Page 110 of Crave Me

“Because I was there for a good while, Elijah developed a connection to me. It was more than just a captor to captive thing with him. He wanted to keep me with him.” I pushed past the look of utter revulsion all over Caspian’s face and went on, “We can use that to our advantage. It’s leverage, something to exploit. Him allying with Jeremy is going to make it extremely difficult to track them again, especially without me there to send out a signal this time. So this is what we can use to do it, to draw them out.”

“Fuck, I thought Skylar’s strategy to draw Wheeler out by using herself as bait was bad enough, but this… after what he subjected you to… it’s another level.” He started shaking his head vehemently. “No. I won’t allow it. Absolutely not.”

“Cas—”

“No, Caleb. Not under my watch. Not under my command.”

“It’s not just your command. The four of us are in this together. We make our decisions together. As a team, a unit, a family. And now we’re all back here with each other, that’s exactly what we need to do, how we need to approach this and every fucking thing going forward.”

“Right there with you on that,” a voice came from the patio door, and we both turned to see Bastian coming out onto the patio.

As soon as we locked eyes, he was running to me and throwing his arms around me.

“Fuck, you’re here. You’re here,” he cried into my shoulder as he held me in a death grip.

“I’m here, B. All good.”

“You’re never leaving our sights again, do you hear me?”

“Right back at you. Although, with the way Cas is at the moment, he might very well intend that to be absolutely literal.”

“I’m not letting you anywhere near that sadistic madman,” Cas seethed.

Bastian pulled back and frowned over at him. “You’re gonna need to narrow that down. Which madman are we talking about here?”

“Elijah,” Caspian seethed, like just uttering his name was poison on his tongue.

“What? No. We just got you out of his clutches, Cal.”

“His idea is similar to Skylar’s concerning Wheeler. To draw Elijah out using himself as bait.”

“Whoa, that’s… something for sure.”

“Something you were adamantly against when Skylar brought up the idea for her,” Caspian told him pointedly, and hella heavily.

“Adamantly against doesn’t really cover it,” Skylar’s voice came from behind us, startling all three of us in one shot.

Bastian did a double take as he watched her approach from around the side of the manor, rather than through the kitchen as the rest of us had done. “Last time I checked in on you, you were out like a light. Again, beautiful, sorry we didn’t fall asleep together this time, I didn’t know Damien was gonna be talking my ear off for hours on end, I thought it was just gonna be a quick half hour thing.”

“It’s all good.” She eyed Caspian. “And you were supposed to be sleeping in my room as well, along with Bastian until the Damien thing. What happened to you?”

“Sorry, I passed out in my office. I only woke up when Asher texted me that Caleb was up and about.”

“That’s why I woke up too. He popped in to tell me that I was needed.” She looked between me and Caspian. “I guess he sensed this insane tension between you two.”

“More like he’d sensed it coming to that,” I said, knowing Ash’s astuteness as I did.

“It wasn’t exactly a difficult prediction. He knows now how we both are when we’re riled up,” Caspian spoke, the very clear edge in his voice making it clear he was still majorly riled up.

“Hold up, Damien is here? In the manor?” I asked.

“After I was taken, Cas considered that he could become a target too,” Bastian explained. “So he got my mom out and Damien’s been here. He’s actually been helping. He hit that old mansion, the first place you and me were kept, with Cas and Asher. He’s been here with Skylar too while Cas was… indisposed.”

“That’s… a lot.”

“Yeah, it took me some time to wrap my head around too,” Bastian admitted. A smile played on his lips. “But, you know, it’s been nice… having him here… connecting again.”

“Damn,” I breathed. “A lot really has changed since I’ve been gone.”

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