I nod, but then I shake my head. “I can’t let you think…it’s not what it seems…I have to tell you the truth, but you cannot ever tell another soul!” I suddenly wail at him.
He looks slightly startled, but the dark look returns as I spill the beans on everything that happened between me and Vito in the Fae Kingdoms.
He looks sketchily over his shoulder, almost as if he is scared someone is listening to us, but I don’t sense anyone, so I carry on until he knows everything.
“I see,” he says when I come to an abrupt halt.
“Does it change anything?” I ask hesitantly.
He pauses for a minute, but then sighs. “Never,” he says, cupping the back of my head and drawing me close. He is about to kiss me to seal our love and I can’t help the grin that forms on my face. I know this is right. It’s exactly how it should be. I love him with everything that I have, and I know he will never, ever let me down.
“One more thing,” he whispers against my lips.
“Anything,” I reply breathlessly.
“What about your sire?” He pulls back sharply, and I gasp in surprise as I lose his closeness.
I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head not wanting to think about that. “I don’t know. Delinda needs him. I need him, but not like I need you.” It’s all I can say.
“I accept your bond with him, and with Constantine…if I must...but I won’t be a dirty, little secret this time, Aefre. If you honestly want us to be together, then we do this right.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” I say, my heart soaring. “I want the whole world to know that you are mine.”
“Yours?” he inquires with a quirk to his perfect lips.
“Constantine is inevitable. I want you.” I don’t say the words that have plagued me for months and months, because I won’t mean them wholeheartedly. But it still feels like the weight that I have been dragging around for centuries has been lifted now that this man is back in my life. I feel light and free and I know that I can deal with lying to Constantine about this pregnancy because Frederick knows the truth and he will keep me strong.
He smiles at me. A rare sight to behold on his ruggedly handsome face. “Then come here, woman, so that I can kiss you out in the open for all to see.”
I giggle and tilt my head up to meet his mouth with mine. “Say it first,” I murmur.
“I love you,” he whispers back, before he presses his lips to mine.
It is the sweetest, most gentle kiss he has ever given me, and I melt in his arms.
Ponte, Italy, March 2015 - Constantine
He stares down at that man kissing his wife. He watches as she wraps her arms around his neck to draw him closer and he sighs. He knew this would happen. He jiggles Arathia in his arms and smiles down at her as she coos at him. It takes away the anger and pain that he feels because she is all that matters to him. He knows that Aefre won’t leave him, but he also knows that Frederick isn’t going anywhere now. For one brief moment he regrets not killing him the day he found them in the barn, but he knew that a slow, painful burn would be worse on Frederick than the peace that death would bring him. Banishing him, sending him as far away from Aefre as he could with the threat for him to never see her again was a far worse punishment. And deep down he knew that when Aefre finally relented after a month of him beating her and withholding his affections from her, toying with her and being downright nasty to her, she was lying to him, but he accepted it because he couldn’t bear to lay his hand on her one more time and to hear her muffle her screams.
Constantine had hoped that telling her that Lance was his sire would make her hate him, but it did nothing of the sort and he knew the battle was lost. He doesn’t want to fight it.
The tether he has to her tells him everything he needs to know about her feelings. He felt her rage at Clementine, he felt the power of her magick and the enjoyment from her when she zapped that witch for fun. He felt her resolve wash over her and then her trepidation as she revealed her thoughts to Frederick. He felt her heart plummet when, he assumes, Frederick was unsure about her, and then he felt her relief when he took her in his arms. And if all of that wasn’t available for him to know, without absolute conviction, the smile he sees on Aefre’s face as she pulls away from her lover tells him how happy she is. He told her that he was done trying to hold onto her. She is free to do as s
he pleases, as long as she stays his wife and never leaves him and one day gives him another child. She understands that. Frederick is just another man in a long line that will suffer for her happiness and one day she will get rid of him as she has all the others.
He hopes.
The doubt plagues him, because he knows his wife and he knows she is deeply in love with Frederick as he is with her, but he will hang onto it anyway.
He watches as Frederick holds her tenderly, stroking her face gently, tracing her smiling lips with his finger, stooping to kiss her again.
He turns away.
He has seen enough.
Chapter 20
Ponte, Italy, April 2015 - Aefre