I shake my head as the tears have welled up and I can’t speak.
“If you ever need anything, I will be here,” he says vehemently.
“I know, thank you,” I whisper and then he kisses the top of my head and leaves. Probably for good. My heart breaks all over again and I let out the sob that I was holding back.
“Aefre?” CK says as he walks into the kitchen.
I turn to him and throw myself into his arms. I can’t bear for him to be angry with me anymore. I need him now more than I have ever needed him. “I love you,” I weep into his chest. “Please say that you forgive me for what I did.”
“I do,” he says. “I love you too, Aefre. It is tearing me up inside to see how all of this is affecting you and not being able to help.”
I drag his mouth to mine, and we kiss before he pulls away with a slight smirk as my stomach is waiting for the food that Lincoln had made.
“I guess we are going to have to get used to this,” he says as he slaps two slices of bacon onto a bit of toast and folds it over into a sandwich and hands it to me.
“Thanks,” I mutter as I take it and then devour it in only a few bites.
He picks up a piece of bacon and nibbles on it, as Vampires tend to do. “I can’t live like this,” he suddenly blurts out.
“Like what?” I ask in terror. Is he saying that he is leaving me?
“You being whatever you are and me being a Vampire. I am going to speak to Xanthe and ask her to try and reverse-make me,” he says, and for the first time in over a thousand years, I see a slight flush on his cheeks that is so adorable, I fall in love with him all over again.
“What?” I ask incredulously. “You can’t do that!”
“Why not?” he asks with a frown. “I think we already know that the whole Master Vampire ship has sailed as I am never siring again. So, what difference does it make?”
Well, when you put it like that, but…
“What about your charges? All of the hundreds of thousands of Vampires you have turned and that they have turned? You are basically saying you are going to wipe out a third of the Vampire population just because you want to be like me,” I say to him.
He glares at me. “I do not want to be like you,” he says imperiously. “I just want to be closer to what you are. We are worlds apart here, Aefre. It doesn’t make sense.”
“And your charges and theirs?” I ask again. “What about Sebastian?”
He shrugs. “’Bastian is like you, sort of. The others mean little to me. Besides, who is to say that it would happen? You are quite special, Aefre, something completely different. Your blood ties were affected, but it doesn’t mean that mine will be.”
I scowl at him and his “blood ties.”
He chuckles at me as he sees my jealously but then turns serious again. “It is what I want,” he says.
“Well, too bad for you,” I mutter and wonder how the Hell we are supposed to deal with the fallout from that particular course of action. “You have been a Vampire for a really long time, CK. You wouldn’t be able to cope.”
“You are,” he says.
“You are three times as old as me,” I point out.
“So what?” he says. “If I am also this half-Dragon-twice-removed beast then I will still be immortal. What else is there to discuss?”
Rah! He is such an infuriating creature. I’ll give him “beast.”
“Can we discuss this another time?” I wheedle. “I really need to get going.”
He pulls his face at me. “I am not changing my mind.”
“Another time, CK, please.” Fortunately for me, it suddenly occurs to me that Xanthe won’t help him. She will not want CK to lose his Vampire so that we can swan off into the sunset together. No, I am confident this is all moot.
“Fine,” he says and then kisses me. He lifts me up onto the counter and ruffles up my skirts. “If you think you are going anywhere near Thrace without my mark on you, you are sadly mistaken,” he says and clamps down on me with his fangs drawn.