Page 146 of Crave Me

He wouldn’t be here when she got back.

This was it.

He was going to use the opportunity with us gone to slip away.

Fuck.

I went to open my mouth, to say something, to call him on it, but he noticed it coming and shook his head at me discreetly.

In that moment, the look from him made it clear why he was doing this.

It would be easier. Not just for him, but for Sky.

A long, drawn out goodbye would hurt her more and destabilize things here for her with her being torn between him and us.

“Take care of her,” he mouthed to me.

I gave him a chin lift, then sucked in a breath and turned away, Sky leading the way back into the house.

“Everything okay?” she asked as we made our way down the corridor.

Dammit.

I couldn’t allow there to be any more secrets between us.

We were together on everything now.

“Your dad… he’s not—”

“He’s going to leave while we’re on mission.”

“What? You know?”

“I know him. He had that same look of avoidance before he’d deploy.”

“Then—”

“He needs this, Bastian. It’s okay. He’s right. It needs to be this way. At least for now.”

I smiled sadly and rubbed her arm. “Yeah, it does, beautiful.”

She nuzzled against me for a few moments until we reached the door to the sub-level.

And then we both tensed up as we prepared ourselves for what was to come.

The eve of battle.

When we made it downstairs, everyone was gathered around the command center as Cas had started laying things out.

When he noticed us, he told us, “Our target is at a closed down manufacturing plant that he’s using to gather arms.”

“Trying to rebuild what we took from him,” Dante added.

“Not fucking happening,” Caleb seethed.

“Absolutely not, lovely.” Caspian stroked his shoulder, then turned to address us all collectively, “Listen carefully. This is how it’s going to lay out.”

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