by Eve Newton
“I have chosen my father, Sebastian, but it’s more complicated than we first thought. I don’t have time to explain it now, but CK and I agreed on this months ago. We are just pushing it forward to accomplish something,” I say.
Sebastian exchanges a look with his sire and with a triumphant look that CK smashes off his face before I know what’s going on, he says through the blood gushing down his face, “I was the one who told you, you wanted a child with him. Don’t think for a second that it was your idea.”
I gape at him and then at CK who is looking terrified that I might believe Sebastian’s claim. I’ll admit that I did think it was part of the spelling to begin with, but the more I thought about it the more I knew I wanted to give him what he wanted. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “Don’t lie to me, Sebastian. I know you didn’t. And even if you did, it makes no difference. CK and I are doing this.”
Before Sebastian can say a word, CK has grabbed my elbow and pushed me into a swirling vortex of reds and purples and I tumble through most ungracefully as he follows quickly.
“Close it! Now!” he yells, and I can’t imagine he is talking to me, so I look up and my jaw hits the floor, but unfortunately not before Sebastian steps through looking like thunder and all bloody to top it off.
I am staring into the bemused face of a beautiful woman who looks exactly like CK. She is almost the same height as him with long chestnut hair and the exact same eyes both in color and shape. She is the most gorgeous creature I have come across…with the exception of my sire, of course.
“Holy crap,” I breathe as CK takes my hand and inches me forward, with a look at Sebastian that speaks volumes. I would not like to be in his shoes later.
“Rosalina,” CK says with a regal nod of his head.
“Brother,” she replies, and his face hardens. I find his reaction curious and even more so when she steps forward to embrace him and he stiffly returns the hug.
“This is my wife, Aefre,” he says, indicating me.
I have the absurd urge to curtsey, but then remember I am a Queen and CK would beat me for being so casual about my own authority. Rosalina turns to me with a smile. It’s cold and it isn’t hard to see that this wasn’t the most loving family way back when. In a small part of me, I am glad it isn’t just CK, just the nature of his upbringing.
“Aefre,” she says. “How extraordinary to meet you under these circumstances.”
Extraordinary? I tilt my head in question and she laughs.
“Oh, I know all about you,” she says, and I really don’t like her tone.
“Enough,” CK says to her quietly and she turns back to him with a shrug.
“You don’t care for your big sister to stick up for you?” she asks.
Big sister? I gape between the two of them. He is a middle child? Oh, my gods, that explains a lot! I almost snicker, as does Sebastian when he catches sight of my face and I hastily rearrange it as CK goes menacing.
“I do not need you, or anyone else to ‘stick up for me,’” he snarls. “Aefre is now my wife and you will respect her.”
“Hm,” she says as she taps her chin and I am thinking 'hm,' indeed. What the fuck is going on here? She clearly knows all about me somehow and she is making me sound like I am no good for her baby brother.
“If you say so,” she says lightly, but I catch the undercurrent that this woman seems to dislike me immensely. I kind of feel a bit sorry for myself as I haven’t done anything to her, and I can’t think of anything really terrible I have done to CK to warrant such a reaction.
“And you,” she sneers at Sebastian. “Where do you fit into this?” She waves her hand around CK and me with distaste.
“Nowhere,” CK growls.
“I am here to protest against their request,” Sebastian says. “Do not meddle in the greater picture, Rosalina. You have no idea what is at stake here.”
“Meddle?” she scoffs. “Have I ever?” she adds with such a flirtatious batting of her eyes I actually go a bit green with jealousy. CK on the other hand isn’t looking very well at the thought of his sister and his charge doing the nasty, it makes him go a different shade of green.
“I seem to recall a certain ounce of meddling at a very inconvenient time,” Sebastian answers, flirting just as heavily in return, and now I start to feel a bit ill.
“If the two of you would like to keep your reminiscing to a minimum while we are here, please,” CK says. “Rosa, you know why Aefre and I are here. Ignore Sebastian, he doesn’t know what he is talking about. It is Aefre’s decision and she has chosen me to father her child.”
