by Eve Newton
“You’re back,” Cole says from behind me, coming out of the bedroom.
“Yes.” I smile at him and hug him fiercely to his surprise.
“All good?”
“It is now,” I tell him, and he beams.
“What happened? Did she tell you anything useful?” he asks this casually but deep down he wants to ask what I did to gain any info she had to give.
“All she said that was new, was I can only kill him in the Spirit Realm. Problem is, she didn’t tell me yet how to get there and back. I know she is not saying a lot, but I can’t quite place my finger on the extent to which she is holding back.” I ponder this. Her facial expressions and her word usage have me piqued. Not once did she say “kill” only “defeat”. She told me there was a way to get rid of it, but that she defeated it. Am I being paranoid here? Probably. I am too suspicious of just about everyone’s motives at the moment.
“Do you have to go back?”
“Yes. But don’t worry. Her Constantine is on to our plan. I can’t pull her off, she is too…” I shudder. “He saw right through me.”
“But he will help?”
“Yes,” I say, leaving out his request for said help.
“Well, that’s something. But hopefully Corinne and Ahmed might be able to come up with something in the meantime.”
“That would be preferable.”
“Come to bed then? I have missed you.” He kisses me and I kiss him back desperately.
“Yes,” I murmur, and he picks me up and carries me off to have his delicious way with me, again and again.
I fall asleep with my arms wrapped around Cole, at peace for a while. But then I start dreaming of the other Constantine and the other me and I am restless and stir, but the dreams keep pulling me back under until I dream of my CK and Sebastian. At least, I hope it is a dream as I don’t really want to be sitting there watching what is going on.
CK is standing, staring out of the window as Sebastian gets fucked by a pretty, young human over on the sofa.
“Do I really need to be here for the whole show?” CK says.
“The idea was that you join in,” Sebastian says.
“Not likely,” CK says much to my relief and the disappointment of the girl who is looking at him hungrily like a treat she just has to have. “Let me know when you are ready.”
As if on cue, Sebastian drops his fangs and feeds from the girl as she comes intensely and CK moves over to stand behind Sebastian. As soon as he releases her, CK drops his fangs and feeds from Sebastian as he comes inside the girl. I don’t want to see this. It is way too intimate. It is too personal. I try to cover my eyes, but it doesn’t work. I feel like I have violated them by being this unwilling voyeur.
Sebastian slaps the arse of the girl as CK releases his bite and shivers as the effects of his blood kicks in. Huh, it really does make a difference to him. She climbs off Sebastian and pulls on her dress. She grabs the wad of cash from the table and leans over to kiss him. “See you tomorrow,” she says, and I grasp that she is a regular Feeder, with benefits. Paid extra well to keep her trap shut about what she sees pass between CK and his charge, judging from the hefty stack of bills.
CK moves back to the window to stare out pensively as Sebastian stands and pulls on a pair of sweats. As he turns his back towards me, my mouth drops open. He is marked. A lot. His back is a myriad of swirls connecting what appears to be leaves across his back. I have never seen his back before as he has never been shirtless in front of me. It must have something to do with his Faerie genes. He quickly pulls a t-shirt over his head, clearly conscious of it, even when it is just the two of them.
“Thank you,” he says softly.
CK shrugs.
“You really should stop this whole true-to-one crap. It isn’t like she repays the favor,” he says slyly.
“Don’t start, Sebastian,” he sighs.
“I’m not. Just pointing out a fact,” Sebastian says and holds his hands up in defense. “Too bad you can’t convince her to come to me. It would change everything.”
“She said not yet. So just leave it. I’m not pushing her.”
“Just ask her again. Just ask her to come to me for one night. I can convince her to come to me again after that.”
CK turns. “Quite confident of your abilities there, aren’t you, my boy?”
“You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know what I feel when I touch her. What we feel when we touch each other.”
“Oh? Why don’t you enlighten me?” CK says nastily but Sebastian doesn’t flinch. He turns square on to his sire.
