by Eve Newton
“First things,” I say, dropping my phony British accent, “I would like to point out that I didn’t do this. She did. And secondly, I am still Aefre. Just from a different world.”
“A different world.” He peers at me closely and says, “You definitely are not that skank from the Other World, so there is a third?”
“There is a second?” I ask in surprise.
“Indeed. So, if you aren’t Devon’s Elizabeth, that must make you my wife. Correct?” he asks.
“Yes. You, well my you, turned me and we hand fast in 1012,” I confirm.
“Mm, I knew there had to be a time somehow where I got you where I wanted you,” he mutters to himself, pleased. “How can you be sure it was her who switched you?”
“Well, it wasn’t me,” I say. “I have never had the power to travel through time or to switch bodies with another me.”
“Bodies? It is just your essences that have been misplaced?” he asks, confused.
“Yes. This is her body and I can only assume she is in mine,” I say, a bit angry now.
“Yes, I suppose I see that,” he sighs. “I assume you have a relationship with Sebastian where you come from?” he asks.
I nod. “Yes. A powerful one.”
He starts at that, but I don’t elaborate, reluctant to tell of the Faerie connection that these don’t yet have.
“You do know that by having sex with him, you have caused all sorts of problems for my Aefre and my Sebastian?”
“I have gathered that, but you don’t understand,” I try to explain.
“No, I don’t. But you have put her in an impossible situation.”
“Does he know?” I ask carefully.
“No, he thinks you are Liv. That is why it is going to hurt him terribly when you go, and she comes back, only to reject him.”
“What if I don’t go?” I ask then. “I had imagined she would have worked tirelessly to get back to her life and yet I am still here. I may never leave.” I shrug casually, ready to give him a world of possibilities should he ask. Only he doesn’t.
“Oh, you will be leaving, one way or another, I can assure you,” he says to me assertively and despite being slightly insulted, I actually go mushy all over.
“We’ll see. I quite like it here. Her life is so very different to mine. So easy. And all these people she has who love her, her charges especially. She is so lucky.”
“You don’t have Devon or Cole?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t have any charges. It wasn’t considered to be the right thing to do.”
“You mean she is stuck there in your life without her charges?” he croaks out.
“Yes,” I confirm.
“Oh no. No, no. You must find a way to switch back. She will be devastated,” he implores me.
“I am sure she will have more than enough to keep her occupied,” I say breezily.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he frowns at me.
“She is Empress where I come from. Believe me, all that entails is enough to distract her. Along with Sebastian. Oh, my sweet Sebastian,” I say with a sigh and he glares at me.
“He will think she is you,” he states quietly.
“I’m afraid so. And she won’t resist him. Our bond is too strong.”
“Your bond. They don’t have one,” he points out.
“No, it seems that it is our bodies that have the connection. I have felt hers to her husband and to Devon. And you, when I kissed you,” I say a bit slyly.
“You have been with Cole and Devon?” he asks with quiet disbelief.
“Oh yes. They are both incredible lovers, and the bonds, they are so strong,” I say. I am taunting him now and it is getting to him. I find it fascinating, this reaction in him. He is quite different to my Constantine.
“Enough,” he says.
I close my mouth, feeling bad now, as this is clearly a sore subject for him.
“You have to come clean. You cannot go around pretending to be her,” he says.
“No, I don’t think I will. I love her life,” I say.
“I won’t allow you to manipulate the people she loves,” he insists.
“I would like to see you try and stop me,” I say, getting a bit mad now, and I can sense the change in my eyes to my Dragon’s and I take a step forward.
“Oh, please. You can’t pull that on me. Calm yourself,” he snaps at me.
I giggle then because he sounds so much like my sire when he is annoyed. “Look, I like it here. It is like a vacation for me. Please just give me some more time. If she hasn’t figured out a way to switch us back in twenty-four hours, I will come clean. I promise,” I negotiate.
He sighs. “I will give you twenty-four hours, but you will stay away from Sebastian,” he says menacingly. “And the other two,” he adds as an afterthought.
