CHAPTER 6 : DON’T LOOK WEAK
1456 Words
POV: Cassian Volkov
The thing inside her room was not wolf.
Cassian knew the scent instantly, blood,rot, Eastern Syndicate poison.
His wolf snarled violently beneath his skin.Danger, threat,kill.
The darkness inside Alessia’s bedroom shifted slowly.
Then a man stumbled into the faint moonlight bleeding heavily from the throat.
Volkov guard, one of hers.
His eyes widened the second he saw Cassian standing in the corridor.
“Alpha”
The man collapsed hard onto the floor choking on blood,dead.
Alessia inhaled sharply behind him,Cassian barely heard it,because another scent had already flooded the corridor.Intruder,alive, running.
The predator inside him surfaced instantly,bones cracked violently beneath his skin,his vision sharpened,every heartbeat inside the fortress became audible,Including hers, fast,uneven,too close.
Cassian turned toward Alessia sharply.
“Go back inside.”
His voice sounded less human now,a growl hid beneath every word.
Alessia stared at the dead guard instead.
Shock flashed across her face, but not panic.
Interesting.
Most women raised around violence learned how to faint prettily.
Alessia learned how to survive it.
A distant alarm suddenly erupted somewhere below the fortress, red emergency lights flashed across the corridor walls.
The intruder had triggered perimeter sensors.
Too late.Cassian already smelled him.
The wolf surged harder beneath his skin.Hunt,kill,protect mate.
Mate.
The word nearly snapped the last thread of control remaining.
Cassian’s claws extended fully this time, black, sharp, monstrous.
Alessia finally looked at him again.Her pulse stumbled visibly,fear.Good.
She should fear this side of him, everyone should.But instead of backing away,she stepped closer.
Cassian went completely still, dangerous mistake,very dangerous.
“You’re bleeding,” she said quietly.
Cassian stared at her in disbelief for one brief second.
There was a dead body beside them, a killer somewhere inside the fortress and she was worried about him bleeding.
His wolf noticed too.Mine.
Possession hit hard enough to hurt.
Cassian turned away immediately before instinct took over completely.
“Alessia.”
Warning.
“Go. Inside.”
Still she didn’t move.
Behind them, wolves flooded the corridors below shouting Russian orders.
Weapons loaded, boots thundered against marble floors.The fortress had become a war zone again.Emergency protocols were already spreading through the Volkov empire. Eastern shipping routes are locked down. Private military contractors mobilized across Balkan territories. Intelligence divisions monitored every encrypted syndicate channel for signs of coordinated attack.
Beneath the fortress, hidden command floors would already be sealing biometric vaults, encrypting financial servers, and activating internal surveillance grids beneath layers of aristocratic luxury.
But Alessia kept staring at him,not with softness,not pity but with study and challenge. Like she was trying to understand the monster everyone feared.
That alone made her dangerous. Cassian’s control slipped another inch,his spine cracked violently,pain tore through his body like fire beneath skin.The curse was worsening faster tonight because of proximity,because of her.
Because every instinct inside him wanted to drag her against the wall and scent her until the entire fortress understood she belonged to him.
The thought nearly made him bare his teeth.
Unacceptable,weakness,love destroyed Volkov heirs.Always.
He still remembered his mother screaming,blood across white marble,his father standing over her with gold eyes and empty humanity.
The curse always won.Cassian would not repeat history.
Another guard rushed into the corridor suddenly.
“Northern perimeter breached, Alpha”
The wolf inside Cassian snapped instantly toward the interruption,territorial rage exploded through him.
The guard froze immediately.Submission,absolute.
Even wounded and half-shifted, Cassian still radiated Alpha dominance strong enough to suffocate weaker wolves.
Entire criminal networks depended on that dominance remaining unshaken. Senators, cartel financiers, and military brokers all built fortunes beneath the protection of the Volkov name.
“Speak,” Cassian growled.
“Three intruders dead ,one escaped toward the lower tunnels.”
Coward,Eastern Syndicate tactics,always attacking from shadows.
If Kozlov’s men penetrated the fortress twice in one week, rival syndicates would start circling Volkov oil contracts, laundering fronts, and weapons corridors by morning.
Cassian looked toward Alessia one final time.
“You stay here.”
“No.”
The answer came instantly,defiant.
Cassian blinked once slowly.
No one told him no inside this fortress.Not guards,not Alphas, not syndicate kings.Yet Alessia stood in front of him trembling slightly and did it anyway.
The wolf became intensely interested,dangerously interested.
