Page 58 of To Crave Madly
Voices drifted down the corridor spurring us into action. Laughing, the pair of us dove down the stairwell, closing the door behind us and locking us into the forbidden domain of the dragon. I suddenly felt uneasy, like I was intruding. Technically I was, but this felt worse than merely breaking and entering. Somehow it felt like I was sneaking around somewhere really private. It felt intimate.
“Come on,” I whispered. “Let’s get this over with.”
Saskia started her descent down the stairs and I followed cautiously behind her. The stairs led to a wide-open living space below. There was a desk, sofa, and a couple of armchairs, but other than that, the space was bare. There were no ornaments, no trinkets. There was nothing personal decorating the space to make it look lived in. It was empty and cold.
Just like Cassian.
“Try the desk; I’ll check the kitchen,” Saskia called as she disappeared down one of the corridors that branched off the main room. I walked to the desk and started pulling the drawers open searching for… hell, I didn’t even know what I was looking for.
“What does it look like?” I shout-whispered to Saskia.
“You can shout, it’s totally sound-proofed down here. And it’s a clear bottle, short but wide, with a dragon eye on the label.”
I froze. It was soundproofed down here? What the hell did Cassian get up to that he needed the place soundproofed? A shiver ran up my spine at the thought.
I continued to pull out the drawers and finally found the bottle buried at the back of one of them. “Saskia,” I called. I pulled the bottle out but got it caught on the corner of something. A glimmer of silver peeked out of the darkness of the drawer and I reached my hand in deeper to take a closer look. I pulled the object out and discovered it was an upturned photo frame. I didn’t hold out much hope of it having a picture in but as I flipped the frame over I gasped.
It was an old photo, and it depicted a family. I could tell it was a family because they all had similar features, bright white hair, clear, crisp ice-blue eyes and matching happy smiles. And right in the centre was Cassian, a wide grin beaming in his handsome face. He had a family, and he was happy. Oh, Cassian. What had happened?
On his left stood an older couple who I guessed were his parents, and on his right were two girls who looked a bit younger than him. His sisters perhaps? And twins by how similar they looked. My heart clenched as I remembered all the pain and sorrow I’d felt when I’d fed from him. I had a horrible feeling that if he was here and miserable then something disastrous must have happened to them.
Poor Cassian. I put the photo back in his drawer, my stomach suddenly churning at the thought that I’d stumbled over something that was not supposed to see the light of day.
“Saskia,” I called again, resolutely turning my back on the desk and leaving Cassian’s secret behind me.
“Yeah?” she replied as she bounded back into the room.
I held the bottle aloft and jiggled it. “Look what I found.”
A shit-eating grin spread widely across her face. “Now we can have some proper fun.”
Hell yeah.
Chapter 18
LORI
Midnight Sin was packed. I mean, seriously, it was like the middle of the week in early winter, so who in their right minds chose tonight to come out? Well, who was I to judge? I was currently sitting in a booth in a dark corner of the bar, feeling wonderfully tipsy and having a great time. Rae was absolutely sloshed and hitting it off with some guy at the bar, and Saskia had disappeared onto the dance floor to grind her butt against a hot shifter. Life was good.
I even didn’t mind that Torsten had reappeared and decided to stick around. Some thug got a little too handsy with my ass and had ended up with a broken wrist, courtesy of my Shadow Fiend. Nobody had come near me since, which I had to admit was rather nice. It meant I could just relax and be with my girls without having to worry about some slimeball hitting on me.
Torsten currently looked like he was chewing thorns. He was clearly uncomfortable, and it made me like him a little bit more that he was sticking around, even though he hated being here. Poor Torsten.
I held my glass out to him. I bet he’d never tasted a mojito with a dash of Dragon Tears. “Want to try some?”
His face soured. “No.”
I slid along the booth and got a bit closer to him. I didn’t want to have to strain my ears over the loud thumps of the music.
“Why not?”
He graced me with a flat look. “Because I am here to protect you, and I can’t do that with my judgement clouded with that disgusting concoction.”
I gurgled a laugh. Wow, I was quite happily drunk. These Dragon Tears were pretty potent stuff. I might need to slow down a bit.
“Have you ever tried a mojito, Torsten?”
“No. And I do not wish to.”
