Page 47 of Hate Me

I’d felt that fissure in my fucking bones.

And I couldn’t stand it.

Nor could I simply walk and continue my separate existence.

It was time.

Time to go back home.

11

~Caspian~

“No matter if we’re apart or the distance or time between us, it’ll never diminish this connection we share. It was forged in fucking hellfire, there’s no breaking it.”

Those were Caleb’s words to me long before he’d left.

Judging by our brief conversation earlier, he still believed in them.

Still believed them to be true.

It was different being the one left to the one who’d made the choice to leave, though.

We’d never found ourselves in this sort of situation before.

For years on end, the notion of us parting, to any of the three of us going our separate ways, had just never been on the table.

And then he’d made that break.

And with that, he’d broken us.

Seeing him again, all I’d felt was hurt.

I hadn’t been able to feel anything beyond it.

It was why I’d cut our conversation to the quick. I’d been on the verge of lashing out, of saying something that could’ve served to push him back into the shadows again.

It was up to him now.

To take that step back to us.

Until then, he was just a soldier to me.

I couldn’t allow it to be any other way until something shifted for him, until I knew he wasn’t going to rip my fucking heart out again.

I hadn’t invited him back to King Manor for a reason and with him knowing me as well as he did, he would’ve realized that.

I wanted to tell myself that it was self-preservation, pure and simple.

But, in truth, there was some punishment intended there also.

“How is she?”

I spun at the sound of Bastian’s voice. I’d been so consumed by my thoughts and trying to wrap my head around these latest developments that I hadn’t even heard him walking up to the room—the same spare room we’d put Skylar up in the last time she’d stayed over.

I pushed off the locked door and walked to him. “She was in a state. Caleb had a tough time talking her down so I had to sedate her.”

I’d told him that she was back here, but that was all he knew, because he’d been at his support group meeting, taking on another session because of all these developments happening in such a short amount of time—all potentially triggering developments to him.

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