17. ~Caspian~

"You need to get some rest."

I broke the stride of my pacing and spun to see Asher leaning against my bedroom door, his arms folded across his chest, concern all over him.

He wasn't putting on a front, a fake air of nonchalance, he was giving me the real him. No bullshit.

"I'll be fine," I answered tightly, just wanting to go back to my pacing, and not to have to deal with certain growing complications when it came to him. Not least of all was the sight of him leaning there in nothing but a pair of black jeans, all that cut muscle and black ink of his snake tattoos bared in all their glory—the fact that it was affecting me.

"You won't be able to help anyone if you don't sleep and recharge," he pushed.

He stepped across the threshold, his eyes roaming over me with just a towel hanging low on my hips on account of the cold shower I'd taken thirty minutes ago.

"You underestimate me."

"Because your stamina is superhuman, huh? Your ability to withstand every brutal hit thrown at you as well? You're above all the trauma, the mammoth weight bearing down on you? You can just roll with it all?"

I shoved a hand through my hair. "I have to."

"Hmm. I see."

"I know you do, so what's the point of taking things down this conversational path?"

His indomitable presence slammed up against mine, a silent battle taking place with them both trying to overrun one another and consume the entire space.

He took a seat on the foot of my bed and leaned back on his hands. "Being the one they all look to, their protector, their strategist, their leader… it's a lot. And in times like this, in times of crisis, the weight is virtually unbearable."

"You're not really going to sit here and tell me you would do anything different? I know you didn't during the war you just fought."

"Right, I didn't. But you're not me. I shouldered everything alone. Until the last leg. I was too controlling, too paranoid to do it sooner, to share the load properly with Aurora, Jonah, and Killian. And it cost me, Caspian. It damaged me. I won't watch what happened to me happen to you. Your dynamic with your foursome is very different to how I operate with mine. You're full of love and care to those within your inner circle. And you're very open about it. You're not just their protector, you're their comfort. If you allow all of this brutality and blackness to consume you, you'll completely lose sight of that. It will break the relationship you have with your loves. And, believe me, it will break you right along with it. Not everything that's lost can be recovered. You need to let Skylar and Sebastian back in and you need to do it now. Your rage, grief and fear for Caleb is poisoning everything. It's divided you from your allies at a time when you need to draw on them more than ever to win out here, to bring Caleb home and eliminate the enemy threats."

When I merely stared right back at him as his heavy words settled over me, he rose to his feet. "Consider what I've said. You know you need to."

He gave me a chin lift and then he strolled to the door. "Oh," he said as he reached it, looking back at me over his shoulder. "It's also painfully obvious to me that you're extremely on edge—sexually speaking. You might want to tend to that before you implode. All the cold showers in the world won't cure it."

"I can't."

He stilled at the threshold, then turned back around fully. "Can't?"

"It's dangerous. I'm dangerous. Dangerous to Bastian and Skylar, when I'm in this headspace. I won't risk it."

"I see. Well, I would suggest violence as an alternative outlet for you to let all this pent-up shit out, but we can't risk injury before a coming battle." He smirked. "Not the kind I could subject you to if we went head-to-head."

"And there's that Asher Monroe arrogance come back out to play."

"Supreme confidence actually. Tried and tested, well-earned, and absolutely well-deserved."

"I would beat you down if we went head to head."

"You think so?"

"I'd destroy you, no doubt."

"I've been training since I was a young boy and I haven't stopped."

"Right back at you."

"One person taught you. Your ex-military security chief."

"Several different fighting styles. I've also self-taught myself a couple of others."

"And you've been running The Jackals for years."

"That too."

"I'd still wipe the floor with you, almighty King."

I stepped forward. "Not a chance, unhinged psychopath."

His lips quirked.

And then he slammed the door shut and stalked up to me.

"I assume you know what I'm doing?"

"Oh, I'm well aware."

"How about we take it up a notch then? You're absorbing my provocations far too well. That's not going to help you unleash everything eating at you."

"Asher, this isn't going to—"

"Let's talk about Caleb."

I gritted my teeth. "This is a bad idea."

