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“I prefer you to sleep with me.”
“But my teddies are in my room,” Casey tells me.
“Well, I'll grab my pillow and sleep in your room,” I tell her moving toward my room.
She grabs my hand. “My bed is too squishy,” she tells me, and I look at her. Rejection washes over me, Casey looks down almost guiltily like she is holding back from saying what she wants to say.
“What is it Casey?”
“I want to sleep on my own,” she says. I open my mouth to question why but then close it, and nod giving her a smile that feels painful. A million questions run through my head, like is she mad that Vince isn't here? He was the only father she knew after all, I suppose it would be normal for her to blame me. Or maybe it’s learning Casen is her father? So many questions all ending in my failure.
“You move around too much, you keep waking me,” she whispers so softly I almost miss it. “Well, I guess I can sleep on the...”
“Rose!” Casen jolts my attention away, and I find him leaning against the hallway wall. He shakes his head and for a second my brows furrow, wondering what he wants when he moves toward us.
“Come on, princess. Let's tuck you in,” he tells Casey, picking her up and tossing her over his shoulder. He marches off while she giggles. I follow watching as he tucks her into bed and turns her lamp off.
He moves toward the door and pauses beside me. “Your nightmares scare her,” he whispers before walking out the door. My lips part, I don't remember nightmares… I don't dream. Yet as I look at Casey tucked in bed, I see her eyes peering back at me as she tucks her teddy closer.
“Night mom,” she whispers.
“Night,” I tell her, shutting her door slightly but leaving the hallway light on. Now the awkward part of ignoring the mate I rejected and don't know how to be with.
Moving to the kitchen, I start washing up from dinner. Tension coils within me, pulled so taut that it sends shivers down my spine. I'm used to walking on eggshells, yet this is different. It's like I am walking on my own, unaccustomed to the silence of my mind, but it's not peaceful. I always dreamed of the day I'd be free of Vince. Had this idea in my head of it just being me and Casey, peaceful. Yet why do I feel even more terrified now?
My hands, immersed in the soapy water, move robotically, scrubbing off the remnants of dinner from the plates. The bubbles fizz around my fingers. Every clank of the dishes is a jarring reminder of the echoing stillness - a silence I thought I'd welcome but now find menacing.
Vince’s voice, though physically absent, is haunting.
I used to think silence would be my sanctuary, that liberation from Vince’s shadow would be a rebirth of the woman lost to his torment. But as I rinse the soap from a plate, a chilling revelation drips over me; freedom isn’t the serene landscape I’d imagined.
His cruel laughter, his voice, a sinister whisper, words spoken to harm still replay. Each word, though an echo of the past, has a heartbeat, pulsing, alive and formidable. Reminding me I will never be free of him.
I glance at my reflection in the window above the sink, the moonlight illuminating the face of a woman unfamiliar to me. Is this the freedom I longed for? My cheeks, stained with tears, paint a portrait not of being free and at peace, but of a soul unshackled yet imprisoned by invisible chains.
“The war isn’t over, Rose,” I murmur to the shadowed reflection. The battleground has shifted, from the physical confines of Vince’s sinister grip to the echoing chambers of a mind conditioned to live in the constant tremor of fear. I set the plate on the rack and grab another from the bottom of the sink.
When you've been with someone for so long, it's almost like they become a habit, another personality trait you take on. Every breath I take is a knife in my lungs. Memories of being with someone like Vince for so long seep through my veins like poison. The person I used to be? A wisp of smoke… She is dead and there is no going back to her. My body quivers at the mere thought.
I'm so used to being silent, so used to living in fight or flight, it's almost as if I am expecting him to come back at any second, to tell me this is all a dream. Casen never returned, or maybe he's finally done it, he's hurt me so badly, this is some altered state of mind, some imaginary world I've conjured because the physical one is too painful.
Pressure builds inside my chest as panic rises up, stealing my breath. I contemplate if I had left her with him. Taking a deep breath, I steady myself as that same mantra replays on repeat in my head like a broken record.
My hands in the sink reach for something I can feel, the plate. Something I can hear, the TV we borrowed from Dad since Vince broke mine. Something I can taste, my own blood as I bite my tongue. It's ridiculous the lengths I must go through to ensure I am not dead. Something I can smell. The dish in my hand shakes the porcelain rattling against the side of the sink as I sniff the air. Some part of my brain instantly goes to Vince's breath coated with the sickening scent of bourbon. Yet as I breathe in, I find another scent.
ChapterSeventy
“Rose?” comes Casen's voice, making me jump. He flicks the kettle on and grabs a cup. “Hot chocolate?” he asks, and I stare at the man. This man is my mate, someone who watched me pass through every awkward stage of my childhood, yet now is a stranger. However, seeing him brings me back to reality, his scent, the smell I detected earlier, fills the room, and I nod.
“I can sleep on the couch,” Casen tells me, turning to make the hot chocolate.
“No, it's fine. You're my mate,” I tell him, my brows furrowing in confusion as I speak the words out loud. He is my mate, the mate I rejected. I continue washing the dishes, my mind wandering aimlessly through a mess of my thoughts, each thought turning darker, then questioning Casen's intentions, even though I know they aren't sinister. He saved me, marked me. 'I can sleep on the couch…' his last words rattle through my mind.
But some nagging part tells me the only reason he did is because of Casey because if he truly wanted me, he would have come back, right? But I did reject him, yet he's here now?
“Casen, I’m sorry.” The words, though whispered, puncture the silence like the first drops of rain against the stillness of a quiet night. “I should have told you the truth when I found out I was pregnant. But I see now, how wrong I was. I’m so sorry for not telling you.”
His face is a canvas of stern lines. His eyes darken, and I see Zyan flicker within him. “Why didn't you?”
