Betrayal (The Forever Series) (8 page)

“Now that you are all here, we have much to discuss,” I say and everyone quiets down. “We are a bit late in having this meeting, but I hope that you have all had a think about what we discussed in Vegas and have some ideas about us moving on.”

I look at each of them in turn and nope, no takers. Didn’t think there would be. Well, that should make this even easier then.

“Very well,” I say. “Seeing as no one else has bothered to think about this, we have an idea.”

“We?” Devon asks. He is standing a little way from me with his arms crossed, looking a bit shifty. Interesting.

“Yes, my husbands and I,” I state with a small smile at CK who grins back at me.

There is a shocked silence as everyone takes that in and then I get the rush of everyone’s feelings about this and they are not happy for a variety of their own reasons. I knew it would be taken badly which is why I chose not to make an announcement out of it as such, rather, just kind of let it drift into the conversation.

“
Husbands?”
Devon spits out with more venom than I have heard from him in a good long while.

“Yes, husbands,” CK says, pulling me closer to him. Devon’s face goes like thunder and I carry on with my speech before anything more can be said about this subject.

“Our idea is that we move to the Underworld. We can function as we are, nothing has to change, and I feel that I need to be there to exert my Power and authority.”

“Agreed,” Xane says straight away, as I knew he would, seeing he already knew this was my plan. I also know what
Cole’s face will look like so I don’t bother confirming it. I smile at him and his support.

“The decision, as I said before, has to be unanimous, so votes, please,” I say, even though I have every intention of seeing this through whether everyone likes it or not.
“Devon?” I start with my oldest charge who is still looking murderously at CK.

“Agreed,” he growls.

I note with interest that Jess is looking quite murderous herself now. Clearly having expected to have a discussion with her husband about it in private, her sire has made the decision for her. I am partly to blame for that, as I am still trying to get used to him having a tagalong, I forget sometimes.

“Agreed,” Jess says anyway, but I can tell there will be words later.

“Agreed,” Lincoln says. “Although how easy is it to get to and from?”

“Easy enough,” I reassure him with a smile.

That only leaves Cade. He is slumped in a chair in the furthest corner away from me, staring intently at nothing. We all turn to look at him and it takes him a moment to realize we are waiting for him and he looks up.

“Well, it isn’t like I have much choice, do I,” he says quietly and goes back to his staring at the carpet. I can feel his pain and anger and I wish I could ease it for him.

After a few seconds I say, “Great, we are agreed. We will move on in three months. Should be enough time to get all your affairs in order.”

“How will we just disappear?” Jess asks worriedly.

“G6 crash,” Devon says. “Simplest way to do it, no survivors, no bodies.”

I nod, having come up with the same conclusion.

“Oh,” she says quietly as the enormity of what we are about to undertake hits her. I turn to Cole and squeeze his hand reassuringly. This will be a huge deal for him as well and I need to ensure that he is okay with it all. He smiles back to let me know he is fine so I dismiss the meeting after Devon says, “Lizzie, I need a word with you.”

I know I am in trouble with him over the CK thing, but I need to deal with it so I ask everyone to leave us alone so he can yell at me in private. Jess is reluctant to leave and lingers until he turns to her sharply and says, “Leave us.” She goes without another word. I blink in surprise at him. He has changed into someone I hardly recognize. He has changed into a sire. I sigh, wishing that this had never happened to him.

“I know what you are going to say,” I say, pre-empting his strike, “but don’t, okay, please. It is done and that’s it.”

“How do you know what I am going to say?” he asks with a curious look at me. “You have no idea what I want to say to you.”

“Devon?” I ask him. “What is with you?” I really don’t care for this attitude of his.

He swoops in on me suddenly and gathers me in his arms. He kisses me and I kiss him back. I cling to him as I have missed him and I want him back as he was before. He cups my face and pushes me back against the billiards table, grinding his hips against me. I let out a little noise of yearning and he deepens the kiss, lifting me onto the edge of the table.

“Need you,” he whispers, still kissing me.

“Take me,” I whisper back.

He pushes me down flat onto the table and stands in between my legs. He pulls on my hips to get my backside right to the edge of the table and slowly pulls my panties down. He undoes his pants as I watch him, hungry for his touch. He slowly inserts himself into me as I wrap my legs around him, pulling him closer. He closes his eyes as he savors the feel of me.

“Oh, Lizzie,” he says. “You feel so good.” He steps back from me, withdrawing
himself, and I know what he wants from me. I Shift and he is back inside me as soon as I am Elizabeth. “I’ve missed you so much,” he says. “It has been too long.”

I completely agree. The last time we were together was in Miami with Cole. It feels like a lifetime away. He is pumping gently into me, taking his time with me even though he
knows there are people waiting for both of us. He needs this and I need him. I reach up and pull him down to kiss me and then he speeds up, pounding me into the table and making me orgasm in a spectacular ripple through my body. He groans as he feels it and lets himself go, pouring himself into me.

“I love you,” he murmurs.

“I love you,” I say back to him and he smiles down at me.

“I love it when you say that to me,” he says, now completely back to his normal self as he pulls me up and adjusts his clothing. “I am feeling rather hard done by with all these new charges you are stacking up.” He says it lightly, but I know he still isn’t happy about Cade.

“I know, baby,” I say, giving him a hug. “I will make it up to you now that you are home. You are never to leave for as long as that ever again.”

“I won’t,” he promises me and we are both happy again to be back together. “But, you do owe me an explanation,” he says.

I Shift back to Liv before I forget and exit here looking like Elizabeth. Cole and CK would not be amused.

“I know,” I say. “It just happened.
Literally. Cole suggested it yesterday and bam! There was a handfast at Cassis.”

