Chapter 253: Witch meeting a cursed one - 2

Before Sashkia could stretch her hand for a greeting, Cassian walked past everyone. His dark eyes were locked on only one person, and he didn’t stop until he stood directly in front of Cixi.

He assessed her. His gaze swept from the top of her head to her chin, cataloguing every scrape, every bruise, and every mark that had not been on her skin when she left the Palace that morning. His jaw tightened with each one.

He lifted his hand and placed it on top of Cixi’s scalp.

She winced sharply, and an involuntary hiss escaped through her teeth. The bruise hidden under her hair sent a bolt of pain down through her skull and into her neck.

Cassian’s fingers stilled and his dark eyes hardened in response. "I will let two breathe." He had already decided that among those three, one would die in his hands.

Cixi understood the meaning of his words right away, without a moment’s delay.

She reached up and caught his hand, the one that had just touched her scalp, and drew it downward, holding it against her own with delicate fingers.

"I would like to decide their future," Cixi told him in a firm yet gentle tone. "I am not getting involved in your business. You will not get involved in mine." Her grey eyes held his dark ones without flinching. "And if you do... do not expect me to stay away from your mafia business."

Cassian considered her for a moment. Then he lifted her hand toward his lips and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. Slow. Deliberate. His mouth lingered against her skin just long enough for the warmth to reach her bloodstream.

"Did I not tell you, Cixi?" A dangerous satisfaction curved through his voice. "You are eager to join my mafia world. Your words truly contradict what you denied before."

Cixi sucked in a breath when the memory surfaced instantly.

Cassian told her she would soon join his organisation. And she refused it. And now, standing in this hallway with bruises on her scalp and his lips on her fingers, she had just volunteered to enter the very world she swore she wanted nothing to do with.

’What was she thinking?’

She had handed him exactly what he wanted.

’Is this how you make Cassian listen to you?’ she reprimanded herself. ’Utterly useless.’

"I..." she started, only to be interrupted.

"Cassian." Zoyar’s voice came out strong. "I want the person who harmed Lily."

Lily’s head snapped up. Her brown eyes went wide, round as coins, her body stiffening the way a deer stiffens when headlights find it in the dark.

Cassian’s attention remained fixed on Cixi. "I do not mind."

"No!. Cixi stepped forward, closing the distance between herself and Cassian, where his scent grew stronger. "No one is touching them." Her voice rang sharp against the corridor walls.

"I am with Cixi on this," Lily added.

Sashkia observed the two women standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder, blocking two mafia men in the parking lot with nothing but their voices and their refusal to move. She did not hold herself back.

"If I were you, I would listen to them." Sashkia’s tone carried the serene authority of someone who had watched enough to know how these things ended. "Do not forget. Women never forget anything. For a peaceful future, listen to them."

Every pair of eyes in the hallway found Sashkia. She met them all without blinking.

"It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Cixi." She extended her hand toward Cixi. "I am Sashkia Valtham. Cassian’s old acquaintance."

Cixi turned back to Sashkia and took her hand. When their palms touched. Sashkia’s mind shattered inward.

The hallway vanished. The light vanished. Cassian, Lily, Zoyar, the guards, the cold floors. All of it dissolved and gave way to a void with no edges, no walls, no ceiling or floor.

In that space, the coldness existed. Endless silence existed. And the darkness stretched in every direction without boundary or end.

Sashkia had cast the enchantment before their skin connected. A simple spell which she had performed a thousand times. It was a thread of magic designed to slip through a person’s touch and unravel the surface layer of their past, searching for bloodline markers, ancestral signatures, anything that could explain why death clung to this girl like a second shadow.

But she found nothing. Not a single thread of history or lineage or identity. The void swallowed her magic whole and gave back only silence.

Cixi’s past did not resist the spell. It simply did not exist. As though... as though her past had been wiped out, leaving behind an emptiness.

She yanked her hand back as if she was burned where it touched Cixi.

Her fingers trembled from the coldness she felt. Her wide eyes were fixed on Cixi with an expression that sat halfway between bewilderment and fear.

Cassian caught the shift immediately. Sashkia’s face turned ashen. Her trembling hands. The way Sashkia’s posture changed from composed to guarded in the space of a single heartbeat. He wanted to ask Sashkia what was wrong.

But Lily and Zoyar stood close by. They were simple humans. And he would not speak here.

"Are you alright?" Cixi asked, looking concerned.

Sashkia stepped back, her hand flying to her stomach, fingers pressing protectively over the curve as her body instinctively shielded what she carried inside.

"I am all right." She produced a polite smile. "I think I feel tired after the long journey."

Her gaze slid sideways, finding Cassian.

He was already watching her. His face remained unreadable. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Cixi.

His hold was possessive and protective. His arms closed around her body and drew her against his chest, one hand pressing flat against her lower back, the other cradling the back of her head, his chin settling above her hairline. He held her the way a man holds something he has been told he is about to lose.

Sashkia’s words echoed through his skull. ’Death is around her.’

"Let us leave." Inside him, something darker than anger churned.

The thought that Cixi might die left him restless.

He would not let it happen.

If a grim reaper came for her, he would kill it. If ten came, he would kill them all. If death itself arrived at his door carrying her name, he would meet it on the threshold and tear it apart with his bare hands.

He would burn the afterlife to the ground before he let anyone take Cixi McLore from him.

Only if Cassian knew that Cixi had already been cursed by one.