“Very,” I murmur. “Although, I am pretty sure I know how to treat you better now,” I say with a sidelong glance at him.
He snorts into his hand. “Oh, Aefre. I loved how innocent you were. Christ, you meant everything to me,” he says softly.
“I know what you mean,” I say just as softly.
Right, so here comes the bit with Radulf bursting in on us. My hatred flares up for him as I see him again after so long that I take a step forward to do him in myself but CK holds me back.
“Allow me,” he says with a half-smile, as he tilts his head to his Past self.
So, this is what happened after he stabbed me. It all happens kind of quickly. Past CK pushes past me to the floor (gee, such a tender touch). I glare at my CK and he shrugs. Past CK twirls the spear in his hand and all Vamped-out shoves it into Radulf as he reaches out for his neck. Past CK gives a quick check back at me to see if I am still alive, and he squeezes Radulf’s throat and whispers something to him I don’t follow. Slamming him to the floor, he tightens his grip and…Oh Christ! He wasn’t kidding. He actually did rip his head right off his shoulders!
I stare back at my CK in shock, my bloodthirsty sire, who is looking very impressed with himself, I must say. “What?” he mouths as he shrugs.
“My hero,” I mouth back, and he glows.
I wince as Past CK rams the head of my dead husband onto the spear he has ripped from his gut and then he turns back to Past me to save me. He sighs as he cradles my head in his lap, whispering to me. He slits his wrist open and places it to my lips. He leans forward and strokes my stomach as, I turn to my CK with my mouth open, he mourns the loss of my baby? He avoids my gaze, eyes focused solely on the scene in front of us. I turn back to Past us and Past CK leaves me now, grabbing the gruesome headed spear as he leaves the barn. “Where are you going?” I whisper to mine.
“Nowhere you need concern yourself with,” he says.
“Where?” I insist.
He closes his eyes and gestures me out of the barn. I stop to check on my Past self, looking very bloody yet at peace and then I run, hoping it works the same, that only we can see each other and not everybody can see us, and follow Past CK across the field to the front door of the cottage where he, as mine had told me, places the spear with Radulf’s head on it outside the door. He then turns and, with a flash of Vampire speed, heads in the direction of the next cottage along. My parents’ house. I slow to a stop, my hand on my stomach. We never did get around to finishing that conversation that we started the other week about what happened to them. I hear screams and then silence.
I turn to my CK, and stare at him. “You killed them?”
“They deserved it after giving you to that monster and leaving you to deal with him,” he says, stony-faced and unapologetic.
I fall into his arms unexpectedly. “I love you,” I murmur to him, kissing him. “I love you so much. You are truly my hero. My savior.”
He clears his throat. “You don’t hate me?” he asks slowly.
“Gods, no. I love you. You avenged me,” I say forcefully.
He looks relieved and says then, full of confidence, “Of course I did. I wasn’t about to let them live with their actions.”
I look at him with a whole new love in my eyes, which he sees and is pleased with. “We do still need to fix the damage done. You have to get us back to before I spoke to…me.”
“I know. That was some fucked up shit. Even for me,” I mutter.
He lets out a loud laugh before he pulls us into the shelter of a barn wall. “My Past self is about to come back to get Past you. We had better stay out of the way this time,” he warns, and I agree.
“Aefre,” he says, suddenly serious, “I can tell you now that I would rather we stay here and live out the next thousand years again then go back to that.”
“I know. I guess as much as we have opposing sides on me being married to Devon, I am sure that wasn’t how either of us would have ever thought it would be,” I say.
“What amazes me is that it lasted that long,” he says, clearly musing out loud.
“No, I am more appalled that he let me just go off and be with everyone. Everyone,” I say incredulously, thinking of Cade’s kiss. “And babies? I mean what the fuck?”
He is frowning at me
. “I thought you wanted babies? With me.”
“Yes, one baby. With you. Not multiple species with several different people.”
“Oh,” he says, pleased that I have not only reaffirmed my intention to him but also dismissed, avidly, any intention of procreating with anyone else. “Come,” he says, taking my hand. “We should try and sort this out sooner rather than later. Although, I have no idea how.”
“Wait. CK. The fight we had. I’m sorry. You know that I didn’t mean it. You were and are the best thing that ever happened to me,” I say.