“Like it is meant to be. Like we belong together.” He holds his hands out palms up and fingers outstretched. “It’s electric,” he says, and sparks fly from his fingers.
Whoa, put the power away before you hurt someone, Princie.
“You are in love with her,” CK says.
“Yes,” Sebastian says and CK’s face hardens. “She can give me everything I want.”
“She isn’t yours,” CK says shortly.
“She isn’t yours either. Not yet, anyway,” Sebastian retorts.
CK’s hands clench into fists. “Watch your mouth,” he says.
“Again, just stating the facts.” He steps closer to CK and takes his arms in his hands. “Please ask her again,” he says quietly.
CK shakes his head. “No, she made it clear the subject was closed. I am not going to risk pissing her off. Not now when she is being reasonable about our future.”
“She is being reasonable because of me. Because of what I am doing to her. Please,” Sebastian implores his sire, tightening his grip. “I have to be with her. I feel whole when she is next to me. It is like she is…one of my kind…one of my old kind.”
CK brings his hands up and removes Sebastian’s grip from him. Sebastian might have the edge on the juju power but CK is still physically stronger and quicker than him. “She is not Faerie. It is impossible. They do not fall under her rule, you know that. You are mistaken, and I will not discuss this again. And you will keep your hands to yourself. I don’t know the ins and outs of your little whatever it is, but you are only supposed to be spelling her. Not touching her.”
“We kiss and we feed from each other and on occasion we bring pleasure to ourselves while we do it,” Sebastian says smugly.
CK looks pained as he hears the words but adjusts his features slightly and asks, “You please her? You fuck her?”
“No, she won’t do that. She touches herself,” Sebastian admits. “But remember that you did give me permission to fuck her. She just won’t.”
CK turns away from him. “She kisses you? Willingly?”
“Yes,” he sighs. “This is what I am trying to tell you. She feels the connection we have as well. I know she does.”
Silence.
“Either you speak to her again or I will spell her to come to me willingly,” Sebastian says boldly.
“You wouldn’t dare,” CK snaps at him.
“Oh, I would. I did before we left L.A., but then she did that Dragon Shift and it threw the spell.”
“You did what?” CK launches himself at Sebastian, hand at this throat.
“I suggested she come to me and let me make love to her. The only reason I haven’t done it again is because I love her, and I don’t want her that way. Unless, I am left with no choice.”
“You are pushing your luck. If I find out that you spelled her to come to you, make no mistake that this time, I really will end you. If she comes to you of her own volition, then fair enough, but you will not influence her. Your job, your only job, is to spell her to make her come to me.”
“I did. Yesterday. And I told her plain to her face as well. I have your back, you know that. I just want something in return is all.”
“Remember this, Aefre,” Lance’s voice echoes in my head, “You have to remember this, to see what your sire is planning.”
“Aefre. Aefre.” I hear Corinne’s voice and I open my eyes
. I was dreaming about CK and Sebastian. They were plotting and discussing me like some kind of commodity. I frown as I remember the details.
“Aefre,” Corinne whispers, hovering over me.
I bolt upright. “Corinne? Wait, is that really you?” I ask, thinking it must The Thirteen because of the awful dream I just had.
“Yes, Your Majesty, it is really me.”
“How do I know?” I whisper at her, not wanting to wake Cole.
“Erm, you came to see me earlier, with your sire. Ahmed and I walked in on you having a private discussion. That is what I am here to talk to you about.” She holds up a scroll.
Well, that is true, but that doesn’t mean she is who she says she is. I warily climb out of bed and pull on a robe as she looks away.
“You also asked about your father,” she whispers as she realizes I am not altogether trusting. “I took Devon on his sire trials,” she adds.
“I believe you. I just had this awful dream. That usually happens when he makes an appearance.”
We walk out to the sitting room, closing the bedroom door quietly behind me.
“What was it about?” she asks.
