Cassius stood up slowly, draping a dark cloak over his broad shoulders. Without a word, he walked toward the direction where the faint magical signals pulsed.
"Brother, it's me!" Corrine's voice rang out from behind the shimmering domain's barrier.
With a flick of his wrist, Cassius lowered the invisible wall and let her through. As he turned and walked back toward the place where Roxanne lay resting, Corrine froze mid step. Her keen senses flared to life. The heavy, unmistakable scent of sex, raw, recent, and thick with magic saturated the entire domain.Cassius, wait."
He did not stop walking. "What is it?"
"Did you," she paused, choosing her words carefully while still hoping she was wrong, " By any chance bed Roxanne?"
He stopped then. Turned to face her with the same expression he wore for everything.
"Yes. It was the better outcome for both of us."
Corrine stared at him. She reached out and took his hand, holding it the way she used to when they were younger and she needed him to actually listen.
"Cassius." Her voice dropped. "Do you understand the gravity of what you have done?"
He said nothing.
"You have no feelings for her. Whatever circumstances you both found yourselves in last night, it should never have gone that far." She exhaled slowly, steadying herself before continuing. "We have not reclaimed the throne from the Demon world. Our revenge against Bloodmoon is still unfinished. Everything we have sacrificed, everything we have endured, it is all still waiting to be settled." Her grip on his hand tightened slightly. "And now you want to complicate all of it with romance? With a family?"
She released his hand and stepped back, the frustration in her eyes sharpening into something closer to fear.
"She is a low class vampire, Cassius. She has no abilities. No power to speak of. If she carries your children, what then? What strength does she have to survive that? And the children themselves, what if they inherit her powerlessness? Some of them or all of them." She shook her head. "You have spent your entire life fighting to reclaim what was taken from us. Is this truly what you want to stand beside ?"
The domain was very quiet around them.
Cassius had not looked away from her once.
"If I say there were no feelings attached to it, I mean exactly that." Cassius's voice was level, unmoved. "She has no feelings for me either. We did what was necessary in that moment and neither of us has lost sight of what we are here to do." He met Corrine's eyes without flinching. "I promise you this. I will not rest until we take back everything that is ours."
Corrine said nothing more.
The walk back to where Roxanne lay was silent between them, the kind of silence that had too much inside it to be comfortable.
Blood stains marred the once pristine wolf fur mat beneath her. Blood smears trailed along her lower thighs, and her pale lips were still visibly swollen from their passionate union. A constellation of dark love bites and bruises bloomed across her pale skin on her breasts, her hips, and the delicate curve of her neck serving as undeniable proof of the night ,written plainly across her body for anyone with eyes to read.
Corrine's eyes widened in horror the moment her gaze landed on the prominent mark at the base of Roxanne's throat. A fresh, glowing claim bite unmistakably Cassius's.
"You absolutely did not mark her, right?!" Corrine demanded, her voice sharp with disbelief and rising anger. She spun toward her brother, eyes blazing. "Tell me you didn't claim her like some mated wolf!"
I did."
The words landed and for a moment Corrine simply stared at her brother.
"What is wrong with you?" The calm she had been holding cracked clean through. "She is to be Vangelis's second wife. You are fully aware of that. What were you thinking?"
Cassius turned to face her and placed both hands on her shoulders, steadying her the way he steadied most things, by refusing to be moved himself.
"I am conscious of everything I do. I will use one of the spells to erase the mark and unclaim her. It can be undone."
Corrine pulled back slightly, something shifting in her expression from anger into something quieter and more certain.
"You think she is commodity or an offer that can simply be claimed and unclaimed whenever it is convenient for you?" Her voice dropped but lost none of its weight. "That is an insult to her, Cassius. A deep one." She glanced back at Roxanne and then returned to him.
"You may have nothing attached to last night. I believe you when you say that".Corrine said, her voice softening with quiet intensity as she looked down at Roxanne's marked body, "but I'm a woman. I'll always have something for the first man who takes my innocence…
and then claims me."
She turned back to Cassius, her eyes glistening with a mix of frustration and empathy.
"Do you understand what you've done to her, brother? You didn't just take her body that night. You took something she can never give again. And then you marked her bound her to you in the most permanent way a wolf can. Even if your heart feels nothing, hers will never be the same."
Cassius held her gaze for a long moment.
Then without a word he moved to Roxanne and lifted her carefully, settling her onto the horse. His hands were gentle in the way they always were when no one was expecting it.
He turned to face the domain one final time.
"Imperio velum. Redi in nihilum."
The words left him quietly, almost gently, and the domain responded. The golden crystals stilled. The rainbow torches extinguished one by one. The golden leaves released their colour and the light that had filled every corner of that sacred space drew back slowly, like a tide going out, until there was nothing left.