CASSIAN’S POV
The heavy keys felt cold against my knuckles as I unlocked the heavy iron gate leading down into the bowels of the palace. Down here, the air was different. It was thick with the smell of damp stone, old rust, and the metallic tang of dried blood. The only sound was the steady, hollow thud of my boots against the wet ground, echoing down the long, torch-lit corridor.
I stopped in front of the cell at the very end of the hall.
Garrick was chained to the granite wall, his arms pulled tight by heavy iron links. The dirt and dried horse sweat from his desperate ride were still caked onto his skin, and his chest hitched painfully with every breath he took. He looked broken, like a stray dog caught in a trap. But the second the torchlight caught my face, the pride he loved to hide behind flared right back up. He lifted his chin, forcing a weak, venomous sneer across his bloody face.
"Come to gloat, Volkov?" he rasped. His voice sounded like broken glass, raw and scraped thin by the quiet of the cells. He let out a dry, rattling laugh that quickly turned into a violent cough, shaking his chains. "Go ahead. Lock me away. Torture me if it makes you feel like a man. But it doesn't change a single thing. You can wrap her in your fine furs and give her whatever titles you want, but her soul belongs to me. The ancient laws of the Moon don't care about your crown. She is my fated mate, and you're just a placeholder."
I didn't flinch. I didn't even act as though he was talking to me, and I didn't wrap my hands around the iron bars to threaten him as was my initial intention. The explosive fury that had threatened to tear the palace apart hours ago was entirely gone, replaced by a cold, quiet stillness. Getting angry at a ghost was beneath me.
I slowly stepped up to the iron grates, letting the faint torchlight catch the hard lines of my face. I just looked at him, letting my eyes fix on his, completely unbothered by his words.
"A fated mate bond is a gift from the Moon, Garrick," I said, my voice low and calm, carrying effortlessly through the small cell. "But a true bond is built on choice. It’s built on what you actually do when the world gets dark around you. Today, while you were miles away letting your family plot a slaughter, Zaria stood her ground. She bled for my people. She fought like a true northern warrior to defend my home."
I leaned in slightly, narrowing my eyes just enough to let him see the absolute certainty in them.
"And you? You rode a horse to death, collapsed at my gates, and crawled through the dirt to beg for a woman you threw out to freeze in the snow. You aren't a mate, boy. You're a ghost she’s already forgotten."
Garrick’s jaw tightened. The blood drained from his face, leaving him looking sickly pale under the dirt. My words had stripped away the last of his delusions, and for a second, I saw the raw panic in his eyes. He thrashed violently against the heavy chains, the iron links clanking loudly against the stone wall, but he couldn't break my absolute calm. He was fighting a shadow, and he knew it.
Realizing he couldn't win a battle of strength or pride, his expression shifted. The anger faded into something ugly and malicious. He slumped back against the stone, a weak, breathless laugh escaping his split lips.
"You think you're saving her, don't you?" Garrick whispered. His green eyes gleamed with a desperate, spiteful intelligence in the shadows of the cell. "You think you're the hero of her story, Volkov? You keep her safe in your high castle, but you're keeping secrets too. Oh yes, you are keeping secrets from her and you're probably using her for your own good. Poor her, trusting you not knowing that you are worse. Or don't you have secrets?"
He leaned his head forward, his grin widening into something jagged and broken, fueled by pure malice. I know that smile. He knows something and is about to use it against me.
"You think you're saving her, Volkov? If she ever finds out the real reason your family hates my pack, and the blood on her own father's hands, if she ever finds out the relationship between her family and yours, do you think she will still be by your side? You think she will still agree that you are being nice to her because you care? She will hate you more than she hates me."