by Eve Newton
“Oh? And how much would that be?” I ask dryly. Interesting history though. I wonder if Xane will know more? Sebastian seems to be tight-lipped on the whole thing. Not that I can blame him under his personal circumstances.
She chuckles. “Just try. And I don’t suppose I have to tell you that this should remain between us? The last thing we need is a fight to the death between sire and charge over who gets to try and conceive the future Empress.”
Future Empress? Yikes! “What?” I squeak. “That would never happen. Now that I know, I will be staying away from Sebastian. If the prophecy is going to come true it will come true, the way I have planned it.”
“Spoken like a true Queen,” she says and stands. “I am sorry for the midnight visit, but I just couldn’t sit on this once I knew of your intentions.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t go searching, Aefre,” she says again.
“I won’t,” I say. Like Hell, I add to myself.
She picks up her scroll and Teleports out and I am left wondering what my father is like. I can’t even really ask Sebastian as he would get suspicious as to why I suddenly want to know about Dark Fae. One thing is clear: I am not ever going to have sex with Sebastian. CK can take his plea and shove it. I will have to work on getting him more attached to bringing Jess into the fold. I wonder if future me knows this? Surely not, to still be carrying on with him. Oh, crap, but the problem is, I have already had sex with him. I put my hand on my stomach and gulp. All it takes is once and willing accomplice or not makes not a damn bit of difference. Oh, CK will kill him and then probably me if Corinne is right. This is bad. Bad, bad, bad. Future me has the answers. I must go and find her.
“Liv?” Cole asks. “What are you doing up at this hour?”
“Bad dream,” I say suddenly, remembering it. “Not a Thirteen one though, I don’t think,” I add as he looks worried. “Come back to bed, we have to leave for Miami in a few hours.”
He agrees and takes my hand. He snuggles into me and falls back asleep as I lie awake thinking now about the dream. They were talking about spelling me. Sebastian said he did it yesterday. We were together but I don’t remember anything untoward. There again I wouldn’t now, would I? What did CK say? “Your only job is to spell her to make her come to me.” What does that mean exactly? But I don’t ponder that for very long as I then remember what Sebastian said: “It is like she is one of my old kind.” Christ, this is all just falling into one big weird coincidence. I don’t believe the dream. It is a lie. It has to be. They wouldn’t treat me that way. Would they? I fall asleep with doubts lurking about the two of them and dream of a future that I would very much like to avoid if possible.
Chapter 26
Cole and I wake at the same time as the alarm goes off for 4 AM. Ergh, too early. I want to curl back under the duvet, but he pulls it off me and says, “Sorry, baby. We have to move.”
“Fine,” I grumble and get out of bed. “Do we have time for shower sex before we have to leave?” I ask.
“We always have time for shower sex,” he says, pulling me off the bed and into the bathroom.
“I shall have to remember that for future reference,” I say before he kisses me and walks me back into the shower and turns on the jets. We are drenched in seconds and I run my hands over his sexy wet chest and into his sexy wet hair. “I love you,” I say, even though his tongue is still in my mouth. “I love you back,” he says, pausing only slightly in his kisses which are fogging up my brain more than the steam from the hot water is.
“Time to go,” Devon says from the doorway.
“Fuck’s sake!” I say. “What did I say yesterday about boundaries?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Unless you mentioned it when I wasn’t there.”
“You weren’t there,” Cole says.
“Oh, sorry, Dev,” I say. “But we need to start respecting each other’s boundaries. This is just getting far too familiar for my liking,” I say, getting out of the shower regardless of my words.
He hands me a towel. “But we have always been this way. Why do I fall into the same category as everyone else now?” he sulks. “I don’t like it.”
“Oh, Sweetie. You don’t. I am grumbling about everyone else. In fact, I wish you would walk in on us more often. I have missed you. I have no problem with you walking in on me whenever, but it is kind of awkward when people turn up and I am fucking my husband. Well, trying to fuck my husband. It seems to be a thing.”
“Maybe that’s because you are always fucking,” he says smartly, knowing he has seen his fair share of me and CK going at it these last few weeks.
Cole laughs. “I wish. Unless you meant that in the singular sense, then yes, Liv, maybe you are always fucking,” Cole says his smile going even wider.
“Such a funny couple of charges. Now go and chuckle about it elsewhere,” I say as I leave them snickering in the bathroom.
I spin in a circle and am ready and waiting. Cole rushes to catch up and soon we are all crammed into two limos on the way to the airport. Everybody, except me, is looking rather nervous about getting on this flight and I don’t blame them after what happened last time we were all assembled here.
“Relax, everybody. I have a fairly good handle on the jumping. We should be fine,” I say as we all tentatively sit down and stare at each other.
“Don’t pick a fight with me,” CK says, sitting down opposite me.
“Don’t test my patience then,” I say, avoiding Sebastian’s gaze as he sits next to CK. Devon chooses to sit with Jess behind us on the sofa seats, which makes me flick my gaze over to Sebastian. He is frowning at them but adjusts his features when he senses my eyes on him.