I hesitate. I don’t particularly want to comply with that request. It defeats the purpose of my subterfuge. In the end, I bend slightly. “I will stay away from Devon and Sebastian, but I can’t promise I can stay away from Cole.”
He glowers at me and I explain, “He is her husband. We are sleeping in the same bed. He craves her, he can’t keep his hands off her. The things he said last night…” I trail off as it is private. Cole’s words weren’t even meant for my ears so certainly not for his.
He thinks about this for a few moments and I can see the wheels turning. His process is exactly the same as my own sire’s. What is he thinking?
“Fine,” he says in the end. “I see your point. Twenty-four hours, Aefre, or I will tell.”
I nod and cross to him. I take his hand and he frowns at me. I pull him over to the sofa and sit us both down. “What is it you want from her?” I ask.
“What I was denied,” he says shortly.
“The chance to be her husband?” I ask.
He nods.
“I can give you that,” I say quietly as I climb onto his lap. “If I stay, I can give you that.” I lean forward to kiss him and he doesn’t respond for a few seconds, until I plunge my tongue into his mouth, and he kisses me back momentarily before he pushes me away.
“Don’t do that again. You are not mine,” he scowls at me.
“But I can be,” I coax.
“No,” he says forcefully. “I didn’t make you. Why are you not more concerned yourself about getting back to where you belong?”
I sigh and say, “I am tired. Exhausted, even. Tired of being responsible, tired of being perfect.”
“But don’t you miss your husband?” he presses.
“Yes, but we aren’t getting along very well right now.” I get off him as the mood is ruined. “He hurt me,” I sulk.
“Of that I have no doubt. Seems to be a thing with us,” he mutters, and I stare at him.
“I miss Cassis,” I say suddenly.
He starts. “Cassis? You live in France?” he asks.
“What?” I ask, confused. “No, my daughter, Cassis. I miss her.”
He blanches. “Your daughter? You have a daughter?”
“Yes, with you. Well, my you, obviously. She is ours.”
He looks stricken with longing and again I see the similarities. “How old is she?” he chokes out.
“She was born two hundred and sixty-eight years ago. She has been turned two hundred and fifty years.” I don’t see a problem in revealing this information as it has nothing to do with either of them.
“She is a Vampire?”
“Yes. A human-born Dragon turned on her eighteenth birthday.”
“Just like Aefre said,” he mutters and then asks sharply, “By whom?”
“Someone close to us,” I say evasively. This is a sore subject with me, and not one I wish to discuss with a complete stranger.
“Who?” he demands again.
I shake my head. “No one you know here,” I lie.
“What does she look like?” he asks hesitantly, thankfully leaving the sire business for now.
“She is taller than
me by about three inches, with my blonde hair, but her face, her eyes are all you,” I say, stroking his beautiful, perfect face.
“She looks like me?” he asks in awe. “I mean, Other me.”
“She does,” I confirm gently.
He laughs then. “Oh, my Aefre will be freaking out,” he says. “She isn’t ready to be a mother, or so she says.”
I smile at him, but he looks so sad.
“Tell me about your turning,” he demands suddenly. “He got it right, so tell me how?”
“Oh, well he has a strange story to tell about that. I am not sure he was in his right mind,” I pause as something now isn’t sitting right about that.
“Go on.”
“Well, we met in the marketplace and I was so sure I wouldn’t see him again, even though I desperately wanted to. I made my way back to my cottage, but he must have followed me and was watching me because later that same night, while Radulf…”
“It’s okay, my Aefre went through the same,” he says quietly.
“Oh, well during an incident with Radulf, he came bursting into the cottage, much to my shock, and grabbed Radulf and killed him. Ripped his head right off his shoulders.” I stare at him as he looks pleased by that news. He adjusts his features and I continue, “He took me, ran off with me, and told me he would give me a better life, that I deserved so much more. He took me to an old Pagan circle a few miles south of London and he sat me down and told me all about himself. What he was, what he could give me. That he wanted me to be like him, if I wanted. That we were in the right place to do it properly. He said he would give me a couple of days to think about it, but that he knew it was right, as he had a vision. This is where the story gets a little bizarre.” I pause as he leans in closer.
