I roll my eyes as this is just getting ridiculous.
“So were we!” Frederick shouts back. “For over fifty years we loved so fiercely it hurt. You never had that with her. I did!”
My mouth drops open as Vito just stops mid-punch to the gut and his arm falls to his side.
“Fifty years?” he asks quietly, made even more so by the sudden lack of shouting and thumping of flesh on flesh.
“That’s right,” Frederick says, smugly, cottoning onto the fact that, firstly, Vito didn’t know and, secondly, that it hurts him. “Fifty wonderful, passion filled, lust-fueled years of pure bliss.”
“Frederick,” I chide him gently, but it has kick-started that coiling deep inside me. He does remember and he does want me back.
“Is that right, Aefre?” Vito asks me.
I nod, because what else can I do? I don’t know why it hurts him so much. He knew about us. I assumed he knew, actually. He has only been back in the real world for a few months.
“Him?” he spits out, pointing at Frederick. “You fell in love with him?” The scorn is dripping like venom.
“I know it sounds…”
“He is a monster!” Vito roars. “Is that what attracted you to him? You thrilled in his evil? I don’t know why it surprises me…” He pauses to let out a hollow sounding chuckle. “You are so broken you probably sought him out to beat you and treat you like a whore. Seems to be your thing.”
The silence is deafening.
I am utterly dumbstruck by Vito’s words, while Frederick is glaring at him in astonishment.
“I-I beg your pardon?” I croak out, the hurt stabbing me in the heart. “B-broken? You think I’m...broken?”
“I do,” he replies steadily. “It is obvious in the way that you let all of these men treat you. Constantine especially.”
“What?” I bleat. What is he saying?
“Don’t stand there and pretend you don’t know what I am talking about,” he says exasperated and it makes me even more stunned.
I can’t form a thought, never mind an actual word.
He thinks I am broken? Broken? As in, there is something wrong with me that needs fixing? I know I have my issues, who doesn’t? But to label someone as ‘broken’ is pretty damn harsh, especially coming from someone who has their own issues.
I cut my gaze to Frederick to see if he agrees and to my relief, it appears that he doesn’t. He is outraged on my behalf, and once again goes for Vito intent on killing him.
I just stand there, completely hurt, like a wounded bird. I wrap my arms around myself and I’m glad when Constantine arrives, annoyed by this brawling.
“Again?” he complains to me, but when he sees my ashen face, he quickly approaches me. “What happened?”
I look at him, really look at him. I am afraid to tell him in case he agrees. I will be completely devastated if my husband, the man that I have loved for over a thousand years, trusted and confided in, who knows my deepest darkest secrets and insecurities, thinks there is something fundamentally wrong with me.
“Aefre, what is it?” he asks again, clutching at my arm.
“Vito was teaching me magick, Frederick didn’t like his methods,” I say eventually, choosing to leave out the part about the insults as I can’t bear to hear his response.
“That’s not all!” Frederick bellows in the midst of beating Vito’s head against the ground. “Tell him, Aefre! Tell your husband what he said.”
I glare at him because the scorn is evident, and he clearly needs to hear what Constantine has to say. I shake my head. I don’t want to. I can’t.
“Vito thinks your wife is broken!” Frederick shouts as he smashes his fist into Vito’s face, before Vito uses his magick to launch Frederick over our heads and to the other side of where we are standing.
Constantine says nothing.