“I think I do that unintentionally,” CK says dryly. “Christ knows, I don’t do it on purpose.” Everyone chuckles and relaxes a bit. Except me. I am still reeling over the news from last night’s visit, along with the disturbing dream I had. I peer at CK closely now for any signs of subterfuge and he looks back at me questioningly. I smile at him as I see nothing but then I wouldn’t, of course, as he invented the poker face and, flicking my gaze back to Sebastian, he wasn’t far behind in picking it up.
“Paranoid!” my brain suddenly yells at me and I actually jump a bit to Cole’s surprise.
“You okay?”
“Err, yes, fine,” I mutter. “Tired. Would you mind if I went to sleep for an hour?”
“No, of course not, my love,” he says and gives me a gigantic kiss before he lets me go.
“Wake me in a bit?” I say and he nods.
I get up and go to the bedroom, vaguely remembering that, despite Ramon being at my beck and call, I didn’t call.
“Xane? Can I have you a minute?” I murmur as I walk past him.
“Yeah, want to suck on my energy?” he says with a cheeky grin.
I laugh. “If you don’t mind.”
“No, I don’t mind you feeding THE DRAGON WAY!” he says at the top of his voice and I shake my head at him.
“You are all a bunch of fools,” I say as I see CK’s face fall.
I close the door behind us, and he says, “So when are we going to make love again? I can’t hold out much longer. I need you.”
I take his hands in mine. “Xane. I love having you around, but we can’t be together like that. I’ve told you.”
“And I have told you, I love you. But I like that you love having me around.”
I close my eyes and pull on his energy. I feel it enter me and I relax. Things don’t seem so bad now. “Can I ask you something? Something that you will keep between just us?”
“Of course,” he says stepping closer. “I love having secrets with you.”
“What can you tell me about the Faerie?”
“Faerie? Why do you want to know? They don’t fall under your rule,” he says with a slight furrow to his brow.
“I know. That’s why I am curious,” I lie.
“Oh, well I don’t know much,” he says, sitting on the bed a
nd pulling me down with him. “I know they are split into two ‘groups’, I suppose is the word. Light and Dark. Each has their own King.”
“What does that mean, Light and Dark? Are they separate species?”
“Yes. Same race, Separate species. All I can tell you is that they choose to use their powers in different ways, for different gain. Both equally powerful but as the names suggest…” He holds his hands up.
“Oh. They are not fond of Dragons?”
“No.” He squints at me and asks, “Where is all this coming from?”
“I am just curious, as I said, as to why they are separated from the rest of us. It’s no biggie.” I shrug it off.
“They are an elusive bunch. They very rarely come out of their own Realm. They are powerful magick users and incredibly ancient and powerful, as much so as the Dragons. Near as I can tell, there was an epic battle many eons ago between the Faerie and the Dragons. It divided The Underworld and they went off on their own and were powerful enough to prevent a takeover.”
“Huh. I guess that is the dumbed-down version of events?” It begs the question though how the blood of the Faerie is obtained for the protection spell for the Vampires. A few unwanted thoughts go through my head about that and I make it a priority to find out. I am Queen, after all, and this should most definitely be on my need-to-know list.
“You could say that,” he says, answering my question.
“Well, thanks. Please keep it between us that I was asking.”
“I will. I told you I like having secrets with you. It’s kind of sexy.” He kisses me quickly but thoroughly. “God, I want to taste you again. Please say you will come to me soon.”
I sigh. How other me keeps up with all of her lovers, I have no idea. I am exhausted just with the bunch I have, without adding more to the mix. “You should go back out now before one of them barges in.”
He chuckles. “Yes, that seems to happen a lot. Jealous bunch.” But he stands and with a quick squeeze of my hand, he takes his leave and I flop back to the bed.
Cole wakes me a bit later. “Time to land,” he says with a smile as I open my eyes.
“Land? I told you to wake me in an hour.”
“You were exhausted. I left you a bit longer.” He shrugs.
“Everyone behave themselves?” I ask and he laughs.
“Surprisingly, yes. I think we are all still a little fearful you may hop into another dimension and send your awful counterpart in your place.”
“Well, I hope that never happens again. I am still a bit unclear why it did in the first place.”
“We have five minutes before we should be buckled up, to finish what we started,” he says, trailing his hand up my leg.
“Oh, do we? We can do a lot in five minutes,” I say, pulling him down on top of me.
He kisses me but pulls away. “We still need to schedule another session with Devon,” he says. “I miss it.”
“I miss it too, and him.” I pause. “Do you think he is going to make a go of it with Jess?”
He gives me a surprised look. “What makes you say that?”
“He chose to sit next to her earlier. And he hasn’t been around much the last few days.”
“Do you want me to ask him?” he says carefully.
I light up. “Would you? Just test the water. Don’t say it came from me. I don’t want him to know that I’m worried about him.”
“About him being a proper sire to Jess, or not being a proper sire to Jess?”
“Both.” I admit. “I don’t want this for him.”
“I know. He is being unusually tight-lipped about the situation.” Cole says with a furrowed brow.
“So, you find it weird too? The way he is behaving right now?”
