Nadia looked at me. Hope and worry mixed in her eyes.
We turned into the long driveway of the mansion.
The moment Nadia parked, every door opened at the same time. All five of us spilled out like some kind of uncoordinated parade. Cassian limped, which I suspected was fake and purely for extra attention from Lena. Ezra carried his bag. Lena cursedat the gravel. Nadia fixed her hair. I kept a hand on her shoulder, unwilling to let her out of reach.
The world felt safe. Or as close to it as I’d ever experienced.
“Everyone inside,” Nadia said softly. “We survived. Now we rest.”
We followed her up the steps as a group.
Alive. Together. No Sovereign Court hanging over our heads.
Finally.
Cassian unlocked the master bedroom—the one that had been off-limits all summer—and pushed the door open. The hinges groaned. He stepped inside and turned on the lights.
I stopped just past the threshold.
The room was massive. The largest in the mansion by far. A stone fireplace dominated the far wall with a seating area arranged in front of it. Heavy curtains covered every window. A full wet bar lined the right side of the room with shelves of liquor bottles. Next to it, a stainless steel medical fridge hummed softly.
Cassian tapped the fridge. “Blood packs. Rare types. Labeled by age. You always liked things organized.”
I crossed the room slowly. “You kept all of this ready.”
He nodded and strode to the bar, where he poured whiskey into two glasses. “Didn’t know how long it would take. Or who would wake you. Or ifIever would.”
I accepted the glass but did not drink yet. “I have questions.”
Cassian sat on the couch and gestured for me to sit across from him. He looked exhausted. It was the demeanor of the man who had been waiting centuries to speak.
“Ask,” he said.
“Why did you hire someone to house-sit? Why bring a stranger here?”
Cassian rubbed the back of his neck. “Because I didn’t want to be the one to wake you. I’ve been hoping someone else would.”
I stared at him. “You were afraid of me.”
“Yes. I betrayed you for power. I followed Hammond when I should have followed my own damn mind. I expected you to kill me the second you saw me. So, I needed someone else to get you out first. Someone neutral. Someone who would give you time to settle before I revealed myself.”
“You thought I would rip your head off on sight.”
He gave a small, humorless laugh. “You would have. You were always stronger than me. And I deserved whatever you wanted to do.”
I stepped closer to the fireplace. The flames cast a warm glow across the stone. “You could have woken me two hundred years ago. Or a hundred. Or fifty.”
He let out a breath. “For the first hundred years, I convinced myself I didn’t care. I pretended your disappearance was convenient for me. Less competition. More room to grow in the court.” He shook his head. “Then the guilt came. I tried to ignore it for another hundred years. Told myself you made your choice. Told myself I had no responsibility.”
I sat down across from him. “And the last hundred-and-seventy-five?”
His eyes softened. “I realized I had ruined everything. I started hiring house sitters every summer, hoping one of them would come close enough to the wards to wake you. I thought if I let a stranger do it, you would not look at me with rage in the first minute. I wanted a chance to speak before you decided my fate.”
I took a long drink of whiskey.
Cassian continued. “And somewhere in all that waiting, I stopped caring about power. Hammond. Sovereign Court. Titles. All of it is poison. I watched it ruin everyone around us. I wanted out long before tonight. But Hammond kept me tethered. And I was too much of a coward to break away.”
He leaned forward. “I am not jealous of you anymore. Not of your strength. Not of your place in the world. I only wanted my brother back.”