“Oh, nothing you need worry about. Just me being paranoid, I think. What did you wish to discuss?”
“Are we able to talk freely?” she asks, looking back towards the bedroom.
“Yes, Cole sleeps like the dead,” I say. “We can go elsewhere if you prefer?”
“No, here is fine.” She undoes the scroll and lays it out on the dining table. It looks about as old as I am as I peer at it. It is written in the same text, sort of, as the Grimoire.
“What is it?”
“A prophecy,” she says, and I roll my eyes.
“Not another one? Is it about me again?”
“Yes.” She points to the top line. “This translated says that your mother is Empress of the Dragon Realms and Underworld.”
Well, we already know that.
“This,” she says pointing to the second line, “says that her daughter will be Queen and rule as one until such a time that she becomes Empress. So, that is you.”
I nod, we have obviously established that as well. Although, the thought that I would be Empress one day is something that I only thought about when we switched places with other me on board the jet.
“This third line, we were never sure what to make of it, being what you are,” she says cryptically. “But when we overheard you talking to Constantine and seeing his actions, it all became a bit clearer. You are planning to have a child with him, yes?” she whispers.
I narrow my eyes at her. “Perhaps,” I say noncommittally.
“How?” she asks, still whispering.
“Why don’t you tell me what the third line says?” I ask instead.
“Please, Aefre, can you tell me before I tell you what it says? You know that Ahmed and I know everything. About everyone. And we keep the secrets because we have been sworn to do so. Our loyalty is to you, our Queen, and your mother, The Empress. You can trust me.”
“Fine, but if this gets out, I will come for you,” I threaten her, and she bobs her head. “We are doing a Blood Magick ritual which will make him more than an ordinary Vampire. More like me. Able to reproduce.”
Her eyebrows skyrocket and I continue, “When we went to the future, they said it was working, but not quickly enough. They asked us to start it now to give them a better chance.”
“You truly believe that your sire will be able to give you a child?” she asks.
“Well, we had hoped so. Obviously, we couldn’t say for sure, until future us said it was working. That he was becoming more than an ordinary Vampire. Now, will you please tell me what this is about?”
“Aefre, if that is your plan, you must be careful. There are others in your group that are more than able to give you that without the need for magick,” she says it carefully, but I still take offense.
“I am aware of that, thank you,” I say stiffly.
“I don’t mean to upset you; I just want you to be informed.”
“Very well, please, continue.”
“The third line says that your daughter will one day be Queen and Empress and rule as her mother and grandmother did before her.”
A daughter? CK will be over the moon. “My daughter? I’m going to have a daughter?” I ask her softly.
She nods. “So it would seem. The question remains though who her father will be.”
“Yes, that seems to be a running query at the moment,” I say to her pointedly. “So, what is the problem?” I ask, not really getting the reason for all the cloak and dagger. What’s it to her if CK and I have a child or not?
She sits down and pats the chair next to her and says, “If a Shifter female mates with a different species, the child is almost always born after the father. The same with Demons. When a female Dragon mates with a different species the child is always a Dragon. Takes after the mother. Due to Tiamat’s curse, you were born a Dragon, but to human parents who, by sheer coincidence, conceived you at the exact moment your mother would have had She been able. So, your essence, as it were, was passed on to them.” She looks slightly uncomfortable talking about this and I don’t blame her. I am very uncomfortable listening to this. “You were the first, and only, human-born Dragon. This prophecy states that your daughter will be a human-born Dragon as well but with the slight difference of you carrying her.”
“So, I will be pregnant, and she will be born a human Dragon. I had kind of figured that out already, seeing as Vampires can’t be conceived,” I say, and she looks surprised.
“Oh, you have given this some thought then?” she asks.
“Yes, we aren’t going into this half-arsed,” I say. “What is the point to this?”
“Well, actually, you have raised a fairly good point. But what I am trying to say is you are destined to have a daughter, but it might not be your sire’s. In fact, it doesn’t seem likely.”
