Page 79 of Dominion

“I’m okay.” I smiled instead of frowning for once, and I meant it. I fucking meant it.

I was okay.

I wasn’t amazing or fabulous or anything extravagant, but I. Was. Okay.

I was loved.

I was safe.

And I was going to get Dylan back even if that was the last thing I did.

“You seem—” he suddenly stopped, his eyes dragging over my face. “Calm?”

“Because I am... Calm, that is. I know I’m not alone.”

“And you will never be alone, ever again,” Casimir added, keeping his gaze plastered to the dark road in front of us, not moving a muscle by admitting that he was gonna be there. “You have a family, Skylar. You have people who love you, and God help those who dare to mess with you.” He suddenly turnedtoward us, that serious look on his face becoming something I would always associate with him. “You are my sister. I am not a man of a lot of words, at least not the kind ones.” No fucking shit, Sherlock. “But I will spend the rest of my life trying to fix what they did to you.”

I didn’t want to cry, damn him. I didn’t want to be a bawling mess when we finally came to the town, but if he continued saying all those things, I might.

“I know I left you alone,” he continued, as if we were the only two people in the vehicle, without the current audience. “And I am sorry. You will never know how sorry I am that I wasn’t there for you. That I couldn’t fix things before. But I’m here now, and I will stay by your side for as long as you’ll have me.”

“Cas,” I murmured, my voice watery, my eyes stinging, warning me that one more word, one more freaking word, would have me sobbing like a baby. “I... I don’t know what to say.”

“Nothing.” He shrugged. “You don’t have to say anything. I know you don’t see me as your family, but I swear, Skylar, you will. You are the most important person in my life and trust me—there is no mountain too high that I wouldn’t climb for you. I have spent half of my life trying to figure out what happened to you, and now that I have you in my life, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.” It was the smirk that appeared on his face that broke me in the end.

It was the pure honesty I could hear in every single one of those words, wrapping itself around my cold heart, warming me up from the inside out. It was the emotions I could see in his eyes that broke the last wall I had erected over my heart.

In eighteen years of my life, I had only known love twice. First time was with Dylan and the second time with Ash, but I never knew what it felt like to have someone who was your blood, your family, who would love you no matter what. Dylan’smother hated me, that much was obvious, even though I never understood why. At least not back then.

Judah... Well, Judah wasn’t exactly a father figure, and I was too hungry for any kind of connection that I allowed myself to fall under the spell he had woven around me. I allowed myself to become prey, blaming myself for the things that were happening to me as if it was my fault.

“Ah, shit.” Ash was the first one to speak when the tears started falling down my cheeks. “Look what you did now,” he reprimanded Casimir, but there was no bite in his tone. He pulled me into his embrace, wrapping his arms around my body as I let it all out. All the fears, all the pain, all that anger and the feeling that I never belonged anywhere.

But the Universe had a funny way of giving us things when we needed them the most, even if it had destroyed us in the process. Maybe I needed to be shattered in order to be complete again, and I knew that there was beauty in the destruction if you knew how to collect all your broken pieces in the end.

“I’m sorry.” I laughed, wiping my tears. “I have no idea what is happening to me lately. I am constantly crying.”

“Yeah,” Hunter agreed. “Or yelling. And surprisingly, you are constantly yelling at me.”

“Surprisingly?” Casimir huffed. “There’s no surprise there. I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t want to kill you at least eighty percent of the time.”

“You don’t,” Hunter answered matter-of-factly, making me laugh again when I saw the look on Casimir’s face as he looked at him. “What?” Hunter smiled. “You know you love me.”

“In your fucking dreams.”

“Awww, come on, Cas. You don’t have to lie. We both know you would die without me.”

I looked up at Ash, smirking at the little banter between the two of them, because it reminded me of somebody else.

“Shut up, Hunt,” Casimir grunted. “Just keep your eyes on the road and shut the fuck up.”

“You know I like it when you bark your little orders at me.”

“Hunter.” The warning in Casimir’s voice would’ve scared most people, but Hunter just shrugged.

“You also know that I like to defy you.” His voice lowered, and I didn’t have to be a mind reader to see what was happening here.

But it wasn’t my place, and it wasn’t the time to comment on the obvious tension between them. I was still eager to hear more about their history together. Hell, I was eager to know anything about Casimir, because I had a feeling that he didn’t just wake up one day and decide to be the Head of Dominion.

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