A dangerous smirk played on his lips. "Aaron told me about his surveillance of Cal. So I'm aware you are in the possession of… photographic evidence. That means, I don't need to regale you of tales concerning the night outside the church when I let him shove me up against the wall and fill my ass with those thick fingers of his, yes? Do you know what happened afterward, though? What we did on the altar and then—"

I snagged his arm and spun him around, slamming him up against the wall beside my ensuite, snarling like a fucking animal and pinning him there with my hands to his biceps. "Shut your fucking mouth!"

"That's right, let it out. More."

In the next split second, he executed a lightning-fast move that broke my grip on his arms.

He went to shove me back, but I caught his hand in my palm, then shoved my other to his throat, squeezing and pinning him back to the wall.

His striking silver eyes looked like they were actually swirling as he stared up at me all too calmly, like I wasn't right in his space fury exploding forth and threatening to choke the life out of him right where he stood.

No, wait, it wasn't calm.

It was a haze of fucking lust.

It wasn't just him either. I could see it reflected right back at me.

Hell.

That, combined with my need for violence, to unleash all this anguish and pressure that had been eating me alive, and him being right here urging me to do so, helping me in a way nobody else could right now…. understanding that burden more than anybody fucking else… it had something in me shattering to fucking pieces.

All barriers down.

I angled him by my hold on his throat, and then my mouth was crashing down on his.

We clashed violently, tongues and teeth.

And then my hand left his throat and I slid it down his chest, over the hard ridges of his chest and solid abs.

I leaned in and licked at his snake tattoos, trailing warm, wet heat along their path, and he undulated against the wall, wanting more just as much as me.

I grazed his waistband with my teeth, then jerked open his jeans and shoved them down. I choked at the sight of his mammoth cock. Already hard as steel too, just like me.

I looked up at him and he was smirking, knowing well what he had to offer.

His arrogance and the challenge in his eyes just served to heighten everything, and I grasped his hard ass then sank to my knees and sucked his crown into my mouth.

"Fuck," he rasped, clutching my shoulders as I drove deeper, swallowing him whole, right to the back of my throat in one shot. "Caspian, shit."

I smiled around his cock, loving his reaction, loving that I had a formidable man like him at my mercy.

That didn't last as long as I'd hoped when he suddenly wrenched me off his cock by my hair and forced me back to my feet.

He executed a rapid-fire move that impressed me and it had him slamming me up against the wall.

Then he was ripping my towel off, grabbing my ass and slamming us together.

I groaned at the feel of his bare cock against mine.

I threw my head back as he wrapped his hand around both of us then started jerking us roughly. "Yes," I breathed. "Fucking yes."

Moans slipped from him as my piercings bumped against his crown over and over, and he slapped his free hand to the wall for purchase.

I slammed my hips back and forth wildly, losing myself to it, and he did the same, the two of us rutting like animals up against the wall, harder, faster, harsher.

"Yeah, let it go, King. Let it all fucking go."

"Fuck," I growled, clamping one hand around his, the two of us working together, roughly handling our cocks, pleasure climbing and climbing.

And then his hand left the wall and he scraped his blunt nails down my chest, drawing red-raw marks along the way that had me hissing.

In my insanely worked-up state, it was enough to push me over the edge, and then I was coming, my hot cum spraying all over his cock and our joined hands.

"Fuck me," he snarled a moment before he joined me, making a sticky mess right along with me.

Before either of us could bask in it, I snagged his shoulders and hauled him onto the bed.

I pounced on him and scraped my teeth over his throat. "We're not close to being done yet."

I openedmy eyes to darkness.

It took several moments for me to adjust to it. I usually kept one of the bedside lights on when I slept. It helped me to wake up easier and also stopped me from sleeping too long. It was something I'd taken to doing since I'd become head of King.

But last night hadn't played out like anything close to resembling a normal night for me.

The memories came back to me all too quickly. Shit.

I turned from my strange position splayed out on my stomach—again, not usual for me—to see Asher draped over the other side of my bed completely naked, that shockingly giant cock of his hard as steel as he slept. The covers were pushed right down to his calves. They were twisted up on his side too, indicating he'd been tossing and turning in his sleep.

I frowned in thought. A brief insight into the damage he'd warned me about last night, perhaps. Nightmares fueled by trauma?