“Quite in demand, aren’t we dear?” she says to me as she circles me, trailing her finger around my shoulders as she goes. “Shouldn’t be too difficult. You are already close to your time. You on the other hand,” she turns sharply to CK, “will need more preparation.” She claps her hands sharply and what appears to be an Elf walks in. About half the size of me, but with pointy ears and short spikey blonde hair, he is dressed in shimmering silver that takes my breath away. The Elf leads CK away and I am in awe of this place. Could it be that all the supernatural creatures that don’t fall under my rule, or the Faeries’, live here? I wonder where “here” actually is and what other creatures I might find.
“Rosa don’t do this,” Sebastian begs her, and she kisses him deeply to shut him up. She murmurs something to him, and he goes quiet. I dread to think what she just said to him. I am about to ask, when she takes my hand in her stone cold one and leads me away. As we walk, the area where we were standing, which was just a sort of plain white room, transforms into a shining silver palace that is quite blinding in its brightness. Rosalina lets go of my hand and I follow her in silence. A very, very awkward one and we all know how much I love those.
“Do you and CK keep in touch?” I blurt out.
She turns to me slowly and regards me with those familiar eyes. It’s very spooky. “CK?” she asks.
“Uh, Constantine,” I amend, and she snorts in amusement.
“You call him CK? And he lets you?” She giggles uncontrollably and I see the tense set of her shoulders relax somewhat.
“Yes,” I say. “What of it?”
“Hm, he never allowed anyone, not even our beloved mother, to call him anything other than his given name,” she says.
“His given name isn’t what he calls himself now,” I point out. It’s close, but whatever.
“This is true. He lost his way.” She sniffs delicately and I raise my eyebrow at her.
“Can I ask you something?” I ask her, absolutely desperate to know.
“What’s that?” she replies as she indicates a door I should go through.
“Was CK the same as you, before he was turned?” I ask bluntly and clearly, she is not used to that as she frowns at me and pushes me forward to a large bathtub. It is a humongous room, but the only thing in it is this tub. Very strange.
“How do you mean?” she asks as she starts to disrobe me.
“A Druid,” I say.
I wait for her to finish taking my clothes off, which creeps me out in a major way. Not because I am shy, of course, but because this is CK’s sister. His sister for crying out loud. And she looks exactly like him. It’s weird and unnerving.
“No,” she says eventually. “I have a different father.”
“Oh,” I say, but as ever I can’t just leave it at that. “Do you know who his father is?”
She spins me around with such force, I twirl twice before I practically stumble over. Her look of outrage matches CK’s expression when he is mad, and I try my best not to giggle.
“His father is Luceres Aquila,” she snaps at me.
“Err, no, he isn’t. Wasn’t,” I say, shaking my head.
“What are you suggesting?” she asks me. “And be very careful as that is my mother you are talking about,” she adds as she steps closer.
Man, this woman is all about protecting her family members. I thought she was a cold bitch, but it
seems only towards me.
“I happen to believe that his father is Laurentis of the House of Dracul,” I say.
She glares at me and I meet her gaze, even though I have to tilt my head up to look at her. “Does he know?” she says softly.
“I think so,” I say just as softly. He said he accepted that in the library and that is why we are here.
“Well,” Rosalina says, clearing her throat. “I don’t suppose there is any more need to discuss this.”
And just like that the subject is closed.
She points to the bath and I climb in, relieved to be covered up by the rose-scented water. I lean back against the tub and close my eyes and then feel a slight whoosh in front of my face. I open my eyes to find a sword inches from my nose.
Chapter 15
Minerva, March 2014 - Liv
“Excuse me!” I declare and push the sword out of my face as I sit up. Turns out it wasn’t one made from steel, but from wood. Thankfully. Not so sure my armory would protect me from Elfin or Druid-type weapons.
