Betrayal (The Forever Series) (11 page)

She nods and
lets go of him. He only has eyes for her, as she turns to the slumped over human. She drops her fangs and Devon’s arousal goes off the charts. She sees it and uses it. She lifts the man up and sinks her fangs into him and starts to drain him. I knew this was her plan. She couldn’t risk leaving someone here that could fuck up her timeline. She is going to bleed him out just enough that he lasts while we Astral out and then he will die. I feel an overwhelming guilt and I look away. All I can hope for is that he is a bad person who deserves this. After only a few seconds she lets him go and I frown at her, until I see Devon stalking towards her.

Ah! I have to get out of here, before he does to her what mine did to me. I back out of the barn quietly and cover my ears. No way do I want to listen to this, but I can’t leave without them either. After several, long minutes, I uncover my ears and I don’t hear any sex noises so I take a chance and peek back in. Aefre is slightly ruffled, as is Devon, but both are fully clothed and Aefre is finishing off the human.

“Hurry up,” I snap at her, irate to be in this situation. She blinks at me, but Devon ignores me, no longer interested in me now that I am a petite, green-eyed blonde. He watches her in fascination and when she lets the man go he grabs onto her. “I want to know everything about you,” he whispers to her and she closes her eyes, reveling at his touch.

Oh god, get me out of here!

“Can we go now?” I ask.

“Yes,” Aefre says and I take hold of both of them and
Astral our arses back to her hotel room.

Cole is waiting impatiently, pacing, and stops dead when he sees us, all dressed like out of a history book. I return to my normal garb, but Aefre wisely chooses to stay as she is. She is going to have some explaining to do and quite frankly, rather her than me. I’ve done my part and now it is time to go home.

“I’ll see ya,” I say to her.

“Wait,” she says and for the first time looks uncertain.

“Your bed, missy,” I say to her. “I have done as you asked. The rest is up to you.”

Devon is staring at me again, almost in fear, as I have changed into an outfit so scandalous to him, it wouldn’t even be classified as undergarments in 1506.

“Just go with it,” I tell him and he has no idea what I am saying to him.

He blinks, once, then twice, and promptly passes out.

“I guess he is a little overwhelmed,” Aefre states the obvious.

“Just a little,” I agree.

“What are you going to do with him now?” Cole asks his sire and she turns to him with a loving smile.

“I am going to turn him, and we will be together forever, just like us,” she says as she embraces him tightly.

“No, I mean right now,” he says, indicating Devon’s prone state.

“May I make a suggestion?” I say, as this is just getting ridiculous.

“Please,” she says to me.

“Bath, shave, haircut, and new clothes.
The rest will come,” I say, hands on hips, choosing vanity over anything else. I had forgotten how disgusting the sixteenth century was for the less fortunate. Even the fortunate didn’t bathe very often, god help us.

“Yes,
good,” she says and scampers off to the bathroom to run him a bath. He will probably get all dazed again when he sees the size of the tub, but again, not my problem.

“Thank you,” Cole says to me as we linger in silence. “She has wanted this so badly and you have given it to her.”

“No worries,” I say uncomfortably. “Err, I should…” I jut my thumb out in a “to go” gesture.

“Do you think she will be okay?” he asks suddenly. “This is a lot to deal with.”

“She will be just fine. Will you be okay?” I ask.

“Me?” he asks in surprise. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you are going to have to share your sire’s attentions now. Did she explain that to you?” I ask. I don’t mean to sound like I am stirring the pot, but he is still Cole and I feel like I need to be sure he will be okay.

“Yes, she did. I know how she will be with him. I am more concerned about her husband,” he says with a frown.

“Does he know about you yet?” I ask, so curious my fingertips are itching.

“No,” he says. “Not yet. Liv hasn’t spoken to him since she arrived here.
Something to do with her father.”

“What about my father?” Aefre asks as she exits the bathroom. “Why are you discussing that bastard?”