“You don’t give me orders,” she continued quietly.
His control almost broke completely not because of disrespect,but because his wolf loved hearing her challenge him.
Cassian stepped toward her slowly.
The guard wisely disappeared immediately.
Predator instinct rolled heavily through the corridor now.
Alessia held her ground.
Brave or suicidal, maybe both.
“You think this is a game?” Cassian asked softly.
“No.”
“Then stop acting fearless around monsters.”
Her chin lifted slightly.
“You haven’t hurt me.”
The words hit harder than they should have.
Cassian stared at her silently because she was right.
He had threatened, controlled, terrified but never truly harmed her.
And somehow,that mattered to her. Dangerous,very dangerous.
“You saw what I become,” he said quietly.
“I saw you trying to control it.”
Silence.
The corridor seemed to darken around them.
Cassian’s wolf reacted violently to her words.Recognition,connection.
Mate.
He hated it, hated how naturally she looked at him without immediate disgust.
Most people feared the monster.
Alessia studied the man fighting it.
That made her catastrophic for him.
Another wave of pain ripped through Cassian’s body.
His claws dragged briefly against the wall leaving deep marks in stone.
Alessia flinched this time.
Good, reality returning.
“You should be terrified right now,” he said roughly.
“Maybe I’m tired of being terrified.”
The honesty in her voice hit something unexpectedly deep.
Cassian saw it suddenly, the exhaustion beneath her defiance. A woman traded between empires her entire life, controlled by her father, controlled by her brother. Now trapped inside another monster’s kingdom, and still refusing to bow completely.
His wolf admired strength,possibly more than beauty.Which was unfortunate because Alessia possessed both, A dangerous combination.
Cassian inhaled sharply.
Her scent wrapped around his senses instantly.Jasmine,fear, defiance, Mine.
The possessive instinct surged so violently he moved before thinking.
One second Alessia stood across from him,the next Cassian slammed one hand beside her head against the wall, hard enough to crack marble.
Alessia gasped softly.
His body trapped hers instantly.Heat, power, predator dominance.
The hallway suddenly felt far too small.Cassian lowered his head slowly until their faces were inches apart.Her heartbeat thundered wildly now but she still refused to look away.
God.
His wolf became obsessed with that immediately.The need to dominate her collided violently with the need to protect her.Both instincts equally dangerous.
“You keep looking at me like I’m still human,” Cassian murmured.
His voice sounded rougher now, hungrier.Gold burned brightly in his eyes.
Alessia swallowed hard but lifted her chin anyway.
“Are you?”
Wrong answer, very wrong answer.
Cassian’s claws dug deeper into the wall beside her.His breathing roughened instantly,every inch of him felt too close,too large,too dangerous.And Alessia could feel it.
The violence barely restrained beneath his skin,the wolf trying to surface fully. Yet instead of retreating
she whispered: “You’re fighting yourself harder than you fight your enemies.”
The words nearly destroyed his control completely because nobody noticed things like that, nobody looked beyond fear but Alessia did.
Cassian leaned closer unconsciously.
The scent of her skin invaded every instinct he possessed, his wolf wanted to mark her, claim her, drag every syndicate leader in Europe to their knees if they looked at her wrong.Madness,Pure madness.
The curse was accelerating everything.Obsessive attachment, territorial aggression,violent protectiveness.
Exactly how it started with his father.And if Europe’s underworld discovered the Black Alpha was becoming unstable, syndicate wars would erupt across multiple territories before sunrise.
Cassian forced himself backward violently, distance.He needed distance but Alessia grabbed his wrist before he could step away.
The contact froze both of them instantly,heat exploded through the bond,raw, electric, wolf meeting wolf.Cassian’s eyes darkened dangerously.
Alessia seemed to realize her mistake immediately.
Too late.
His gaze dropped briefly to her hand wrapped around him,then lifted slowly back to her face.
The corridor became suffocatingly silent.
“Careful,” he said softly.
Predator soft again,the kind of softness that came before violence.
Alessia released him instantly but the damage was already done.
His wolf had felt her choose touch instead of fear and now it wanted more. Cassian stepped toward her again, slowly, deliberately.The dominance pouring from him made the air itself feel heavier.
Alessia’s back hit the wall fully this time, trapped. Yet still refusing submission, Interesting, so incredibly interesting.
Cassian lowered his head near her ear, close enough to feel her breathing hitch.
“You’re either brave…” he murmured darkly.
His hand slid beside her waist possessively.
“…or suicidal.”
- Writer