He is looking at me in shock. “Cole suggested it?” he chokes out.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “I was surprised too. Well floored actually, but he wants me all the time and so does CK, so he came up with this.” I note at this point I am talking to myself as he has gone completely zombie on me. He is gazing over my right shoulder with dead eyes.

“How could you?” he asks sadly. “How could you do this to me?”

“What?” I ask in confusion and then turn around as I realize he isn’t even speaking to me. He is looking at Cole who had quietly pushed the door open and is standing in the doorway looking uncertain and more than a little confused.

“Devon,” he says as he comes closer, with a look of sadness now. He clearly has some idea what is going now whereas I have none.

Devon shakes his head at him and turns his back. I look at Cole questioningly and he whispers to me to leave them alone. I go, under protest, and with a burning curiosity as to Devon’s actions and I enter the library. I sigh as I see the damage caused by my parents’ argument. Broken lamps, turned over tables, even a smashed window that I never even heard break. Must have been during Sebastian and CK’s tussle. Then I shudder as I remember what else they got up to in here. I don’t actually want to touch anything. I am about to leave and find Esther to come and scrub this room top to bottom when I feel a pop behind me. Ah crap. I really don’t need her here at the moment.

I turn around ready with a sarcastic comment, but I stop dead, my mouth hanging open.

“Thought I might surprise you,” she says, her light Italian accent catching me off guard. “It has taken me some time to master this to get here.”

I stare at Empress Aefre and quick as lightning I am in front of her, grabbing her by the arm. “What are you doing here?” I hiss at her. “You need to leave, right now!”

She pulls her arm out of my grip and says, “Oh, I am not going anywhere, Liv. I have some things to say to you, and you will listen.”

“Hm, I’m sure you do,” I say with more than a bit of arrogance. “As it turns out, I have a few words of my own for you.”

We stare at each other for a few moments before I say, “I can look past the Cole and Devon thing, but you had no right to sleep with Sebastian. Do you know what a problem you caused me?”

She shrugs, unconcerned, and replies, “You had no right to go anywhere near either of my men, nor did you have the right to forgive Constantine for his actions and to top it all
off the worst part is you giving Cassis your blessing on her marriage to that…to that man!” She stamps her foot and I can see a tantrum about to go down. I don’t have time for this. She has to leave, if anyone comes in here and she spills the Other World beans, I am dead.

“Look,” I say quietly. “I understand you are mad at me for what I did. They thought I was you, I tried to resist, but it was hard. Constantine was so upset that you wouldn’t forgive him it broke my heart. I shouldn’t have said what I did to him and I apologize. As for Cassis, I certainly had no intention of letting her marry that bastard had I been forced to stay in your World. I loathe that man more than anything in either of our Worlds so rest assured, Aefre, I would never have let it happen.”

She stares at me after my impassioned speech and looks away. “Thank you,” she says formally. “I accept your apology. I too have my own to extend to you. I had no right to do what I did with your men. I know that I caused a problem for you with Sebastian. But being in my body in my World, you must understand why I couldn’t stay away?”

I nod stiffly at her. “I accept. But you must leave
now, no one here knows what I did and believe me when I say that no one can ever find out. Tiamat will have my head.”

She looks at me quizzically, but I don’t have time to explain it so I brush her off.

“I am here to ask for your help. If you refuse I will have no choice but to tell of your actions,” she says.

“Excuse me?” I ask, hands on my hips. “You are blackmailing me?”

“Yes,” she says boldly.

I gape at her before I say, “What do you want from me?” I am clearly going to have to give it to her as there is no way I can have her blabbing my secret.

“I need your help to go back to the past,” she says to my utter surprise. “I am incapable of managing it, it took everything I have just to get here. I know you are able, your Constantine told me what you did, and I need you to take me back to the past.”

“Whatever for?”
I ask seconds before the penny drops. “Devon? You want to go back to your past and get Devon, don’t you? I bet you have already been for Cole. Am I right?” I step even closer to her, wanting answers.

“Yes,” she says. “I went to get Cole and I have turned him. But I want Devon as well. I want what you have with your charges. I want Devon.”

“I can’t help you,” I say. “I cannot go back to your past to bring him into your present. It would be catastrophic if he was supposed to live. What if he got married and had kids who went on to, I don’t know, invent something, something important? You can’t do this.” I cross my arms to make my point. I push away the thought that I am very much planning to go and get Fraser from my own past to bring him here, but that is different. He died. To bring him here would change nothing.

“I have thought about everything you are saying, but I am willing to risk it,” she says. “It is my World to worry about.”

Well, she does have a point. It won’t be any skin off my nose if she sets off a chain of events that destroys her World.

“Have you researched it? Do you know if he married and had children?” That thought makes me queasy. In fact this whole conversation is making me a bit nauseous. I had wondered if she would go for Cole, but it never occurred to me she would want to go back in time for Devon.

She shakes her head. “It will take too much time, I don’t have it,” she says.

“Why not?”
I ask and my eyes zero straight in on her stomach where her hand is resting and I feel myself go pale. “Oh god,” I whisper. “Oh god, you are pregnant, aren’t you? With Sebastian’s child. Oh god, did it happen while I was over there?” I really don’t want to know the answer to that question, but when her eyes go cold I get my confirmation.

“Yes,” she snaps at me. “I hope you are happy with yourself that I wasn’t even there at the conception of my own child.”

I bring my hand to my mouth, absolutely mortified. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, but it falls on deaf ears.

“There is only one way you can make it up to me,” she says stiffly.

I nod at her, because I can’t refuse her request. Not now, not after this revelation. I feel awful. “I will make my excuses and come to you tomorrow, we will go from there. But you know that it is two in, two out?”