Page 82 of The Madness Within

“The Gate is closer than we thought,” Cassian said, his voice low and dangerous. “And it’s not just you who needs to be concerned, Dorian.Shedoes, too.”

I was still confused, but the weight of Cassian’s words hit me like a punch to the gut.She does? What did that mean? What was I supposed to do with that?

“What do you mean?” Dorian asked, his voice ice cold.

Cassian’s eyes flickered toward me, his gaze hardening. “Your precious, little human, she doesn’t even realize it yet, but she’s the key to everything. The Watchers, Dorian. Shehasto die. Just like her mother.”

I froze, my heart hammering in my chest as everything I thought I knew began to unravel.

My mother.

I’d heard the whispers, the warnings, but hearing it from Cassian’s mouth, made it feel real now.

It felt liketruth.

Despite what Kreed said, this felt more real. For all I knew, they could both be lying.

I turned to Dorian, searching his face for answers, but all I saw was a storm. A tempest of emotions battling beneath the surface.

“No,” Dorian growled, his eyes narrowing as he stepped forward, his hand tightening into a fist. “You’ll never touch her.”

Cassian merely laughed, his expression dark and cold. “You can’t protect her from this, Dorian. Not forever. It’s inevitable.”

The silence between them grew thick and heavy, the weight of the Underworld’s reach pressing on me. I didn’t know what this meant for me, for Dorian, for us, but the fear began to settle in my bones.

“You can’t stop it, Dorian,” Cassian sneered, his words almost mocking. “She’s the last of them. And the Gate? It won’t stay closed for long. Not with her blood running through the world.”

I turned to Dorian, my voice shaky but determined. “What’s going on? What does he mean by the Gate? My mother—”

He cut me off with a sharp shake of his head. “We’ll talk about this later.”

But I could feel it in him.

The fear.

The desperation.

He’s keeping something from me, and I knew it wasn’t just about protecting me anymore. It was about something bigger, something far darker than I was ready to understand.

Cassian stepped toward the door, his eyes lingering on me one last time. “The Underworld never forgets. And neither do I, Dorian.”

He was gone before I could say another word, leaving the room thick with tension. And as Dorian turned to me, I saw it in his eyes, the truth he’d been hiding from me. He wasscared. For me.

And I didn’t know if I could keep running from this.

Chapter Thirty-Four

??The Plan Unfolds

Kreed

The candlelight flickered low, casting blood warm shadows against the damp stone walls. The air reeked of sulfur, of magic older than memory, coiled like something waiting to strike.

I liked this place. It reminded me of what we were before we started pretending to be men.

I stood with my hands behind my back, watching him, the thing wearing Cassian’s skin, as it slithered into the room like it owned the ground it walked on.

I knew better. That skin wasn’t his. And it sure as hell didn’t belong to Cassian anymore.

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