“This,” Rosalina says as she whips the sword back to her side, “is the only thing I ever saw Constantinus cherish. Before he could walk, our father,” she says this with a glare at me to keep me quiet on their exact parentage, “gave this to him to get his hand used to the feel of it. He took it everywhere with him, slept with it even.”
My heart just goes into a pile of gooey love for him as I picture him as a toddler sleeping with this little wooden sword.
“Once he was older, he practiced with it every hour our mother would let him until Father said he was allowed to handle a real one. Our mother threw this one away thinking he no longer wanted it, but he took it out of the garbage and kept it in his room, so attached he was to it.”
She gets a faraway look in her eye and I keep quiet, wondering where she is going with this story. Not that I am complaining. I am practically drooling to get this information on my secretive husband. It’s the most precious thing in the world.
“I know not why he chose to keep it, nor why he chose to leave it behind after he was made. But nothing, not a single thing in his life ever meant as much to him. I have seen him discard everything and everyone in his life, even Vincentius on occasion, but when I saw him look at you and call you his wife, I knew he had found something new to cherish. Something that he truly loves.”
“I love him too,” I say with tears in my eyes.
“Good,” she says, nodding her head and sending the sword back to wherever she got it from. “Because I don’t care who you are or what powers you claim to have, if you hurt him in any way, I will slice your insides out with that very wooden sword and burn them before your eyes before I rip your head from your shoulders and turn you to ash.”
I swallow loudly and take her threat quite seriously. The idea of being gouged out with a wooden implement is a very scary one by someone who, I can tell, wields the power that she does. “Understood,” I say, acutely aware that she is just as bloodthirsty as her brother. Damn Romans.
She smiles at me, suddenly all friendly and holds her hand out to help me out of the tub. I hesitantly take it and step out and she sweeps me up in a gossamer gown and ties the belt tightly. “So tiny,” she murmurs while staring at my hips. I am sure she is imagining me huge with child and finding it impossible. “I know of the goings-on between the Dragons and the Faeries,” she says. “The tension is dark and worrisome. I have recalled all of my subjects back to Minerva. I don’t want them being caught up in this fight.”
Minerva? Is that the name of this strange place?
“Fight?” I ask. “It hasn’t come to that yet.”
“But it will. Your use of the word ‘yet’ only confirms my fears. I have a favor to ask of you,” she says.
“Sure,” I say a bit warily, but not really in a position to refuse.
“Keep me out of this,” she says straight away. “I am helping my brother because he is my family. My only blood family left. But please keep this to yourself that I helped you. I cannot allow my World to be invaded by the Faeries when they find out I helped get you with a Dragon child.”
I shake my head. “It’s not like that,” I say, and quick to reassure her I add, “I won’t say a word, and neither will CK, but this child is ours and no one else’s. I will give the Faerie what they want when the time is right.”
“With Vincentius?” she asks quietly. At my nod, her face hardens. “And the Dragons? What will you give them if not this child?”
“I haven’t decided,” I lie. I have already said too much. If Rosalina does get caught in the crossfire, the less she knows the better.
“Very well,” she murmurs, knowing I have blown her off, but fortunately she doesn’t take offense as I think she also knows why. “Follow me.”
She leads me out of the bathtub room and the palace falls away and we are in a beautiful forest surrounded by tall trees forming a green canopy overhead and the place is filled with butterflies and flowers and is stunning. A butterfly lands on my shoulder and I smile down at it and get a surprise. It isn’t a butterfly at all, but a tiny Pixie, I guess, with the most colorful wings.
“Lester,” Rosalina chides and brushes the Pixie off me. “She is so very curious. One day it will get her into trouble.” She smiles as she says it, so I know she is fond of the creature, of all of them. She claps her hands and they all flutter off, leaving us alone with the chirp of the birds. I assume they are birds, but they could be anything really.
“Sit,” she says, and I do, the gossamer gown settling in a sheer silk cloud around me.