I'd been in far too much of a state to allow myself to pay undue attention to it before, but as I peered closer at him, his scars became very apparent to me. Especially all over his back where his tattoos didn't reach to be able to partially conceal them. They appeared to be marks from brutal lashes caused by a whip. If that wasn't bad enough, they certainly weren't the only ones marring his skin. Stab wounds, even a gunshot scar.

I grimaced. He'd certainly been through the wringer.

He'd been born into brutality, forged by it, then nearly killed by it.

And yet even though he was out of the woods where that was concerned, here he was now being pulled into a war that didn't even belong to him.

He'd gone above and beyond in his goal to recover Caleb.

He'd actually risked opening up to me and being vulnerable to help me out of this dark headspace I'd been caught up in and delving deeper into with every day that had gone by with us unable to bring Caleb back to us.

He turned over in his sleep, facing me, and I took in his snake tattoos, similar to Caleb's, but all black—of course.

I reached out and traced them lightly. His breath quickened, his cock jerking at my touch.

I pulled away, then eased the covers up to his waist.

A smile ghosted his lips and then his voice sounded, all rough with sleep, "Too much temptation, huh?"

"How long have you been awake?"

He opened his eyes, mischief shining forth. "Since you started feeling me up."

I rolled my eyes.

He grinned and shifted a little, propping his head up on the pillow with his elbow as he studied me. "Looks like you got a good night's sleep finally."

"I did, yes. Thanks for that."

"Happy to serve." He reached out and traced his fingers over my wolf tattoo. "I like this."

"The blood aspect, no doubt."

"And the gnashing teeth." He lightly scratched over the teeth and a tremble of awareness rolled through me, waking my cock up in an instant.

Well, there was definitely still a holdover from what had happened last night.

Our gazes clashed, intensity flaring.

In the next second, I was ripping the covers down then rolling on top of him, slapping my palms down either side of his head as I dipped down and scraped my teeth over the side of his throat.

A delicious guttural sound rumbled from him just like those I'd had spilling from his lips last night. "Fucking hot as the fires of hell," I said, between nips to his jaw and flicks of my tongue all over that delectable rough stubble. Mmm.

He fisted his hands in my long hair, tugging painfully and making my cock thicken, as he then used his hold to wrench my head down to his chest.

I grinned up at him as I slicked my tongue all over his abs, tracing his tattoos with hot, long licks that had him undulating beneath me and trying to grind his cock against mine.

I grasped his ass in both hands, then shifted and rubbed my cock right over his.

"Fuck… those piercings," he moaned, tugging at my hair in his building need.

I was right there with him on that and in the next moment, I was pulling my hair from his grip, then moving between his legs. I forced his thighs wide open then dove down on his massive cock, swallowing him deep down my throat.

"Ungh… Caspian… fuck."

His hands were back in my hair then, trying to take control, fighting with me.

Incredible.

I wanted it, I wanted the fight, the aggressive push and pull of it.

I dug my blunt nails into the backs of his hands and he hissed, pre-cum leaking into my mouth. Mmm. He was getting off on this just as much as I was.

In the next second, he executed a series of rapid-fire fight moves that broke my grip on his hands and had me rolling onto my back with him on top of me.

He slammed my hands down either side of my head on the pillow and then he was sliding his cock along mine. He picked up his pace quickly and it became rough and wild as he rutted on me, his long dick fucking up against mine, rubbing hard and fast, the friction at an insane level.

He was all over me then, biting my abs, my pecs, my nipples, then breaking his grip on my hands and scratching brutally hard all the way down my chest, drawing pearls of blood along the way.

"Asher… Jesus fuck.," I groaned, reaching down and wrapping both our cocks in my hand.

"Yeah… shit… ungh, King," he rasped as he fucked into my hand, the both of us losing our shit all over each other as the pleasure built and trapped us in a violent whirlwind of carnality and bliss.

"Come… come all over my cock, you hot fucking psychopath."

A hoarse rumbling laugh escaped him. "Fuck, yeah… your goddamn Majesty. I'll paint you with my fucking cum."

I was so fucking close and I could feel him right there with me.

The door flew open, startling the both of us.

"Cas, we have a—whoa! Shit, this is… a lot… to take in."

I stilled and winced, my voice a strained rasp over Asher's shoulder, the view of our unexpected visitor blocked by his body covering mine, "Bastian?"

