Page 84 of Crave Me

“Much-needed as it turned out.” He grimaced. “I hadn’t allowed myself to recognize how much it had been building without Caleb here, and with me in such a dark state of mind that I’d been too concerned to go there with you and Skylar.”

“And now? You feel lighter?”

“Partially. Enough for it to help. Until Caleb is back here with us, though—”

“I know, Cas,” I said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “Nothing will be right without him back here. There’s a hole, a deep fucking hole without him.”

“We were all in a good place after everything that had happened, after the estrangement of those two years. Things were picture perfect between the four of us. Having the two of you taken, Skylar injured… now Caleb still out there and beyond my reach… it threatened everything I hold dear in this life. Elijah came at my heart, Bastian.”

I grimaced and wrapped my arm around him, holding him against me, giving him the comfort he clearly so desperately needed, comfort he’d been denying and suffering alone as a result.

I’d never seen any opponent get to him like this.

He was shaken, pained. Elijah’s actions had triggered his dark side, which he’d always had such extreme control over. He’d gone to great lengths and effort to stand apart from those like Asher Monroe and Dante Mancini who embraced that blackness and their monstrous natures as chief sources of their power and influence. Caspian had found another way. There were lines he just never crossed. It had meant a lot more work, going the harder road, but he’d pulled it off in a spectacular fashion, becoming one hell of a power player.

But this now with Elijah had threatened all of that.

It had threatened to undo him.

Fortunately, he’d been able to recognize that. Asher, of all people, had given him a wakeup call that was managing to pull Cas back from the edge before he drowned in the depths of it all.

“We do this together the rest of the way, Cas.”

“I can’t allow mercy for our enemies in this,” he warned.

“I understand. Just let me and Sky keep you from going too far, all right?”

He nodded against me.

“We’ll fix this,” I told him. “We’ll fix everything.”

He patted my back, then eased away. Shoving his hand through his hair and taking a beat, he then let out a weary sigh and told me, “Better get that breakfast to Skylar. I need to attend to a few issues at King, then I’ll come and sit with you both for a while.”

“Wait, before you go, what’s going on with you and the almighty Don? I overheard Asher and him talking about some revelation you found out about? You’ve been terse with him, did he do something, is there reason for concern where his loyalty is concerned?”

“His loyalty isn’t in question. Quite the opposite, actually.”

“What does that mean?”

“Believe me, complications already abound as it is, we need to wait until this is over before we get into it.”

“Cas, if there’s reason to be—”

“It’s of a personal nature, nothing to worry about with the war.”

The urge to push it, to find out what was causing him grief on top of what he was already bearing was intense, but I could also see his need to hold off with it.

We were just back on the same page with him coming back to us and agreeing to do this together, instead of him going rogue and hella dark. Rocking the boat where that was concerned was the last thing I wanted to do.

Besides, his word was solid. If he was telling me it wasn’t a concern from the standpoint of this war, then I respected and trusted in that with him.

So, I gave his shoulder a squeeze and told him, “Do your thing. See you in a few.”

He smiled, then took off out of the room, and I grabbed the trays of food for Sky and me.

19

~Skylar~

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