Page 10 of To Crave Deeply
LORI
He’d left me. He’d walked away as if it were the easiest thing to do. That bastard. Did I really mean nothing? Was that kiss in the alley really a figment of my imagination? Or that tender look as he lay there dying?
No. I hadn’t imagined it. And I was not letting him give up. If this place was trying to send him back then, by God, I was going to send him back, too. There must be something to get him to consider returning. I knew he had unfinished business; I just had to figure out what it was.
With my mind made up, I sprinted for the door and flung it open. More white greeted me beyond the doorway and I scanned the hallway looking for Cassian. There were dozens of ghostly looking people wandering the corridor, but it didn’t take me long to spot the white hair of Cassian disappearing around a corner. The man stood head and shoulders above the rest of the occupants of the hallway, and I instantly set my feet in motion to follow in his direction.
I had no idea where I was going. I just wanted to catch up with him, but Cindy was right. This place was a maze. Every corridor looked the same; there were no markers to identify where any of these hallways led and I definitely would get lost if I worked here. My sense of direction still wasn’t great, even after training with the team. I had no idea where north was, and I could still get lost with a map and a sat nav. Cassian turned down another corridor and I noticed that less people were in this corridor. There were even less in the next one and then, suddenly, Cassian turned into a hallway with nobody in it.
I was just going to call out to him, but I wanted to know where he was going. Did he even know where he was going? Or was he just wandering aimlessly? He came to the end of the corridor and it split into a left and right hallway like a T-junction. He paused for a moment before turning left and I picked up the pace to follow him. My feet tread lightly along the floor as I raced to catch him, but as I turned left like Cassian had done, I was greeted with an empty hallway.
Shit.
He’d definitely turned left so where was—
Someone grabbed me from behind, catching me off-guard. An arm wrapped around my waist, pinning my arms to my sides and a hand covered my mouth to stop me from screaming. Adrenaline flared to life as I wrestled with my attacker. I wriggled and squirmed, but I couldn’t break free from the hold.
I knew it was Cassian. I was stupid to think he wouldn’t notice me tailing him and now I was suffering for it.
I stomped my foot on his and then threw my head backwards, catching his nose with a satisfying crunch. He growled low in my ear and nope, I was not finding that a turn on. His arms loosened and I managed to pull my arms free from his grip and force my way out of his grasp.
“Why are you following me?” he roared. “Why the fuck can’t you just do as your told for once?”
He dove at me again. I sidestepped his attack and thrust my hands into his back to propel him forwards.
He growled again. It was a deep rumble that came from low in his chest and I knew his dragon was surfacing to play. I’d pissed him off by being here and now he was going to make me pay. Him and his dragon.
“You can’t order me around anymore, Cassie. You’re dead.”
His scowl deepened and his pupils morphed into those reptilian slits of his dragon. A shiver of anticipation crawled up my spine at the sight of it.
“I might be dead, but I can still punish your ass.”
I took up a fighting stance and raised my hand, a wicked grin plastered across my face. I beckoned him closer with my fingers. “Come and get it then.”
A wolfish smile crossed his face. He enjoyed this between us just as much as I did. We walked a thin line between danger and insanity, and I loved the thrill that ran through me at the thoughts of violence that Cassian pulled from me. My darker side yearned for his, and I wanted to taste his pain, almost as much as he wanted mine.
There was one silent, still moment as he sized me up before he lunged toward me with all his pent-up fury. He didn’t have to worry about killing me now. I was already dead. I might not be a demon anymore, but I was still a mage, and I still knew how to have fun.
The blows we exchanged were brutal. In life, they would have caused serious damage but in death, I barely felt a thing. I was surprised my new ghostly body could take hits at all. Maybe it was because Cassian was also a ghost creature and that meant we could touch each other? I didn’t know the rules of my new existence, and I was hoping that I didn’t need to grow accustomed to them because Cindy was going to send me back to my own body and that back-stabbing piece of shit demon.
“Come on, Cassie. Is that all you’ve got?” I said grinning. I was barely out of breath, and I had a feeling this little exchange might go on forever if nobody came and found us.
The muscle under his left eye twitched with my use of that stupid nickname. He hated it but he refused to tell me how much, which of course meant I used it as much as I could. Just to piss him off.
I must have struck a nerve because instead of playing with me, Cassian flew through a series of moves I couldn’t even catch, and in seconds I was flat on my back, looking at those dead eyes with something akin to wonder. Cassian always managed to beat me in hand-to-hand combat. His skills were far superior to mine and I vowed that one day, I would learn enough to out-manoeuvre him.
“You really hate that name, don’t you?” I laughed.
He growled back at me, clearly too angry for words right now. His eyes were still those of his dragon and I could feel his talons digging into the flesh on my wrists.
“Why do you do this to me?” His tone was rough, husky and deliciously low. I could feel the rumble deep in his chest from where he lay on top of me, and my nipples instantly hardened at the friction.
“What do I do to you?” I whispered breathlessly. Cassian looked at me with such hunger and rage that I was both terrified and turned on. A powerful combination that had my core clenching with unsatisfied need.
He trailed his nose along the arch of my cheekbone and, if I had a pulse, it would be beating wildly. His mouth stopped by the shell of my ear, and I felt his teeth pinch my lobe between his teeth hard. I gasped at the sudden sting, shocked by how alive he made my body feel. His tongue swept along the edge of my ear, soothing the sting, and turning my inner furnace up higher.
He pulled back to look at me and my stomach was suddenly filled with butterflies on a rampage. There was such a burning look of desire in his eyes that my body instantly reacted to it. To him.
