The Alpha's Forbidden Pact

CHAPTER 13: CASSIUS DRAKE

I looked at the men behind me, then back at Cassius.

There was no good choice. Only the one that kept me breathing long enough to ask better questions.

“Move,” I said.

Cassius turned without another word and walked deeper into the side street. I followed. The four men who had been closing in did not try to stop us. They only watched. One of them spat on the ground as we passed, but none of them raised a hand. Whatever authority Cassius carried, it was enough to hold them in place.

We cut through a delivery alley, then down a short flight of concrete steps into a narrow service corridor between buildings. The noise of the main road faded. Cassius stopped beside a metal door, keyed a code into a small panel, and pushed it open. The room beyond was bare. Concrete floor. One table. Two chairs. No windows.

He closed the door behind us and leaned against it.

“Sit,” he said.

I stayed on my feet.

Cassius almost smiled. “The Five trained you well. Never accept the first offer of comfort. Never turn your back. Never trust a closed door.” He pushed off the wall and walked to the table, turning one of the chairs around so he could sit with his arms resting on the back of it. “You can keep standing. It will not change what I came to say.”

“You said the Five have been lying to me.”

“They have.”

“About the pact.”

“Among other things.”

I crossed my arms to keep my hands still. The folder under my jacket felt heavier than paper. “Start talking.”

Cassius studied me for a long moment. His eyes were dark and steady, the kind that noticed everything and gave very little back.

“The pact was never only about keeping you untouched,” he said. “That was the part they told you. The part that made them look noble. The real terms are older and uglier. One intentional touch from any of the five men bound to you does not just break the bond between the one who touches you. It breaks it for all of them at once. Every protection. Every shared strength. Every link that has kept the Council from finding you for eighteen years. One slip and the whole shield falls.”

The words landed like cold water.

“That is not what they told me.”

“I know.”

“Kade almost…” I stopped myself. The memory of his hand around my wrist in the safehouse rose sharp and clear. The way the air had changed. The way he had looked when he realized what he had done.

Cassius watched the thought cross my face.

“He came close,” he said. “Closer than any of them have admitted to you. And if he had held on even a few seconds longer, every one of them would have felt the break. The Council would have felt it too. That is how tightly the old magic was wound. It was never designed to protect you alone. It was designed to make sure the men guarding you could never choose you over the mission without destroying everything.”

My stomach turned. I walked to the far wall and put my back against it because standing in the open suddenly felt exposed.

“Why tell me this?”

“Because the Reclaiming Moon is no longer months away. It is weeks. And once your name is public, the pact becomes a liability instead of a shield. The Council will not need to hunt you anymore. They will only need to wait for one of your guardians to slip. Or to force the slip themselves.”

“You expect me to believe you care what happens to me.”

“I care what happens to the last Sinclair heir,” he said. “There is a difference. The rogue packs have no interest in seeing the Council fold your bloodline into their own through an arranged mating. We also have no interest in watching five men who have lied to you for eighteen years decide your future for you.”

I laughed once, short and without humor. “And you are the better option.”

“I am the honest one.” He stood up from the chair and walked closer, stopping just outside the reach of my arms. “The Five have kept you alive. That part is true. They have also kept you small. Every truth filtered. Every risk is managed. Every desire rationed. You have spent your whole life being protected from the world and from yourself. I am offering you the parts they left out.”

“In exchange for what?”

Cassius held my gaze without blinking.

“For now? Only that you listen. Later, you may decide the information is worth more than the cage they built for you.”

The room felt smaller with him standing this close. I could smell rain on his jacket and something sharper underneath, like steel and night air. He did not move like the men who had followed me on the street. He moved like someone who had already decided the fight was over before it began.

“The pact,” I said. “If what you are telling me is true, then every time Kade stepped back, every time Damaris put a wall of people between us, every time they refused to answer a direct question, it was because the cost of honesty might have been the end of everything.”

“Yes.”

“And they never told me.”

“No.”

I pressed my palms flat against the cold concrete behind me. The folder under my jacket dug into my ribs. Julian’s voice from less than an hour ago mixed with Cassius’s words until I could not tell which betrayal sat heavier.

“I need proof,” I said.

Cassius reached into his jacket and took out a folded piece of paper. He set it on the table without offering it to me directly.

“That is a partial copy of the original pact language. The part the Five never read to you. Look at it when you are ready. Or burn it. The choice is yours.”

I have not picked it up yet.

“Why should I trust anything you give me?”

“You should not.” His mouth curved, not quite a smile. “You should verify it. Ask Kade what happens to all five of them if one loses control. Watch his face when you ask. That will tell you more than any paper I can hand you.”

Silence stretched between us. Outside the thick walls I could hear the distant rush of traffic. Inside, there was only the sound of my own breathing and the low awareness of how far I had stepped from every rule that had kept me alive.

Cassius walked back to the door and rested his hand on the handle.

“The men who followed you will not stop after one failed attempt,” he said. “The next group will be larger. Or quieter. You need to decide who you are going to believe before the Moon rises and the choice is taken from you entirely.”

He opened the door. Daylight and street noise spilled in.

“You know how to find me when you are ready for the rest,” he said.

Then he stepped out and left me alone in the concrete room with a folded piece of paper on the table and the growing certainty that everything I had been told about the pact was only half the truth.