on top of him.

Castus charged forwards, his followers like mere shadows in my eyes as the stalked him in the sile formation. He was like thunder, and he was approaching. His expression more fierce than I'd ever encountered.

"GET OFF HIM!" He screamed.

I jolted but found myself freezing rather than following his orders. I felt Roy shuffle back behind me, and I fell back slightly with him.

"Now!"

I looked up at him. My eyes were wide. My legs jelly.

He growled.

When I say growled, I mean growled. An animalistic growl, one with such ferocity the entire room seemed to shudder, it was a loud, low, resounding growl that made my legs quake. Roy trembled beneath me.

"I-I-..."

He took two large strides forward and loomed over me for a second.

All the breath left me as I gazed up at his formidable, spine-tingling glare.

He reached over to me and suddenly all my senses set back in. I felt my legs presence again and tried to push myself backwards as far away from Castus as I could get. Roy joined me in my scramble for life as he too backed his way up into the wall.

His glare deepened and another growl fell from his lips. A silent warning.

His hand clasped itself around my wrist and yanked me from the floor. I tried to pull back, even though I knew he was the alpha and nothing I could do could overpower him. He simply yanked on my arm and I went flying back into his chest.

I looked into his chest, dazed. Oh god. How was it possible to miss something like this that I'd never even had before. He was so warm, so strong, so safe.

The word 'safe' shook my from my trance. He was not safe. He was danger if the word was named after a person. I needed to remind myself. I needed to remind myself of my rejection so I would not find myself giving in to my wolf and falling for the man again.

I growled and pulled my head forward. I tried to pry his hand off of me with my free left hand yet his body was a rock and would not budge. I transformed the ends of my fingers so I could claw at his skin. His other hand whipped out and took my left in possession.

"Let me go!"

He growled. Once again the sound reverberating through my bones and stilling me for just the second. I watched as his men, ones I did not recognize, crowded into the room. There were a mighty six of them in total. All men I did not recognize with large guard like bodies that had to be the result of protein shakes, strict diets and mass steroid intake.

One made his way over to Roy. "Roy get away!" I screamed. "Roy GET OUT OF HERE!"

He jumped and tried to pull himself off the ground, his legs were shaking.

"SECURE HIM!" Castus shouted. His voice was gravel.

"No!" I screamed as they contained a struggling Roy, who's only blanket was a thick ball of fear. I needed to get him out of here. I needed to find out what this was about and get him out of here. They could kill him.

I turned to look up at Castus.

I never used to need to do that. He appeared to have grown nearly a head taller in about two years. I on the other hand had struggled behind and my fasting had left me still struggling through puberty. The man was now a full head taller than me. His face more formed than mine, his face chiseled and his jaw well formed to go with set lips.

"What do you want! Why did you come back?!" I struggled a little as his hands appeared to loosen somewhat.

He glared and proceeded to pull them high above my head so I hung there with apparently no control over the situation I found myself in. I winced.

"I came back to claim what is mine!"

I felt a tremor run through me as he said what I had dreamed of him saying so many times. That was over. I no longer needed him. He didn't deserve me. He didn't deserve anything. He betrayed me, he rejected me, he didn't want me, he was just bound to me.

"Fuck you!" I yelled. "I'm not yours!"

The room seemed to darken as the last flickers of the fireplace rolled to a silent sizzle.

"Shut up! You say another thing like that to me again and I'll have you whipped! You. Are. MINE." He said. My heart ran a mile a second. My rib cage no longer seeming able to confine it. I was scared he could hear it. If he could hear how worked up I got through every little word he spoke it would all be over. He would know and there would be not easy way of denying it.

"N-no.." My eyes flitted to the side as a terrified Roy yelped as he was being dragged away past the fireplace under the hold of two small hulks with dark skin and swept back hair. "Roy!" I screamed. He turned to give me the full visual of his fear face.

I turned to Castus, tugging my arms from his grip yet not managing to move a muscle.

"God fucking god what do you want Roy for if you want me?!"

"Roy... You learnt that fucking bastards name?" Why did he hate Roy? This could be bad. Dread washed over me. If he hates him what could he do?

