He trailed off, choking and sniffling.
“Whatever you did, love, it’s not your fault,” I murmured. “They made you.”
From the guilt practically coursing through his veins, I could tell he didn’t believe me.
He continued to cry for a while longer, and I let him, sending comfort through the bond when I could. My mate had tried to close himself off to me, as if that would work. I would always be able to tell when he was upset, bond or no bond. I’d been reading him like an open book since the beginning, whether he’d known it or not.
“They made me kill people,” he whispered finally.
The confession urged a fresh set of sobs from him.
“Shh,” I cooed. “They killed people. It wasn’t your fault.”
“But I wanted to. Shan, I… my body wasn’t mine. My mind wasn’t mine. I wanted to. And what I did to you… I can’t believe I bit you.”
My eyebrows drew together. “I thought you didn’t remember what happened when the beast took over.”
“I didn’t the last time, but this time was different. I know what I did. I know what everything looked like and felt like. Their blood was warm on my skin, but none of them deserved to die.”
It was a ramble, his mind in a million places at once. I wished I could hold him, but I barely had access to my fucking arms.
Caspian remembering what he’d done changed everything. Knowing what he was capable of made it far too real for him, and I was worried what he would do to stop it from happening again. This wouldn’t happen again, though. He’d killed enough people to get him back to his normal form. Unless he killed another person and was starved again, he would be fine. This time, they’d left him unchained so I could feed him if he needed it.
“I’m sorry, love,” I murmured. “You never should have had to do that. If I have anything to say about it, you’ll never have to do it again. Tell me what happened before that. You’ve been gone for a long time.”
He tilted his head up, peering at me with wide eyes.
“They let me loose the first time,” he whispered. “As soon as I left you. Then they made me kill someone while I was normal. One of them took my hand with the knife in it and stabbed through the heart of a man. I was locked in a cage… not like this one. It was a cage for animals, almost too small for me. When I went berserk again… they let me out.”
I’d missed sensing the time he’d been normal, likely sleeping.
“And then they brought you back here?” I asked.
Nodding shakily, he lifted his hands up in front of his face, observing the trembling fingers. “I killed someone else first. With a knife. You… you need to feed me.”
Internally, I cursed.
The last thing Caspian needed was for me to fuck him right now, but the curse of being an incubus was that there was no other way.
“Help me feed you, then,” I said, leaning my head down against his and kissing his dirty hair. “I don’t have my hands. Take whatever you need, love.”
“I’m a monster.”
“You’re my mate, not a monster. Feed from me.”
Having Caspian feed was likely exactly what they wanted; exactly why they’d sent him back into this cage unbound. They wanted to see what it took for him to not go feral after a kill. If there wasn’t some magic observing us at this very moment, I would be shocked. We would do what we had to, though. This would buy us a little more time together, and we needed time.
Freya would come for us in all her vengeful glory.
We needed to each be in one piece when she did.
Unfortunately, Caspian was on the verge of shattering.
His hands fumbled my pants as he undid them, pulling them down only enough to bare my cock. He sucked me with vacant eyes, my cock barely hard no matter how hard I tried to ignore everything but the feel of him on me. When he turned around and pressed the head to his hole, I cringed at him doing this without lube or a hint of prep.
Cas cried out in pain when he sank down, but through his guilt spearing the bond, I knew.
He wanted it to hurt.