"Oh, hell, yeah, it's me. As much as I'm sure you wish it wasn't me witnessing this."

"Two minutes, sweetheart," Asher told him, distractedly, not even stopping slightly. "Feel free to watch, just keep it down."

"Sorry, Casanova, you're gonna have to get your dick wet somewhere else."

Asher grazed my throat with his teeth, making me groan, trying to keep me in the moment, then raised his head and looked out at Bastian while he was still rubbing his big cock all over mine. "It's already delectably wet actually."

"Jeez," Bastian groused.

Footsteps sounded a moment before another voice rang out.

"Caspian, we need to—Dannazione!"

Dante.

And that was it… man down.

Asher grunted as he obviously felt my cock softening. "Why does nobody lock their doors in this house?" He rolled off me and onto his back on the bed, not the least bit concerned about showing his naked body, hard cock and all, to two virtual strangers to him.

Why was I not surprised?

It actually had me smiling, reminding me so much of Caleb with that.

"This is an open household," Bastian gritted out at him, his disapproval blatantly obvious.

I climbed off the bed, glared at Dante, then asked Bastian, "What's the matter?"

He snatched my robe off the back of the door and tossed it to me. "Sky just got word from Riley and she—"

The house alarms went off, blaring with their foghorn-like intensity.

"What the—"

"That," Bastian said. "That's why I came in here. We've got incoming."

In the very next moment, my phone was buzzing on my nightstand.

As I rushed over there, I heard Dante's going off too.

I gritted my teeth—had he convinced Luke to tap him into King Manor security?

"At the gates," he said before I reached my phone.

I turned away from it and then I was rushing from the bedroom and down the corridor for the entrance doors.

As Dante and Bastian trailed after me, with Asher pulling on his jeans as he did the same, security rushed by around us, following our well-established protocol concerning a threat to King Manor.

"Where's Skylar?" I called loudly to Bastian so he could hear me over the blaring alarms.

"That's the thing, I—"

Skylar's panicked yells as I rounded the corner into the foyer pulled him up short. "Let them through! Let them the hell through!" she was telling my security staff by the manor gates.

There was a commotion taking place with a middle-aged woman sporting deep-red collar-length hair standing in front of a black heavily-tinted Mercedes arguing whatever her case was, while Luke stood holding a wand shaking his head, apparently informing her that she wasn't clear to pass, that he'd found tech on her that wasn't permitted inside the manor. It was bad enough that she still had two Sigs nestled in a holster at either hip of her camo pants. Blood was staining the entire bottom half of her white V-neck tee beneath a black denim jacket. Judging by her easy and unencumbered movements, the blood wasn't her own.

Skylar reached the gates and Luke swung his head toward her, frowning as she spoke, her voice quieter so we couldn't make it out, yet her urgency not lessened, made clear from her wild gestures.

Just as I made it out there with Bastian coming up on my side, and Dante hanging back with Asher and both of them looking on warily and on high alert, the front passenger door of the Mercedes opened slowly.

My security team reacted lightning-fast and took aim.

"Stop!" Skylar screamed, just as the figure came into view.

That familiar overgrown crew cut filled my vision.

That powerhouse muscle.

And those haunted eyes that somehow still flickered with hope despite all he'd endured, so much like his daughter's stunning emerald pools of intensity.

Frank Bennett.

Sweat was dripping down his bloodied and bruised face, his bare shoulders, and over his white tank. A black shirt was balled up and being held with a trembling hand to his left side, the thing soaked with blood just like that side of his tank beneath.

He could barely make it out of the car, straining and struggling and hunched over.

Then he stumbled and went to slap his hand to the door in a desperate bid for support.

But he missed and crashed painfully onto the asphalt.

"Dad!" Skylar cried, yanking on the gates.

Luke looked to me and I signaled back. In the next moment, he was having security open them for her.

As she rushed on through to her dad, I followed.

Her arms and that of his companion were around him a moment later, trying to help him up.

Weary and pained, he looked out at Skylar and croaked, "Heard you were looking for me, baby girl."

"Oh my God, Dad. How… how did this… who did this to you?"

He smiled weakly, then looked out at me, struggling to keep his gaze focused as he rasped, "You're all in danger."

Before any of us could get a word out or react further, his eyes glazed over and he collapsed, losing consciousness.