“But the future us said it was working,” I say, confused.
“But is future you being faithful?” she asks delicately.
“Erm, well, no,” I admit slowly, thinking of what future Sebastian said.
“You are having relations with Sebastian?” she looks away as she asks it.
“Apparently, in the future. Not now. How do you know that?”
“Your mother has conceived many children, after She was cursed. None of them have been born as you were. Just regular humans who lived and died being what they were.”
“Okaaaay. I assume that is because I was destined to be Queen.”
“Perhaps. It is more likely because you were the only child conceived within a certain relationship that She had.”
“So, you do know who my father is! I knew you were hiding something,” I accuse her.
“Your mother fell in love. With a man who was forbidden. There has never been another relationship between their two species, such is the lack of tolerance, to put it nicely, but they were in love and they consummated their love the night you were conceived.”
“Who was he, dammit? Just tell me,” I snap at her, beyond curious now.
“The Fae King,” she says, and I feel the bile rise slowly in my throat. The Fae King? Sebastian’s father? Oh, the things I have done with him…oh, I am going to be sick. I put my hand to my mouth and am nanoseconds away from hurling as I think of us being intimate together when she adds, “The Dark Fae King, Drake.”
Wait, the Dark Fae King? Sebastian said he was Light Fae. I have no idea what that means but thank the old gods he at least isn’t my actual brother.
“Okay, you are going to have to explain further. I don’t really know much about the Faeries, except Sebastian said he was Light Fae. That is no relation to Dark Fae?” I ask hopefully.
She smiles at me. “No, no relation. But you see why I am prone to think that if you have a human-born Dragon, it may not be Constantine’s, it may be Sebastian’s.”
“But Sebastian is also a Vampire
,” I say, shaking my head at the disturbance of that thought. “And we aren’t engaging in any power-boosting rituals.”
“He doesn’t need a power boost, Aefre. He has enough of that all on his own.”
“But he must have had sex with millions of women and never had a child. Why would you think now that he is capable?”
“Because of you,” she says simply as she pushes the scroll towards me. “It tracks. Unless you know of any other Faerie you may have relations with.”
“Erm, no I do not,” I state determinedly. “But I don’t see why, just because I am a human-born Dragon and my daughter will be, why the father has to be Faerie? If you say the only child conceived by a Dragon and a Faerie is me, that’s hardly enough evidence for a case study.” I am confident of my words and I sit back, relaxing slightly.
“Perhaps,” she says again. “I am not here to tell you otherwise, as I do not know. I am just here to give you some facts and to warn you to be careful. If you have plans that you intend to keep, make sure they don’t go awry.”
I chew my lip. “But what if you are right?” I say quietly. “What if the only way I will have a child is with Sebastian?”
She shrugs and says, “The prophecy will come true. How it will come true we don’t know.”
“So, it’s just a wait-and-see kind of deal? Great,” I mutter. “How come you didn’t want to tell me about my father?”
“It was your mother’s wish that you didn’t find out. She didn’t want you going off to find him.”
“Because he doesn’t know about me?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “And it should stay that way. The animosity between the races is fierce. If the Dark Fae found out that the new Queen of The Underworld was one of theirs, war would break out. It would be a global catastrophe.”
“Why? And I am not one of theirs. I have no Faerie powers; I can’t walk in the sunlight without my ring. I can’t juju people like Sebastian can,” I say.
“The Faeries and the Dragons used to live in harmony eons ago. You may have come to realize by now that the Dragons were responsible for the creation of most of the newer Supernatural creatures. Not the Faeries though. They are as ancient as the Dragons and a completely separate race. War broke out when the Dragons tried to get the Faerie under their rule, but they were powerful enough to resist and now there is no peace between the two races. They live in their own Kingdoms on a Realm far beyond anything we can reach. You may not be true Faerie, but it is in you. Especially now you are able to bear mystical Power. Try and take your ring off in the sun. I would wager my entire fortune that you don’t need it.”