He could take the beatings, that was fine. Leo could sit still while she yelled but he’d always love his sister no matter how apparent she made it that she hated him. The years had made them grow apart and whatever thing was going around the town wasn’t helping but even Leo had to draw a line in the sand at some point. As he heard the words leave his little sisters mouth his entire world felt like it shattered. He was already at his wits end with not being able to keep his family together but this was like a stab right through his gut. Leo almost didn’t even know what to do, he wanted to scream, he wanted to punch her until she was bloody, he wanted to cry and kill someone. Not having a care for what she felt he reached for her and with his added wolf strength picked her up with ease and had her pressed to the wall. Backing up, he couldn’t control the loud growls that were coming from him as he punched the wall near her. “You listen here Cassidy Gautier, and you listen well. You don’t get to pick and chose who you are. You are one of us, and you are my blood! I will not have you keep throwing me and this family away because you wanna act like some pissy brat! –
–And I will be damned if I let you act like this.” Leo yelled, punching the brick wall again next to her out of anger and cracking it slightly. “I got news for you sister, no matter how much you hate me, I will always love you.” His voice shook as he said those last words, he wanted to cry, wanted to scream and sob but he knew he couldn’t not in front of Cassidy. It would only make things worse.
There was so much of her life that ignited with distaste and mistrust, even more so a bitterness that never left her tongue over what had befallen her family, and while she was constantly angry over it, she didn’t make much of a point to voice it all too often, rather --- she simply avoided at all costs. She broke away from family, broke away from the pack as much as she could, unless it was absolutely necessary to align with any of them; as much a lone wolf as someone damned to eternity with the other gautier siblings. His hold on her was rough, Cassidy almost sure that had he gripped any harder he’d have snapped something clean in two, the burning and uncontrollable rage that had burned for weeks in the pit of her stomach now visible as eyes glowed yellow and canines were bared, glinting in the light; and for a split moment, she thought about the child she carried, her hands curling until her nails cut into her palm, Cassidy all but tasting the blood she’d be out for if he pushed it that one little bit further. Brother or not; she didn’t take shit from anyone, regardless of whether the instinctual part of her wanted to comply with the anger of her alpha, the youngest wolf only sobering a little under his raised voice. “You’re right, I don’t get to choose... --- Because you chose for us, a thousand years ago when you couldn’t handle your own fucking relationship properly enough to keep us from being damned to this fucking existence.” She didn’t raise her voice, but every word cut like a knife, Cassidy truly feeling the pull of her wolf trying to back down while her own personality fought it for control. “Let me act like this? --- So what, now you want to control how I feel too? Is that what this is?” It burnt beneath her flesh, the familiarity of the loss of control, and then and only then did she close her eyes against the glowing amber that became the first step towards shifting. Don’t shift..-- don’t fucking shift... Long moments passed, the brick beside her head crumbling beneath the force of her brothers fist ---- no, her alpha’s fist. As usual, his hierachy came before being a brother. She wasn’t surprised.
Steeling herself, she leveled her gaze to his, lifting her hands in a silent surrender while she felt none of it. She hadn’t even done anything --- simply tried to walk away from something that would force her to lose control; Cassidy’s independence had always made it difficult to follow pack rule, but she’d tried for some time until she simply drifted. “And no matter how much you love me, Leo, I’m always going to be my own person, so either deal with it, or don’t, either way it’s not my problem anymore.” Hues lifted to his fist in the wall, Cassidy instinctively swallowing before she returned a hardened gaze to her brother; she felt his rage, much like her own. Unbridled and out of control. “--- Are you done?”
