Sebastian strains against the magick and drops to his knees. He won’t be able to hold them off much longer.
“Let him go!” I shriek, unable to approach either of them due to the barrier they have now created around themselves. I was all for battering him with my Dragon magick until he got the message and left, but now that it is happening in this way, I don’t want it. The magick is whipping around them like a whirlwind, lashing my hair into my face. I shield my eyes from the wind and the heat, and I watch Sebastian go down. He drops his magick and CK’s and Remiel’s magick hits him. Hard.
“NO!” I screech as I push my way around the force field. “NO!” I run towards Sebastian, lying on the ground in a contorted heap, his eyes wide open, unblinking.
“No,” I say again, the tears welling up. “My vengeance wasn’t supposed to end this way. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Why couldn’t you just leave?” I ask him, picking up his head and placing it on my lap.
My tears fall onto his face as I ignore the attempts of my sire and my husband to remove me from this battlefield.
“Aefre, you need to come with us, right now,” CK says.
“We got our revenge for you,” Remiel adds as if that fixes everything.
“No,” I sob, my head going dizzy with the guilt and sadness that I can’t help but feel even after everything he did to me. “I didn’t want this! I didn’t want this! Don’t you get it? You killed him! You fucking killed him! He’s dead!”
Epilogue
Los Angeles, USA, October 2014 – Devon
Devon looks up at the house that he has been standing in front of for about ten minutes now. It definitely falls into the “mansion” category of housing but is nowhere near as extravagant as Lizzie’s estates.
“So, this is where you call home now,” he mutters under his breath and then takes a bold step forward, not knowing what he will find.
He rings the intercom and a woman answers. “Yes?” she says.
“Err, hi, Carolyn?” he asks.
“Who is this?” she asks sharply.
“It’s Devon, Cole’s friend. We met once before,” Devon replies, feeling like such an idiot. The last time he had to use a doorbell seems like a million years ago. He has gotten used to Astralling or Astraporting straight to where he wants to go.
“I remember,” she says and hangs up on him.
He frowns at the intercom and wishes he could just Astraport into the damn house, when all of a sudden, the gate opens to allow him entry. He steps through and walks steadily up the driveway. The front door opens up to him and he sees Cole standing there with a big smile.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” Devon replies with a big smile back of his own. His heart lurches and before he knows what he is doing, he reaches out to embrace Cole.
Cole accepts it and after a manly hug, where they bang each other on the back, they hastily step apart.
“Come in,” Cole says and ushers him inside.
“Devon,” Carolyn says from further inside the house. “Nice to see you again.” She is holding her son and there is no denying that the kid is Cole’s. He has the same blue-grey eyes.
“You too,” Devon says, feeling awkward making small talk. He wants to ask how Cole is doing, how long it took him to wake up, and, more importantly, what he told Carolyn about all of this.
“I’ll leave you two t
o catch up,” Carolyn says, sensing the tension. She disappears off up the stairs and Devon watches her go before he spins to Cole and asks, “When did you wake up?”
Cole indicates that Devon should follow him, so he does, and ends up in a large, white kitchen. “As soon as Remiel brought me back,” Cole says with a sour look on his face. “He didn’t stick around for me to ask why.”
“Lizzie asked him to,” Devon replies. “But it was me who asked him to rescue you.”
Cole takes that in with a slow nod.
“What have you told her about where you’ve been?” Devon asks.