Constantine advances on him but Sebastian holds his hand up. “Don’t kill the messenger,” he says easily.
“Why didn’t you stop this from happening?” Constantine asks, the fight going out of him as quickly as it flared up.
“I would have if I had known about it,” he replies. “I was only informed that she was feeding him, not fucking him.”
“She really fucked him?” Constantine asks and slumps onto the sofa.
Sebastian is taken aback by his completely crestfallen sire. He has never seen him look so beaten by anything before.
“Err,” he starts, but has no words of comfort to offer.
“She’s killing me,” he mutters, but Sebastian thinks he didn’t mean to say it out loud, so he doesn’t respond.
Instead, he chooses to be dismissive. “What difference does it make? She fucks about all over the place anyway. What’s one more?”
In over two thousand and seven hundred years together, he should have known better. Constantine flies at him and for the second time that day, he finds himself flat on his back being throttled. It’s a
good thing he can’t suffocate, but his head can be ripped from his body and that is something he would very much like not to happen.
“You say you love her,” Constantine snarls at him like a rabid dog, “and yet you disrespect her. You don’t deserve to have a claim on her.”
Finally! Sebastian smiles and chokes out, “So you admit that I do have a claim on her.”
Constantine stops choking him and sits back, still straddling him. He has his stone face on as he says, “I cannot deny it any longer. But mark my words, Aefre will win this fight and she is mine.” He stands up and stalks to the other side of the room, leaving Sebastian to climb to his feet and brush himself off.
“Let’s make a deal,” Sebastian says eventually.
Constantine turns to him with an interested look but doesn’t say anything.
“I propose,” he continues, “that whoever gets her pregnant first, wins her.”
Constantine scowls at him briefly, but then his smug-arrogant face falls into place. “There is a more-than-good chance she is already pregnant with my child,” he says.
“And there is an even better chance that she is pregnant with mine,” Sebastian responds.
“Not likely,” Constantine scoffs. “Rosa did the ritual and we mated.”
“So did we,” Sebastian says. “Do you really think that Rosalina would pick a side in this, even if it was yours? No, she has too much smarts for that. She gave me a chance too.”
There is a deadly silence as his sire takes in that bit of information. He squares his shoulders, absolutely convinced now that Constantine is going to pull out his sire-power and do him in once and for all.
“I know,” Constantine says eventually, and Sebastian is annoyed to find that he is somewhat relieved.
“You do?” he asks, surprised.
“Of course,” he says. “I asked her to give you a chance after we had done the ritual. It was I who suggested she stay neutral to keep her peace.”
Sebastian feels slightly sick as he hears this. It turned his stomach to take advantage of her while she was unconscious. That has never been his thing, as he enjoys active, willing partners unlike some Vampire barbarians he knows. But to know that Constantine whored her out in that state is truly the worst part of him.
“And if it worked?” he croaks.
“Then it works, and Drake will be happy and leave her alone to live out the rest of her life. With me,” Constantine says with a wicked smile that makes Sebastian both hate him and weak at the knees for him.
“You bastard,” he hisses. “You have no regard for her at all. Have you even thought how this will affect her?”
“Have you?” Constantine replies. “You are the one that took her lifeless body and used it. How do you think she will feel about that?”
Sebastian wants to vomit as he hears it laid out so plainly for him. “I will tell her it was consensual,” he says quietly.