“Yeah, but he must be confused.” He shrugs.
“Hmm,” I murmur. Maybe I should talk to Devon about this myself. See where his head is at now. And so help him, if Sebastian has had anything to do with the turnaround, I will kill him.
“I have thought about what you said,” he says casually. “Would you be okay with starting me off slowly?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, sitting up.
“Us two and another woman. I wouldn’t fuck her, but we could…you know…do other stuff. If you don’t mind.”
“Mind? Of course, I don’t mind. Yes, we can do that,” I say quickly. I pull him to me for a kiss.
“Will you arrange it?” he asks shyly then.
“Of course. Human or Vampire?”
“Human,” he says instantly as I thought he might do. “Not Dawn,” he adds with a dirty look.
“Consider it done,” I say, laughing at him.
“Now come. We are about to land for definite now,” he says, pulling me up and we saunter back out to the cabin happy and peaceful.
Dawn meets Cole on the tarmac and whisks him straight off to work to my disappointment, but now the real work starts. Cade grabs me and pulls me back to the big SUV sat idling behind the limo. “Time to get started,” he says.
“Can it not wait until we at least get back to the hotel?” I ask.
“No. The sooner they accept that you won’t be around much, the better,” he says as I climb into the SUV startling Nico. He and Dawn came down with, apparently, Ramon, earlier.
“Liv?”
“Hello, Nico,” I say breezily as Ramon smiles sexily at me.
“Hungry?” he asks me in Italian.
“Very,” I murmur back and quick as a shot he is out of the front seat and in the back, next to me.
“Oh no,” Cade says as he looks at us both. “No way am I being witness to you feeding from him.”
“Sit in the front, then,” I say.
He glares at me with his most disapproving look and again I feel bad that I am disappointing him. What is with that? But never one to let that put me off, I climb onto Ramon’s lap to his delight and drop my fangs. Cade hastily leaps out of the back seat and grumbling to himself, joins Nico in the front. “You should try and get used to it if you are going to stick around,” I hear Nico say to him as I drink deeply from Ramon. I run my hands over him. He groans and risks the chance to run his hands up my thighs and under my skirt.
“Hands off,” Nico barks at him again in Italian. Going to have to teach Ramon English if he is going to be around a lot, I think.
He reluctantly lets me go and, with a soft kiss to his lips, I climb off him, if not fully satisfied at least not hungry anymore.
“One day,” he says to me with a sidelong glance. Nico slams on the brakes and pulls off the road causing us, of course not wearing any seatbelts, to crash into the seats in front of us.
Nico turns around with a look of thunder, that has me wide-eyed as he snaps at Ramon, “Not on my watch. Now get back in the front.”
With a slight shrug, he gets out and Cade, not having a clue what was just said, looks surprised as he is ushered back to sit next to me.
“Either you teach me Italian, or you guys start speaking English,” he mumbles, copying my thought from earlier as he settles next to me.
“I can teach you,” I say as Nico, with a final glare at me, starts driving again. I find his reaction most amusing. So protective even though his boss isn’t here.
“Maybe,” he says sullenly. “Just be easier if you all spoke English.”
“For whom?” I say with a slight chuckle.
Choosing to ignore me for the rest of the trip to the Four Seasons, we sit in an uncomfortable silence. I hate silences. Uncomfortable ones especially. I fiddle with my phone, checking emails but finding most of them dealt with by Jess or being dealt with as I sit here. She is diligent, I’ll give her that.
Finally, we arrive at the hotel and after getting everyone settled where they should be, Cade comes to find me again.
“Over your tantrum?” I ask as he barges into my suite.
“It wasn’t a tantrum. I am just uncomfortable with certain aspects of your lifestyle.”
“It’s not a lifest
yle, Cade. It is my life. And seeing as how you should be used to Vampires and their habits, having studied them for so long, it quite frankly surprises me that you are squeamish.”
“It is different from this side,” he says. “Here I have to accept it, not loathe you for being what you are.”
“Then accept it. I drink blood. I have drunk yours, even. No biggie.” I shrug it off.
Catching me off guard he asks, “The other day when you said you had theory to keep me alive but not turn me, what did you mean?”
“I wonder if you drank my blood without me draining you first, would it lengthen your lifespan?”
He looks disgusted by that but interested enough to follow up with, “Why would you think that?”
“As it has been pointed out, I am no ordinary Vampire. My blood is special.” I shrug. “It is only a theory.”
He nods and drops it. “Go and get changed and then I will take you to the beach.”
“Beach? I am not here for sunbathing.”
“For a run,” he says as if I am stupid.
“A run? Oh, that might be fun. I haven’t been for a run in years.” I get on board with the plan and change into suitable running attire, pulling my hair back into a ponytail. Ray-Bans in place, we make a quick stop at his room for him to change and, rocking the running gear look, we head out to the beach.
“First time I have not seen you in a suit,” I comment. “You look good all casual-like.”
“So do you,” he says back to me with a winning smile that is mostly sarcastic. I think.
“Can you keep up?” I ask as we hit the sand. The beach is quiet being February and a Monday.
“I run every day,” he says.