I have no idea what she is going to do to me, and I get a little bit nervous. I think to what kind of ordeal CK is going through right now and I have to concede that mine, thus far, is probably nicer than his. She sits next to me and pulls on the belt of my robe. It falls away and she pushes it from my shoulders. Her face is really close to mine and I can’t help but look at the curve of her lips so like my sire’s. She smiles secretly and bends down to kiss me, pressing her lips to mine and darting her tongue into my mouth. In my surprise, I kiss her back briefly before I pull away, more than a little icked out, and she giggles at me. “He will be so mad when I tell him that I kissed you,” she says. “He doesn’t like to share.”
I snort in amusement as I can wholeheartedly agree with that comment, but… “Perhaps it’s best not to mention it,” I say.
“Perhaps,” she says noncommittally, and I know I am in for a world of hurt when she does tell him we kissed. She pushes me down to lie flat in the grass and trails her hand down in between my breasts to rest on my stomach. She kneels next to me and starts to mutter words in the Celtic language that I don’t really follow. I do suddenly know where CK got that cursed curse from that stopped Sebastian and me from having pleasurable sex after our union.
Jerks, both of them!
A cold wind blows over me and puckers my nipples, causing goose bumps to rise on my limbs, and then I am hot. So very, very hot and I know exactly what is happening to me. She has forced me to go into Heat. The cramps come on with a force and I groan as she strokes my forehead. It is so much worse than the first time and I take it back: CK’s experience has to be better than this. She soothes me while I suffer and after what seems like a lifetime, she then steps away. I hear her murmur, “She is ready,” to someone and so help me it had better be CK or there will be Hell to pay when I go into my lucid period. I feel the sweat rolling down my body and I am blind, but I can feel the bond of my sire as he sits next to me.
His touch is hesitant, and I hear him say, “She’s completely out of it. I can’t take advantage of her like this.”
It’s sweet, but I swear if he doesn’t get on with this soon, I am just going to curl up into a ball and die quietly.
“You must,” Rosalina says. “She is ripe. Take her.”
Like a fruit, I giggle at the thought, and CK shushes me, probably worried I am about to go hysterical.
“Leave us then,” he says sh
arply.
“I cannot, dear Brother,” she says. “I need to be here to finish the ritual.”
CK growls his intense dislike of that. I am not all that happy about it either, anyone but his sister for the gods’ sake.
My eyes regain some focus and I can see the outline of him now hovering over me. He covers me with his body and fans his robe out over us to offer us a small amount of privacy. Then he kisses me, and I forget all about anyone else. In the dream-reality version with Remiel it was hot, beyond hot, a volcano of heat and desire that he cooled with his hands and lips, but this is so much more. This is right. I can feel it with every cell in my body as he enters me, and my eyes become perfectly clear and I smile up at him.
“Aefre,” he whispers. “I love you.”
“I love you,” I murmur back. My mouth is dry, and my tongue feels swollen, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but us.
I can hear Rosalina chanting in the background and then she takes our hands and slices our palms open and mashes them together. She ties them together tightly and then the world explodes in such brightness and color; I have to close my eyes and the Heat pulls me back under.
In my dream state, I hear CK ask anxiously, “Did it work?”
“You will find out soon enough,” Rosalina answers. “Normally I would be able to guarantee it, but your situation is not normal, but this is it. I am out, Brother. This war that is brewing is nothing to do with me and I want to stay out of it.”
“Of course,” CK says and then I don’t hear anything else.
I wake up in a bed in a dim room in the palace. The natural sparkle has been dulled like a dimmer switch on electric lights. I am stiff and sweaty and still naked. I look around for my robe, but don’t see it. I climb out of bed, glad that I slept off the last of the Heat and totter over to the door to peek out and ask the nearest person for some clothes. Seems my Powers don’t really work here either, so summoning something up isn’t very likely. I come to a rapid halt when I hear hushed voices on the other side of the door. I can’t tell who it is talking to Rosalina by sense alone, so I strain to hear what they are saying.
