“It doesn’t matter. Suffice it to say, I made sure she believed my reasons for ending it.” There is no way he is telling Drake what he said to his daughter. He will murder him on the spot for being so cruel and heartless to her.
He watches Drake turn away from him in disgust and he paces to the other side of the room. “We can fix this,” Drake says. “There is a way.”
“How?” Sebastian asks, all ears. He has no idea how she will ever forgive him.
“We turn this around quickly. I will go to her now and tell her that her mother confessed to me yesterday that She was the one who cursed her because She knew that Aeval was pregnant with your child, and that She wasn’t going to allow the blessed baby to be born,” Drake says, still pacing as he thinks.
“But she wasn’t, that much is pretty clear,” Sebastian says.
“But she doesn’t know that. She told me that there is no way to find out whose it was. If we make her believe it was yours, she will come around,” Drake says.
“She won’t. Not after what I said to her,” Sebastian says mournfully.
“I know my daughter,” Drake snaps. “She is merciful, and she will grieve and want to help you grieve as well.”
“It won’t work, Constantine will just turn around and tell her the truth,” Sebastian says.
“Not if we get to her first, he won’t. If I tell her the baby was yours, she will believe me, because she has no cause not to. It could just as easily have been Tiamat, as it was us, who did this to her. When she goes to tell him about it, he won’t be able to accuse us then in return as he will look foolish and jealous to spout such a story and he won’t want her to see him that way. I can assure you, Kalen, this will work,” Drake says adamantly.
Sebastian thinks about it for a moment. It might just work. Even if Constantine did tell her the truth, it would look like a made-up story as he has no proof. The trick, as Drake said, is to get to her first. “Yes,” he says. “Do it. I will wait for you to finish with her and then I will go to her.”
“No,” Drake says, shaking his head. “We have to play this right, Kalen, we need to make sure Constantine doesn’t get suspicious. Avoid Aeval and go out with Delinda as planned. I will take her aside and tell her this awful knowledge I have been wrestling with since yesterday that I am unable to keep from
her any longer. You need to give her a few hours to process it and accept it and then you will go to her later tonight and you will grovel at her feet and lick her boots to make her forgive you for whatever it was that you said to her. Once she does that, she will tell you what she has learned, as she will not be able to keep her grief from you.”
“Okay,” Sebastian says with a firm nod. He can do this. He can lie to her; he has to in order to get her back.
“I will fix this, Kalen, but you have to trust me in the future. You and Aeval belong together and I will not let anything stand in the way of that. Not after all we have been through. We are aligned now, son,” Drake says, placing his hand on his shoulder. “Everything that we have done and must continue to do, is for the good of our people.”
“Constantine will always have a hold on her now that she is carrying his heir. She won’t turn her back on him,” Sebastian says.
“Leave that to me,” Drake says. “She is currently growing the true heir inside her and Tiamat will move Worlds to get Her hands on that child. If we are the ones to give it to Her, She will have a debt to repay. Do not worry, son. This will all work out the way it was destined to.”
Sebastian nods again, feeling sick to his stomach that Drake has already thought all of this through. He has planned to betray his only daughter for the second time, but Sebastian can’t help but feel relief that things might just be finally turning his way. All he needed was a powerful ally, and now he has one.
The Dark Fae Kingdom, September 2014 – Aefre
“Finally,” CK snaps to Drake as we see him striding back towards us. “Aefre won’t say anything until you are here.”
“I had business to attend to,” Drake says shortly.
“While your daughter was going through torment?” CK sneers at him and I place a hand on his arm to quiet him down.
“It’s okay, my love,” I say soothingly. He seems very on edge–more so than usual–and it has me worried that what I said to him earlier is about to blow up in my face.
“Aeval,” Drake says. “What was that?”
Well, so much for comfort, just straight down to it. “Tiamat,” I say to the shocked faces of those around me. “She created a psychic link to me somehow and was rifling through my thoughts. It was…” I want to cry out it was Hell on Earth, but I am sick to death of looking like a weak-arsed fool. “Troubling,” I add as everyone looks at me questioningly.
“Troubling?” Drake repeats. “Did She glean any information out of you?”
“Enough!” CK barks at him “Have a bit of compassion for your child, for fuck’s sake. Can you not see she has been through enough?”
Drake fixes his purple-eyed glare on my husband and I stand up, unsteadily, to step in between them.
“It’s a valid question,” I say to CK. I turn to Drake and say, “I don’t know for sure. I don’t really know what She was looking for.”
“Could be anything,” Lincoln says quietly. “Your thoughts are…” he says but then pauses as I glare at him. “Scattered…” he says with a smile. “It was possibly quite difficult for Her to wade through them.”