Cade is still standing like a statue in the doorway and I smile at him.
“I’m okay,” I tell him.
He nods quickly. “I know. That was just something else,” he says.
No kidding.
“I’ll leave you to your, whatever,” he says, waving his hand around and ducking out of the doorway.
I find that suspicious. Not that I expected him to stick around, but he looked a bit shady. What is he up to?
“Here,” Devon says as he hands me the mirror.
“Thanks.” I take it from him and sit on the bed that CK has fixed up after the ritual.
“Aperio!” I yell into it.
Nothing.
I shake it and yell into it again. And again. And again.
Still nothing.
“Why is he ignoring me?” I shout. “Remiel?”
CK flinches as I shout out the name of his nemesis, but he doesn’t turn up either. I have well and truly been frozen out. It hits my gut like a sledgehammer. I may never see my daughter, at this rate.
Devon takes the mirror off me and as I try to snatch it back, he says, “Leave it for now, Lizzie. Try again tomorrow.”
I nod woefully and then stick my fingers up at him as he adds, “Their tomorrow. Not ours.”
“No!” I shriek. “That is weeks away. I don’t have that kind of time.”
Devon is about to capitulate when he sees my stricken face, but CK takes the mirror and stashes it away.
“Devon is right, you need to leave it for a while. You will only piss them off and make them suspicious of you if you keep yelling for them,” he says.
I know he’s right, deep down, but it doesn’t make it any easier.
“Fine,” I say with the grumps. “I need a shower.”
“I will go and make you some more tea,” CK says. He bends to kiss me and then whispers, “Will you be all right on your own?”
“Yes,” I say sullenly. “I am not a child.”
As he leaves, he gives me a look that makes me think he thinks otherwise, but I know he heard me give in before with my muttered moan.
“You may leave now also,” I say to Devon.
“No way, Lizzie. I am not leaving you here to go yelling for that dickhead again,” he says.
Damn him and his knowledge of the workings of my brain. I get a wicked air about me that has him sitting up and I say to him, “Well, you had better come into the shower with me then if you are so worried about what I might get up to.”
He doesn’t hesitate to jump off the bed and, grabbing my hand on the way, he drags me into the bathroom. “I am super worried,” he says as he tears his clothes from his body. “So worried that I am going to have to find something to occupy your mouth so that you don’t say a word.” He is naked in under a few seconds and I am laughing my head off at him, relieved to actually find something so amusing.
“A bit hard up, are you?” I ask as I step into the shower slowly.
“Just a bit hard,” he says and I wrap my hand around his cock as he plunges his tongue into my mouth.