Rose
The night had grown heavy. Not the kind of heaviness born from silence, but the thick, pressing weight that lingers after violence, when blood still clings to the air and shadows stretch long over memory.
I sat on the edge of the bed, stripped of my jacket, skin stinging where blades and bullets had hit too close. My hands shook slightly not from fear, but from the strain of keeping my composure while exhaustion crept in. My enemies had called me Chaos for years, the name whispered like a curse, a warning, a storm about to break. Yet sitting here, peeled raw by the night, I felt far from chaos.
Cassian stood across from me, sleeves rolled up, his hands stained faintly with my blood as he rummaged through the medical kit. His face was calm, but his eyes carried the storm I tried to hide eyes that had seen me at my worst, eyes that had refused to look away even when I wanted him to.
"Rosie," he murmured softly. "You've bled enough for tonight. Sit still."
"I am sitting still," I whispered back, though my tone carried more strain than truth.
He shot me a look, the kind that wasn't sharp but steady, like an anchor to someone drowning someone as in me.
I hated how easily he could do that , he strip away the walls, drag me back to earth. With Asher, everything was fire and tension, a constant edge that demanded control. But Cassian had always been different. He didn't demand. He steadied.
Cassian crouched before me, pulling gauze through the shallow cut along my ribs i hissed he pretended like he didn't hear it. His touch was firm but careful, his hands rough yet precise. I hissed when the antiseptic burned through me, and his head tilted, watching me as though gauging how much of me was left unbroken.
"You don't always have to do this alone, Rosie," he said, voice low, a near whisper. "You carry the whole world like you're afraid someone else will drop it. But even storms need a place to break."
I swallowed hard, a lump forming in my throat I didn't want to admit to. "If I break," I said, quieter than I intended, "people die."
He shook his head. "If you never break, you'll die. And I don't plan on burying you, Rose. Not after everything."
His words cut deeper than the wound at my ribs. Cassian had been there since the beginning before the title of Chaos, before the empire of shadows. He knew me when I was just Rose Varela, a girl carved from ambition and rage, trying to outrun Adrian's cruelty. He had seen me bleed, rage, falter. He had seen me laugh, too, in moments I thought laughter impossible.
That was the danger of Cassian. He didn't just know me. He remembered me.
My hands trembled, and before I could pull away, he caught one, pressing it still against his chest. His heartbeat thudded strong beneath my palm, steady and grounding.
"You're not alone anymore," he said. "Not while I'm breathing."
Something inside me cracked then something small, fragile, the part of me that always screamed I couldn't afford softness. For a moment, I let myself lean into him. Cassian wrapped his arms around me carefully, mindful of the wounds, pulling me into the warmth of his chest. His embrace wasn't desire. It was history, loyalty, a promise carved deep.
I closed my eyes, just for a moment, letting the exhaustion slip through the cracks. For once, I didn't feel like Chaos. I just felt like Rose.
just Rose
And that's exactly when the door opened.
I didn't notice it at first didn't notice the heavy silence that cut into the room like a blade, the sudden tension in Cassian's body. Only when he released me slowly did I look up, my eyes following his to the figure in the doorway.
Asher King.
He stood there, still and silent, his expression unreadable but his eyes burning with something I couldn't name. His gaze flickered between me and Cassian not missing the closeness, not missing the way Cassian's hand lingered at my shoulder as though reluctant to let go.
"Asher," I said, trying to mask the tremor in my voice, to anchor myself back into steel. "You should knock."
"I did," he replied, voice calm but edged with something sharp beneath. "You didn't hear."
Cassian rose to his feet, his body shifting subtly into that quiet protector stance I'd seen a thousand times. He didn't challenge Asher, but he didn't move far either.
"I'll leave you two," Cassian said finally, his voice deliberately neutral. He gave my shoulder one last squeeze reassuring, intimate in its familiarity before he brushed past Asher and out the door.
The room felt colder once he left.
Asher closed the door behind him, the click of the lock echoing too loud in the silence. He crossed the room slowly, his movements deliberate, a predator masking patience. I watched him carefully, unsure whether I wanted him close or far.
He stopped in front of me, his eyes trailing over my wounds, my face, lingering a beat too long at the place Cassian's arms had just been.
"You're hurt," he said softly.
"I've been worse," I replied. I tried for nonchalance, but my voice came out thinner than I liked.
His jaw tightened, though his expression stayed calm. He crouched slightly so we were eye level, his hand reaching to brush a strand of hair from my face. I flinched not from him, but from the rawness of being seen too much in one night.
"I don't need your pity," I murmured.
His hand stilled but didn't fall away. "It isn't pity."
"Then what is it?"
For a moment, he didn't answer. His eyes searched mine, dark and unreadable, but beneath it there was heat fire held in a cage, pressing against the bars.
"Concern," he said finally, his voice a low rumble. "Frustration. Maybe anger."
I arched a brow, forcing steel back into my tone. "At me?"
"At you. At myself. At… everything," he admitted, a muscle ticking in his jaw. "I hate seeing you like this. Hate knowing you'd rather bleed alone than let someone in."
My chest tightened. "You wouldn't understand."
His lips curved in something between a bitter smile and a snarl. "Try me."
I looked away, gathering the shards of my armor. Vulnerability with Cassian was one thing he already carried my ghosts, already knew the cracks in my walls. But Asher? Asher was fire. He'd consume whatever weakness I showed, twist it, use it, or worse… feel it.
"I don't need comfort, Asher," I said, my voice regaining its edge. "What I need is focus. Adrian is still out there. Our alliance depends on strength, not sentiment."
His silence was heavy. When I finally dared to look at him, his eyes had darkened, heat simmering in their depths. He straightened slowly, towering over me, his shadow falling long across the bed.
"If that's what you want," he said, voice controlled, almost too calm.
But I heard it the burn beneath, the storm he was swallowing whole. He didn't argue, didn't press, didn't explode. He only swallowed it, locking it away behind that steel facade of his.
And in that moment, I realized something dangerous Asher King was not the kind of man who forgot. He was the kind of man who remembered. Who waited. Who let storms brew until they had nowhere left to go but destruction.
"Rest, Rose," he said finally, his tone cutting the air clean, sharp. He turned toward the door, pausing just long enough to glance back, his eyes unreadable but burning still. "You'll need your strength for what comes next."
Then he was gone, leaving the room colder than before.
I exhaled slowly, pressing a hand against my chest where Cassian's heartbeat had steadied me earlier. The silence pressed in again, heavier now, thick with tension I couldn't name.
Tonight, I realized the real storm might not be me at all. It might be the man I had just pushed away.