“Bastard?” I repeat in surprise. “You don’t care for Drake?”

“Care for?” she scoffs. “I hate him.”

“What? How can you say that?” I ask.

She marches towards me. “You mean to say you actually like him?” she sneers in disgust.

“I love him,” I say. “As he loves me.”

“Hah!” she cries. “He is a mean, selfish, bully. He will show you his true colors.”

“I’ve already seen them,” I say. “Yes, he can be all of those things, but I have seen his caring side. He is protective and loving. Your Drake must have those qualities,” I insist.

“Not towards me,” she pouts and I can see that it bothers her.

I frown at her. “You don’t stand up to him, do you?” I ask incredulously. “You let him push you around!”

“You know nothing!” she hisses at me, but I see it plain as day. She is terrified of him.

“A word of advice, Aefre. Next time you see him, don’t let him bully you. Stand up to him, amuse him, be snarky, clever and sarcastic and I am telling you he will eat it up,” I say to her.

She goes pale. “No, I…how do you know?”

“Because I have come across men like Drake my entire life. All menacing and terrifying and Hell on a stick. Your sire is one of them,” I point to her. “How did you tame him?”

“Tame him?” she says. “What on Earth makes you say that?”

“I have spent time with him, remember? He worships you, adores you,” I say.

She growls as she remembers my time spent with her husband. “I didn’t manipulate him,” she says.

“Sure you didn’t,” I say with a laugh. “You underestimate the power you have over men, Aefre. Didn’t you see it in my World?”

“I am not like you,” she states with dignity.

I have to admit that, no, she probably isn’t. As much as I am not like Other Liv. We are all carbon copies of one another in looks and even sometimes in life, but we all have very different traits.

“If you try with him, you will appreciate him,” I say as a final piece of advice. “I wouldn’t be without my father now for the world.”

She takes that in, but Devon wakes up so she doesn’t respond. She goes to him and coos, soothingly. She introduces him to Cole and it is definitely past time that I leave. This is their family unit, not mine, and I am intruding now. I have done enough of that in her life and I don’t ever want to return to this World again.

“Be well, Aefre,” I say to her as she leads Devon to the bathroom. “Take care of your boys.”

She blinks at me and with a swift nod she replies, “You too,” before she turns back and I Astral home.

Chapter 7

I land back at home in the Entrance Hall and breathe a sigh of relief that no one is waiting for me. Hopefully Devon and Cole took care of it for me. I should probably go and find one of them to see what excuse they made up for my absence. I turn to head upstairs when I find myself face to face with Cade. I have very little bond with him due to the circumstances, so he still has the ability to all but sneak up on me.

“Cade,” I say cautiously, not wanting him to bolt. I have things I need to say, again, and this time he has to listen. He is looking more than a little ill and I just can’t have this anymore.

“Come with me,” he says briskly. “We need to talk.”

Finally, he is willing to listen and hopefully open up as well. I follow him eagerly into the library and he shuts the door quietly. I wait as he gathers himself, he seems nervous and now I am not so sure he is going to tell me what I want to hear. He turns to me with a look of such agony that I want to go and hold him, but I know he will just push me away, or worse. I step forward anyway to show him that if he wants the contact, I am here for him. He doesn’t back away, in fact he steps forward as well. My heart leaps into my throat, but I daren’t hope just yet that he is coming around. He reaches for me and I let him, staying where I am, not wanting to move in case I scare him off. With an agonizing cry he grips my arms, sinking his claws deep into me.

