Chapter 3
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CASSIDY’S POV
My mother looked smaller inside that cage than I had ever seen her look in my entire life.
That was the thing that broke something in me. Not the cage itself, not the cold stone floor under it, not the way the wire had pressed red lines into her forearms where she'd been leaning. It was the size of her.
My mother wasn’t a small woman. She was tall, with broad shoulders. She was the woman who had held our family together with bare hands after my father was taken. She was the woman who scrubbed floors in a castle that used to call her General's wife. She did it without bending, without breaking, without letting anyone see what it cost her.
She looked small in that cage.
I dropped to my knees in front of the cage, grabbingthe wire with both hands.
"Mom." My voice came out cracked. I didn't care. "Mom, are you hurt? Did they-"
"I'm fine, Cassie." She spoke “I'm not hurt. Stop looking at me like that."
"You're in a cage-"
"I know where I am. Stand up, Cassie. Don't let him see you like this."
"Touching," Kenny said.
"Let her out." I said it directly "She hasn't done anything to you. Let her out right now."
"Hm." He tilted his head slightly, thinking it over, or pretending to. "No."
"Kenny-"
"I already told you. You have to give me what I want”
My mom’s eyes went wide “Cassie, no”
“You came here," Kenny said, cutting her off, "because you knew she'd be here. I knew you'd come because that's who you are, Cassidy. You’re predictable. Your mother gets held and you walk straight through the gate like a good little girl." He smiled. "It's almost sweet."
I sighed. "What do you want."
"There's a room upstairs," Kenny said "I'm going to spend the night there with Celeste and two other girls." He paused, just long enough for that to land. "You're going to stay in the room with us to watch."
Silence.
My mother gasped.
I knew what he was describing. Being in close physical proximity while your true mate was with someone else wasn't just unpleasant. It wasn't just emotionally awful. For a wolf who had sensed the bond, it was physical.
The pain would be excruciating.
"No," I said.
"Okay." Kenny shrugged lightly. He turned and looked at the cage behind me. "She can stay where she is, then. I'll let her out in the morning or the afternoon. I'm not sure what my schedule looks like."
"She's a person," I said "She's a person, Kenny, she can't sleep in-"
"Then agree." He looked back at me. Simple as that. Then agree. Like it was a trade at a market. Like my mother's dignity had a price tag and he'd just read it out loud.
I turned around and looked at the cage, at my mother.
She was looking at me with an expression I recognized. Her eyes said Don't do this. Don't you dare do this for me. Her eyes said she was fine, that she could manage, that she had managed worse.
Three years. Three years she had cleaned floors and served people who used to bow to her. She had done it without a single word of complaint, for my sake. She had given up everything that she was for my sake.
I turned back around.
"Fine," I said.
-
I won't write what happened in that room in detail. Some things don't need to be described to be understood.
What I will say is this: the bond doesn't ask permission. It doesn't care what situation you're in. The moment Kenny f****d someone else, my body responded like it had been cut. Not metaphorically. The pain I felt was a real physical sensation.
The pain spread, starting somewhere in my sternum and radiating outward through my ribs, down my arms, into my stomach. It took my breath the first time.
I sat in the corner of that room in a chair I had pulled as far from the bed as the space would allow,
I folded my arms across my chest, breathing through the waves of the pain.
It didn't work.
By the time an hour had passed, I had stopped being able to sit upright. I had slid from the chair to the floor without quite knowing when it happened.
The pain was something constant now. Tears ran down my face silently.
I heard Celeste laugh from across the room.
-
The uniform situation was a problem I hadn’t fully solved by morning.
My ruined uniform was still in the bottom of the closet, stiff with dried paint. My mother's small emergency savings - coins, mostly, kept in a jar above the refrigerator – weren’t enough for a replacement on short notice, and the academy had a strict dress code.
What I had was my cousin Lena's old uniform, passed along two years ago when Lena grew out of it before I did.
I stood in front of the mirror in Lena's old uniform, looking at myself.
The skirt was extremely. The jacket pulled tight across the shoulders, straining at the seams. The blouse was tight.
I stared at my reflection for a moment longer, and then I found my bag and left for school.
-
The attention started before I reached the front steps.
A group of second-year boys near the gate went quiet as I passed. I heard one of them say something low that I didn't catch. I heard one of them wolf whistle.
In the front hall, Priya Kessler – one of the elites - looked up from her phone as I passed and kept looking. Her mouth opened in shock.
Everyone looked at me in awe as I passed. I tried walking faster. I wanted nothing more than to get out of here.
Standing in Lena's too-small uniform with half the hallway watching me out of the corners of their eyes felt bizarre, like wearing someone else's skin.
I almost made it to my locker without any incident.
Almost.
"Storm."
I stopped. I thought very briefly about not stopping, about walking straight through and pretending I hadn't heard.
I turned.
Kenny walked towards me with Marco and two other boys.
"Interesting choice," he said, looking at me from head to toe.. "Didn't know you were hiding all of that."
Marco laughed "Should've done laundry more often."
"I have class," I said.
"I'm sure you do." He shifted, blocking my path "You find your mother alright last night?"
My jaw tightened. "I found her,"
Kenny bent down then, and I realized that he had a gelato cone in his hand. He set it on the floor then stepped on slowly.
He straightened up and looked at me.
"There you go," he said pleasantly. "Go ahead."
The hallway. had gone fully, completely silent.
I looked at the gelato on the ground. I looked at his shoe. I looked at his face.
He wanted me on my knees. That was the point.
"No," I said.
His eyes turned gold "What was that?"
"I said no." I looked at him "I'm not doing that."
Kenny's expression shifted, and I braced myself, because when Kenny's expression shifted like that it meant something worse was coming.
"Hey."
The voice came from behind me.
The voice wasn’t loud. It wasn’t aggressive. It was just a single word, and something in the quality of it made every wolf in the hallway freeze.
Every head turned.
I turned too.
Three boys stood at the courtyard entrance.
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