“They all say that,” I say dismissively. “How naïve are you?”
“Silence!” she roars at me and I know I have cracked her. It’s a small achievement, but a win, nonetheless. She keeps her eyes on mine as she starts to unbutton her blouse. I wonder what in the Hell she is doing, but when she turns around, I have to hold in the gag. Her pale back has been marked, just like she said, by a poisonous claw while she was still human, with the name of my husband. It is scrawled down her back from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine.
“His,” she concludes, spinning around so she can witness the look on my face. “Once you are gone, he will be mine again.”
“So, all of this is just to get a man?” I ask her, swallowing the bile. I won’t let it get to me. I won’t. It was hundreds of years before he even knew me. “And you need me out of the way to do it? That’s just sad and pathetic.”
She is at the cage in an instant, snarling at me like a rabid dog. “Your exit is just the icing on the cake, he would come to me regardless. Especially now that you are no longer bound to him.”
“You want him, go get him,” I say sticking out my chin. “See how far you get.” I use this as a distraction from the, no doubt, expression on my face. We may not be sire and charge any longer, but we are bound. In a way that she couldn’t even fathom. Problem is, I can’t let anyone know that. If they try to kill me, what will happen to him?
“Cocky, for one who has been caged like the little bitch that you are,” she drawls, shrugging off her blouse.
I am about to say something derisive as a comeback, but I don’t get the chance as my husband strolls into the cell with a predatory air that sends a chill down my spine. He is stalking Clementine in an overtly sexual way that nearly makes me puke, until I realize it isn’t him. I flick my eyes from hers back to his. “A Shifter?” I inquire. “How pathetic of you that you can’t have the real thing.”
“He is for your benefit, not mine,” she says, gasping as the fake-Constantine drops his fangs and takes a bite out of her neck. “I want you to see how amazing we are together. Maybe then you will give up on your fantasy that he will come and rescue you.”
“He isn’t even real,” I scoff, but I must admit it is affecting me. More than I would like to admit. The jealousy is raging even though I know it’s fake.
She just shrugs at me and turns into his waiting arms as he devours her from head to toe. I sink down on the floor, unable to tear my eyes away from this…this…show in front of me. It’s disgusting and it’s not real but fuck me if he doesn’t look exactly like my husband. I start to count, just for something to do to take my mind off the sex occurring right in front of me. Looking away doesn’t help. They are both so vocal, who needs pictures?
One hundred. One hundred and one, one hundred and two…
Dammit, but it is starting look real. He has some of Constantine’s moves. Probably instructed by Clementine. Ugh! It’s sick, it’s…exactly what CK did for centuries. Substitution.
Even Devon and Lincoln had a go with it. Am I the only one who finds it unacceptable? Disgusting?
Obviously.
“Oh, Constantine!”
I place my hands over my ears.
Three hundred and five, three hundred and six…
I watch as he turns her around and starts to fuck her that way. I can’t look away, it’s like a traffic accident.
It goes on and on and on.
Whoever this glamoured Vampire is, he certainly is old and has the stamina of my ex-sire. He twists Clementine around and around, fucks her mouth, her pussy, her back passage. She is squealing with ecstasy and it won’t end.
Please make it end.
Four thousand, five hundred and ten. Four thousand, five hundred and eleven…
“For the love of the gods!” I shout eventually, somewhere around ten thousand and four, getting to my feet. “I get it, okay. You are soooo hot together. One thing though. That. Isn’t. Constantine. And it never will be.”
I turn my back as the cell goes silent. All I can hear is the ragged, unconscious breathing of Cade. Lucky him. At least he didn’t have to sit through this.
Then Clementine’s tinkly laugh echoes around the chamber. “Hit a nerve?” she sneers.
“More like worked my last one,” I mutter, running my hand through my hair. “That’s nearly three hours of my life I won’t get back.”
Clementine laughs at me. “Your jealousy can be seen from here,” she says. “It’s a nice visual to leave you with. Soon, I will be back in his bed for real and you can picture how our reunion will go.”
“Our daughter will never allow that to happen,” I snarl at her, unable to keep my temper in check any longer. I am trapped, I am hungry, I am grossed out and, yeah, I’ll admit it, I am a little bit scared. No one has come for me yet and it’s possible I will be on my way to dead before anyone does. “She will make your life a living Hell, if you go near her father.” It’s a threat that makes her alabaster face go even paler. Clearly Arathia’s powers are feared, even though no one, not even us, her parents, know what they are yet.
“We’ll see,” Clementine says eventually and then turns on her heel and marches out of the cell, leaving her sex-buddy to trail in her wake.