The shock of what he has done slows my brain down for just a second and I bring my arms up to get him off me, but it is one second too long. I feel Remiel behind me and I know I am done for. Cade has lured me into a trap and without the ability to Astral my arse out of here, I am at Remiel’s mercy. He runs his own damaging claws across the top of my back and I feel my entire body start to go numb. I can’t Astral, I can’t pull up any magick with my numb hands,
I can’t even fight them off. I lose all my strength and Remiel catches me as my legs lose all feeling and my knees buckle. The only part of me that is still working is above where he had clawed me, that is, my head. I try to focus on Cade to blast him across the room with my eyes, but they start to go blurry as Remiel takes over from Cade and he digs his claws into me. The pain is unbearable, even though I have no sensation in my extremities, I somehow feel it.

“How could you?” I whisper to Cade.

“I had to!” he yells at me in anguish. “You have left me no choice. I have to break this bond and this is the only way.”

“By be-betrayal,” I say on the verge of passing out.

The last thing I hear is him saying, “I can’t live like this with you. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

I awake to a soft voice calling my name. “Aefre,” he says.
“Time to wake up.”

I blink my eyes open and my vision clears after a few moments. I have no idea where I am. I look around in panic and try to sit up, but I am completely immobilized. It all comes crashing back to me as I see Remiel’s face come into view.

Cade.

He betrayed me to break his bond with me. He hates me that much for what I did to him, he offered me up to the one creature I had, thus far, successfully been avoiding and who wants me dead more than anything else in these Realms. If I was capable of tears, I would shed some, because my heart is breaking. I turn my head and try to take in my surroundings. I am in a light gray-colored cave, lying on a large rock. There is a slight mist floating about and it looks cold. I get the image of what it would be like to live in an igloo. I assume though that I am not in the North Pole, but in fact the Spirit Realm. I try to wiggle, but I have no body. Or at least that is what it feels like. I feel like just a head and it is most disconcerting. If I weren’t so afraid I would probably laugh about it.

“You used him to get to me,” I accuse Remiel and he shrugs.

“All I needed was a second with your guard down, and he gave it to me. He took his time though. I have been waiting months for this,” he says.

“Yes, I know,” I say through gritted teeth. “I had hoped this day would never come.”

“Don’t be too sad, dear Aefre. I told you before I am sure I don’t have to drain you to get enough power to rise,” he says, confident his words are reassuring, but I am here to tell you…not so much.

“Rise?” I ask then. I had never really given much thought to what exactly would happen to him once he drank from me. I suppose I just assumed he’d become a living thing again.

“Yes, rise. How else do you expect me to do this?” he asks, shaking his head at my apparent denseness.

I try to shrug, but then remember I have no shoulders. Or at least no shoulders I can feel. “Explain it to me, so at least I know what I am dying for,” I say with a false bravado. Truth be told, I am stalling him on the off chance that Cade felt so bad about his betrayal that he went to CK and confessed, and my husband is now moving Heaven and Earth to get to me. I doubt it though.

I think he knows what I am doing as he gives me an indulgent smile and indicates something at his feet that I can’t see from my horizontal position on this rock.

“My body,” he says. “I have, over the centuries, found each and every piece that Tiamat removed and buried in the four corners of the globe. Wasn’t an easy task, and I could never find my head.” He looks so perplexed by that and it sounds so funny I actually do laugh out loud, it’s just too hard not to. “Indeed,” he says with a narrow-eyed look at me. “Anyway, as it turns out, it was in the one place that I would never have thought of and wouldn’t have been able to get to.”

“The Dragon Realms?”
I ask.

“No, you would have thought that wouldn’t you. No, it was in Hunter headquarters in Rome. Tiamat must have somehow got them to hide it for her all this time,” he reveals.

“Cade got it for you,” I state then, a sudden realization hitting me that this was not just a spur-of-the-moment thing. It was quite the elaborate plan.

“He did. He brought it to me a few days ago. I was just waiting for the go-ahead from him,” he says.

A few days ago? So that is where he had been all this time. Trying to get Remiel’s head back. Makes sense that I couldn’t trace him, if he was being cloaked by someone so powerful. And it also makes sense now why he came back. Not to accept who he is, but to throw me to the original Vampire so he can resurrect himself.