"Of course! He's my friend! Let him go." I gritted my teeth. "Please." I hated the word.

He smirked. It was signals for the first signs of submission. I knew he liked that.

He leaned in real close and I turned away so his lips fell just a breath away from my ear. "So you fuck all your friends then?"

I shook my head, my face brushing against his lips, I felt a blush rising and willed it back down. "no."

"Why him?" He growled.

I held my breath.

"WHY HIM." He repeated.

"Why her." I repeated silently, my eyes found their way to the floor. I let my throbbing arms grow limp. I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to talk about this. I tried to force myself to bring up the cold demeanor I'd lived off of for so many years and yet I could not find it anywhere inside. The man was trying to break me.

I felt him still.

"Who?" He asked.

I didn't want to answer. Yet I did as well. I knew if I answered I would run the risk of getting emotional, of letting him get to me, break down my walls one last time before stabbing me in the heart. And yet I needed to let him know, let him know that I had felt each thrust in equal pain as he pounded that slut into happy land. I needed him to know that while he had his fun I was slumped against a tree wracked with pain, earth shattering fear as my spine felt like it was dislodging itself and healing over and over.

"You know who." I said. Still refusing to face him.

I knew from the look in his eyes he wanted to grab me and force me to look up at him yet both his hands were occupied.

"I have not betrayed." He said. It was quiet.

"You lie." I said simply.

The first signs of tears trembled in my eyes, threatening to fall over the edge and wet my eyelashes.

"Why do you believe I cheated. You fucking cheated!"

"The day before your birthday." Tears tumbled over my cheeks.

It was in that moment that I realized we still had company. His men were there, silent and watching. There were frowns on their faces. Obviously they had not gotten wind of this. Roy surprised me. He was crying too. His nose was dripping and his lips puckering ever so often to hold back a whimper. He had his eyes clenched shut and yet tears still swam over the edges of his thick layers of eyelashes.

Was he crying for me?

Castus had gone silent.

Apparently he too had forgotten our surroundings.

He waved four of them away and they nodded, reluctantly leaving us to deal alone.

"What do you need Roy for." I said. My voice was stern yet gravelly from the tears still wetting my cheeks. I wanted to reach over and dry them yet my hands appeared to be levitating on their own.

Castus looked at me. His eyes remained on me for a while, unblinking.

"Let him go." He said softly. "Wrider take it home and make sure it never speaks of what it has encountered."

I could have fainted from relief. Was he listening to me because I was crying?

"I want to go too." I said softly.

He looked at me. "Yes your going too, with us, home."

I shook my head and tried to shuffle backwards. "No this is home, here is home, I don't want to go with you."

"No. It isn't. This is a shitty little half collapsed piece of junk in the middle of a trash path. With me, that's the only place home for you."

I shook my head again. "No." My voice was getting quiet. I was so tired. Crying, emotions, outbursts, I hated them all I hated acting them out more than I hated dealing with them. They made me so tired, exhausted. My eye lids weighed more than I did. "I am home."

I felt Castus press me into his chest, my arms now pinned behind my back as he embraced me. "Yes. This is your home. You, in my arms. No where else. Not with anyone fucking else. Just me."

I hated it. Yet I was responding to it. I tried to pull myself together. I tried to keep myself sane. Yet I was too tired to struggle anymore. His cologne smelt like chocolate. His chest was warm. His arms strong and steady, I would not fall if I gave in to sleep, I would stay upright held by him in his embrace.

Yes I hated him. But in sleep my instinct to love him rose too strong for any part of me to will an attack.

He seemed to soften his hold on me when he saw this, my obvious lack of rebellion.

I tried to see anything else but him. Tried to scent anything else but him. Tried to breath in anything else but him. Yet the more I tried the more of him I breathed. His very form was lulling me to sleep.

I could just barely feel my body being moved from the warmth. I vaguely remembered the odd thoughts that swam through my head as I noted the cold and detested it. I remembered my heart beat slowing and the low sounds of speech swimming through my senses.

He was stripping me of my will to rebel. But I would be well awake in the morning.