“A vision?”
“Yes, he said that he saw a version of himself and of me, he thought from the future. He said that the future him told him that the way it was, wasn’t right. That he had to make it right by taking me and running.”
Constantine is looking at me in shock. “Yes, I do realize it sounds ridiculous. But that is his story and he is sticking to it,” I say dryly.
He shakes his head. “No, it can’t be,” he says, standing up.
“What?” I ask.
“He speaks the truth. He did see your future selves, only they weren’t your actual future selves. It was me and my Aefre. We went back in time to what we thought was our own past, but it wasn’t. It was yours.”
“What?” I ask again, this time in disbelief. “You went back in time to my time?”
“Seems so,” he muses. “Makes perfect sense, why everything went exactly as it did when we went back again.”
He is muttering to himself and I settle back down into the sofa. I am stunned. I always thought he must have been drunk or something when he said he saw the vision, but now it turns out it was these two. These two shaped my future. I frown deeply, as I am not so sure how I feel about that. Don’t get me wrong, I readily accepted the life he offered me without hesitation, but all the rest that came after was a bit of a shock, and something that has been nothing but a burden on me for a thousand years.
He comes to sit next to me and takes my hand. I look up at him and I can see he feels much like I do, only in that he had hoped to change his own past but ended up changing someone else’s. We sit in silence for a long, long time and I determine that I must get home. I don’t belong here. For all her easy, carefree ways, this is not the life that was given to me. I have a responsibility to my Empire, and it is time to get back to it.
Maybe. In a few days.
Chapter 3
I wake up suddenly, fighting the hands that are gripping me. I could feel myself being drawn away from her world and back to mine in my sleep. I tried to fight it, but it was to no avail. I wanted to come home, but I just wanted one more time with Cole before I did. Constantine’s hands are holding me down as I flail, and I open my eyes to find his concerned face looking down at me. My eyes then flick to Sebastian’s and my anger gets the better of me. How dare she! I have woken up naked in between my two lovers and that must be how she left this body. That bitch! How dare she take my husband and my lover together in my bed. I know I was irresponsible with her men, but to do something so intimate with two people you don’t even know just smacks of gall. I must concede on some level that they probably didn’t give her any choice. Having firsthand experience of the two of them, it is difficult to resist when they both touch you. Well, actually, it is damn near impossible. But I remember all the things I did in her body while I was over there and feel a small sense of satisfaction that I took her husband and her charge and left her in a pig’s arse of a mess to clean up with her Sebastian. Oh, yes, she is going to have some explaining to do. Unless she doesn’t tell them what she did over here? She probably won’t, as I have no intention of telling my lovers what I did. Constantine will skin me alive.
My rapid, erratic thoughts come to a halt as I hear him say, “Aefre?” to me for about the millionth time while I just look at him. He is naked and looking like he has had a damn good seeing-to. Sebastian looks the same and my anger ignites again.
“What?” I snap at them and they both flinch at my tone. I push Constantine’s hands off me and sit up, pulling the sheet up with me. Neither of them seems too thrilled to see me. Seems our little switcher has been dishing out her sweetness all over the place.
“Aefre, are you all right, my love?” Constantine dares to ask me.
“I am fine,” I snap at him and he looks away and sighs as I climb out of bed, taking the sheet with me to the bathroom. I slam the door and then breathe out and slide down the wall, the tears pricking my eyes. Doesn’t look like they even knew I had left and someone else was in my place.
There is a quiet knock on the door, but I ignore it and climb into the shower. He comes in anyway. “Aefre, have you taken another turn? You seemed to be getting better, did we…we should have left you alone to rest,” Constantine says, his voice full of sorrow.
