Page 10 of Crave Me

Not wanting me to know that he was actually afraid of the outcome.

Afraid we wouldn’t be able to bring them back to us.

I reached out and cupped his cheek. “You don’t believe it, do you? You don’t believe we’ll actually get them back?”

“It’s not that. I know we will. Even if I have to burn it all down to make it so.”

“But that look… that fear there…”

He stroked my hand, his other still wrapped around me with a dual purpose of comfort and also supporting my weight in my injured state. “The fact you can read me like that, me of all people… fuck, it’s rare, love.”

“I’m glad I can now. I don’t want you hurting all alone, I don’t want you taking everything on and killing yourself when you have support here. In me. In our allies.” I smiled, bittersweetly, “You’re not alone. I’m here with you.”

“I know. I know you are.” He took a moment, squeezing his eyes shut, and I braced myself, seeing the utter struggle it was for him to put whatever was eating at him about this, beyond the obvious, out there… the root of that fear I’d seen from him. He drew in a breath, his hazel pools swimming with anguish as he told me, “If Elijah had wanted them dead, they would already be. He knows that would be the ultimate punishment to me for coming at him. That means he wants something from me. He’s going to drag this out, he’s going to push me until I break—for them. I’ve studied this enemy for years, long before I even began planning this war. I know him. And, as such, knowing what he’s capable of, the depraved depths he’s capable of sinking to. That fear you saw is about what he’ll do to Caleb and Bastian, the fear that when I do liberate them from his clutches, they won’t be the same… that they’ll be in pieces. Pieces that can’t be put back together.”

Oh my God.

3

~Caleb~

My head was plunged into a sink full of ice water.

Three sets of hands held me steady, two confining my arms behind my back, another holding my head still and immersed.

The ice burned my skin and lungs alike.

Holding my breath was futile and within moments I was choking and spluttering, my body twisting and writhing in desperation to escape the coming blackness.

My hair was suddenly yanked on and I was pulled from the water.

I’d only just sucked in a ragged breath, my throat red-raw from the freezing temperature, before I was shoved back under.

Again and again.

The constant struggle, the lack of oxygen, and the strain on my body had me weakening.

It felt like hours, right when I was on the verge of blacking out, before they finally wrenched me out entirely, then tossed me down onto the concrete.

I was panting and convulsing as I spat up water violently all over myself and all over the floor.

And then they were on me.

The shadows.

So many hands pulling at my clothes, ripping them from my body.

They stepped away when I was completely stripped naked and I struggled to see through my blurry compromised vision.

It was too late then as a blast of water assaulted me.

A high-pressure hose of some sort, it seemed like.

It was like taking a beating all over with the intensity of the blasts, battering my exposed body.

I fought to move away from it, managing to crawl onto all fours.

Before I could get anywhere, though, a set of hands bore down on my back and then the water was directed to my ass, cock, and balls.

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