THE AWAKENING

Chapter-15-

Memories from her childhood floated through her mental theater, plucked from the past and pasted together in a jumble of thoughts, sounds and feelings as she sank under a black blanket of total lethargy.

The sharp bite of pain as the skin split beneath the rusty saw blade. Blood welling from a small finger. Crimson spilling in a beautiful trickle from a nasty wound. Her adoptive mother’s fretting and worrying as the wound streamed red.

“I told you not to play by that dirty old thing,” her mother had admonished, rushing to put Cassandra’s wounded finger under the faucet.

The cool water soothed the angry cut, washing away the blood, staining in the porcelain sink a light pink before swirling down the drain. “You could’ve cut your finger clean off!”

Cassandra had remained silent, more fascinated by the blood than the pain of her cut or her mother’s muttering about tetanus and blood poisoning.

Without thinking, Cassandra popped her finger into her mouth just as her mother went to grab a bandage.

“Cassi!” her mother had cried, appalled. “What are you doing?”

“I wanted to know what blood tasted like,” Cassandra had answered.

Her mother’s mouth tightened in a disgusted moue. “Well, that’s disturbing. Don’t do that. Little girls don’t need to be wondering about such things. Do you hear me?” she chastised as she quickly bandaged Cassandra’s finger.

Cassandra had nodded, sufficiently convinced that she ought to never do such a thing again but deep down…Cassandra had been afraid to admit that she’d liked the taste of the blood.

The copper tang had thrilled her senses, as if lighting her insides and creating a pervasive hunger for more.

From that point forward, Cassandra had always preferred her meat rare and slightly bloody. Her friends had always shuddered and called her a carnivore. If only they knew…

Of course, now it made sense. If anything about her new life could make sense, that is.

How would her life have been different if she’d been raised with full knowledge of her heritage? What if her biological parents had been able to raise her within Clan Janus?

What would that have meant for her life? Would she have gone to college? Would she have been as driven to push herself academically?

To be fair, her high IQ wasn’t exactly helping her out at the moment but she supposed being as dumb as a rock wouldn’t have helped much either. Too many questions without any answers.

“You are awake.”

Cassandra’s eyes opened reluctantly to find Jandin watching her with a warm, relieved smile.

She sighed and struggled to sit up. Jandin rushed to her side to help. She graced him with a brief grateful smile and took a good look around her surroundings before asking, “How long was I out?”

“Two days.”

Her eyes bugged. “Two days? I’ve never slept that long in my life. Am I…okay?”

Jandin came to sit beside her. Her heightened senses picked up his unique body odor and it smelled delicious, like chocolate and steak; rain and green grass all wrapped in one unique scent.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

And yet, now that she wasn’t Phasing, she wasn’t wildly attracted to him. It was as if he were simply… her brother. She frowned.

That can’t be normal, right?

She didn’t have much experience with these sorts of things but wasn’t she supposed to feel something deeper for the man who’d taken her virginity?

“I can’t tell you how happy I was to hear you’d found your way to our compound,” Jandin said, breaking into her thoughts. “We took some losses that night. As much as I hate that blood-sucker Cristophe, taking you away from the heat of battle may have been the best course of action.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she said, though she wasn’t sure about anything these days. “I wasn’t safe for long. Ulster and his clan found us just as we were leaving the cave,” she admitted with open distaste. “And then I Phased again.”

Jandin didn’t have to ask; he knew what happened next. “There is no shame in what happened. The Phase is a powerful force in a female’s body, not to mention there are forces at work that go beyond the simple biology of our species. You are unlike any female we’ve ever known.”

“Yeah, so I hear,” she grumbled, rocking her head to the side to crack her neck. The crackle of bones felt good but only briefly so as her stomach growled like a beast trapped under her skin. She clutched her belly with embarrassment but Jandin simply chuckled as he rose from her bedside.

“The Prophesied One requires sustenance,” he said, smiling when she grimaced at his word choices. “Too much?” he asked and she nodded. “Okay, Cassandra it is. Any preference?”

“Just food and lots of it.”

“Red meat and wine; food of the Gods. Only the best for you, I promise.”

“Or a sandwich would work, too,” she suggested with a weary smile. “Besides, I don’t think your Alpha shares your feelings about my worth. No sense in making it worse with fancy meal requests. I think I’m just a problem that’s been thrust in his lap to solve. Doesn’t really make for the warm and fuzzies, you know?”

On either side.

Jandin’s expression lost some of its warmth and he shook his head in apparent frustration at his brother. “Tieran has always been stubborn. Hardest head of all the pups, our mother used to say. He will come around. He’s trying to do what’s best for the clan, much less the world.”

So his name was Tieran? She supposed she didn’t need to call him The Prick any longer, though at this point it was a perfect fit.

Cassandra weighed her words carefully, not interested in pitting the brothers against one another when she needed all of their help to get through this epically screwed up Prophecy in one piece. “It seems that everyone I come into contact with wants to kill me, fuck me, or own me. Including Tieran.”

Jandin looked away, his mouth tightening. “I cannot speak for my brother but as long as I breathe, you will not be harmed in this house by anyone in Clan Janus. I make this vow to you.”

His sweet declaration warmed her heart, even if she knew he shouldn’t make promises he might not be able to keep.

If it hadn’t been for something that held Tieran in check, she might’ve been reduced to a bloody pulp at the Alpha’s hands. Still, she appreciated the gesture.

After everything that had gone down as of late, she’d take any kindness. “Thank you, Jandin.”

He bowed ever so slightly and then left the room to get her food. She sighed and leaned against the giant fluffy pillow at her back. The bed was luxuriantly soft and her poor bones appreciated the fine quality.

It wasn’t every day that a girl turned into a wolf and then back to human again within a few hours. If only she had a clue as to how it’d even happened. Probably something to do with that damn Phase. It was seriously mucking up her life.

Would she ever make it back to college? She ground the grit from her eyes and groaned. She’d give anything to go back to her normal, mundane life where the most complicated event involved juggling her meager budget so that she could both afford food and electricity at the same time.

If there had to be some big, dark secret in her family tree, why couldn’t have been something like a rich, senile relative who suddenly died and left her his entire fortune?

Yeah, like that happens in real life. Oh wait, none of this shit actually happens in real life, so whatever: dream big, Cassandra.

“Are you sufficiently recovered?” a voice asked from the doorway. Cassandra opened her eyes and swallowed her irritation when she saw Tieran with a tray of food.

She jerked a short nod and he entered, placing the tray on her lap with an efficient motion. Cassandra accepted the tray with a muttered thanks and then tore into the food, ravenous.

“Where’s Jandin?” she asked between bites of near raw steak that ran with blood as she sliced into it.

“It is not his place to feed you,” he said stiffly, surprising her.

“Come again?” She swallowed slowly, regarding Tieran with a frown. “Do you feed everyone in the clan? That sounds like a full-time job,” she muttered, taking another bite.

“No. Only you.” His blue eyes narrowed and she shivered as the air in the room seemed of short supply.

She swallowed. Me? Why?