“Yes, you should have,” I growl at him, meaning he should have left her to rest. Maybe I should tell him it wasn’t me. I open my mouth to say exactly that when he says, “I’m sorry, my love. You told me that you had forgiven me for what I did, and I was so happy and relieved that you had, I just needed to be with you.”
I clench my fist around the soap I am holding, and it squishes through my fingers in a goopy mess. She did what? She had no right to do that. No right to forgive him on my behalf. I close my eyes and try to bring my rage back under control. My rage is dangerous, and this shower is not the place to unleash it.
“Just leave me,” I say to him through gritted teeth and he turns to leave without another word. I am glad now that she has her own mess to clean up that I made for her. I hope she suffers in the process. If I ever work out how to get to her world, I am going to tell everybody what she has been up to. I finish my shower and get dressed. Fortunately, both Constantine and Sebastian are nowhere to be found. I just can’t look at either one of them at the moment. Traitors. I want to go and see my Cassis, to sort out this problem of Lance once and for all. I storm out of the bedroom, catching the whiff of our mingling scents as I pass the bed. The only thing I can be thankful for is that it was my body that they ravaged. It was definitely a ravaging. I can tell by the knocked over lamp, the broken vase and the sheets that have been ripped to shreds. First stop is Serena: she can get one of the maids to sort this mess out. I want pristine, brand new sheets on this bed before I step back in this room. I will also get a good old-fashioned dose of vengeance on Serena when I send her up here to inspect it. She thinks I don’t know about her and my husband, but there is very little around here that I don’t know about.
I have my conversation with Serena, and she rushes off to do my bidding. I watch her go with a self-satisfied smile. She may get a small piece of Constantine when he wants her, but he is mine and I have no doubt that he doesn’t take her like he does me.
I find Cassi
s in my office downstairs. She is looking rushed and a small smile crosses her lips as she sees me.
“Mother,” she says as she crosses to me and hugs me fiercely to my surprise. “You look so much better today. I am glad that you are well again.”
I step back from her and peer at her curiously. She doesn’t appear to be cross with me anymore. I start to smile at her and then it freezes on my face. What did that woman say to her that changed her mind? “You are no longer upset with me?” I ask her.
She frowns at me. “No, Mother, we sorted this out yesterday. You said you would accept Lance as my husband. Have you changed your mind again?” she adds, her voice rising. It is not difficult to see where she gets her temper from. I take a deep breath and close my eyes to steady my anger. She forgave Constantine on my behalf and now she has accepted Lance to be Cassis’s husband. I will tear her limb from limb if I ever see her.
I open my eyes and she is glaring at me with her father’s eyes. “No, I have not changed my mind,” I say reluctantly. It would be unfair of me to put my daughter through yet another argument on this topic. I will just have to sit on it now and try to destroy this relationship on my own somehow. I will never let him become her husband. It is just not going to happen in my lifetime: which means it will never happen.
She looks relieved that I am not going to start on at her again and then she goes into everything that she has been doing in my absence. At least that woman had the good sense to stay out of my Empire business, even though she clearly had no issues about delving right into my private life. Everything is running smoothly and despite my “episode,” which I can only assume was her state of mind when her emotional, volatile self woke up as me, my authority and reputation have remained intact. Cassis leaves and I pick up where she left off. My mind is distracted as I keep thinking about not only what she did here with my men, but also what I did over there with hers. I can’t get her charges out of my head. Cole is so passionate and loving. I want to go and find him here. It is a shame about Devon, he will be long since gone, but if I can have Cole here, with Constantine and Sebastian, I will be happy with that. The more I think about it the more anxious I get, and my temper gets the better of me several times, before everyone just decides to avoid me and my foul mood. Not even Sebastian has come to find me and that hurts. I have missed him so much as I haven’t been with him since before, he left for Court. Only he doesn’t know that. I can’t believe that they didn’t know it wasn’t me. They must have seen the differences, but probably just hoped that my mental breakdown had changed me.