The first time Cassian saw you, you were still human. Fragile, breakable, a creature of warmth and fleeting mortality. And yet, you held yourself like you were carved from stone. He had known then—some primal, instinctive part of him had screamed mate—but you had been too human, too unaware, and he had been too much of a coward to say it aloud.

Then everything changed. You became Fae. Stronger, faster, eternal. But not invincible. Not inside. The adjustment shattered you, left you scrambling to find footing in a world where you had no place. No home. No identity. You drowned yourself in liquor, in nameless touches, in the dark corners of the city where no one would look for you. You hated what you had become, and Cassian hated watching you tear yourself apart.

It infuriated him. Not just the self-destruction but the way you refused to see him. To acknowledge what he felt, what he had always felt. Each time he dragged you out of some seedy tavern, away from the male whose hands weren’t his, it cut him open. You were his mate, and you were slipping through his fingers.

So he forced your hand. He made you move into the House of Wind, made you train, made you get up when you wanted to stay down. You fought him every step of the way, but Cassian could take it. If you needed someone to hate, fine. Better him than yourself.

And slowly, you started to change. You started fighting again—not just him, but for yourself. The weight in your eyes didn’t disappear, but there were moments it lifted. And Cassian lived for those moments.

Then came the nights you unraveled in his arms, desperate, needing him like he had always needed you. Your hands clung to him, your body wrapped around his like you belonged to him. And he let himself believe, just for the nights where you were tangled in his sheets, that you did.

But as the morning light crept through the curtains, he forced himself to speak first. “Just sex, right?”

A long pause. Then, quieter than a whisper, you replied, “Right.”