“When he found out, you don’t know...you don’t know what he did to me.”
“What did he do?” he asks slowly.
“Doesn’t matter,” I say, holding back the tears. I won’t go back there, but more than that, I can’t tell him. He will freak out.
“I love you, Aefre. I want to hear you say you love me,” he demands suddenly. “Tell me.” He grips my chin, forcing me to look at him.
I blink at him. The words getting stuck in my throat. “I can’t,” I choke out. “He-he beat it out of me,” I confess, lowering my eyes at my shame.
“He beat it out of you?” he repeats. Frederick lets go of my chin and stares into the fire. “I can believe it.”
“A month,” I suddenly blurt out. “Every day for a month he would ask me if I loved you and every time, I said that I did, he would beat me so hard it took me hours to recover. I can’t love you, Frederick. I am incapable of it now.”
“No!” he shouts out, standing up, throwing his heavy glass into the fire, causing it roar up and making me cower. “How dare he! As if he didn’t take enough from me!” He spins around to face me, and I gulp. He is ferocious, terrifying, utterly demonic-and not in a Demon sense. “You are the only woman I have ever loved as a Vampire. Two thousand years of roaming this Earth alone, lonely, lost. Not a single woman has ever looked at me the way you do! Not a single one makes me feel. And he dares to take that from me!”
“Frederick...”
“I hate him!” he spits out. “Tell me how to end him, and I will!” He drops to his knees and takes my hand. “You must know.”
The look he gives me curdles my insides. He is deadly serious, and as much as I hate Constantine myself right now, I love him. He is everything to me.
“There is no way,” I lie. Only Dracul possesses that power now. And possibly Remiel. I am not sure if his brand of Dragon fire is lethal to my husband and I hope never to find out.
“Pah,” he says with scorn. “You still protect him.” He turns from me to lean his forehead on his knees.
“Don’t,” I say. “Don’t make me betray him.”
“He betrays you, Aefre! Every day. And yet you sit there and take it like the meek and mild girl you used to be.”
“He has changed,” I defend him.
Frederick turns back towards to me to brood and I let him. No one understands. No one can.
“Take back your control,” he says to me eventually. He looks at me, his eyes gazing deeply into mine. “Take back your love for me. For once, Aefre, do what you want to do, not what he wants you to do.”
“I do...” I say weakly. At least I think I do. I am so confused right now.
“Then prove it.” He leans forward pressing his lips against mine. It lights a spark in me that was long since dead, and that I have desperately been trying to make sure stayed dead since his return and his confusing attitude towards me. There is nothing confusing about his words and his kiss now. Unable to resist him, falling in love with him all over again, I part my lips and accept his kiss, falling into it as if it had never been switched off, forgetting all about the consequences.
Ponte, Italy, January 2015 - Constantine
He places his daughter in her crib and gives her an adoring smile. She gives him a tired beam back and waves her gloved hands at him. He sighs. That is probably why she went to her mother. She knows she would have gotten some free time with her.
“Not tonight,” he murmurs to her. “Sleep now.”
He is surprised to see she does as she is told. She closes her droopy eyes and is out for the count.
“Good night, my love,” he whispers and creeps out of the room. He closes the door silently and then gets accosted by Devon.
“I can’t find her,” the boy says in a panic. “I have been everywhere. France, L.A. New York, Milan, England...”
“She is at Cassis. I have just seen her. She is fine,” Constantine says, annoyed.
“Fine?” Devon repeats with a frown. “Fine is not a word I would use for her right now. Why didn’t she come home?”
“According to her, she is home,” he grits out, pissed off beyond belief that she didn’t come home with him. What game is she playing?
“What?” Devon splutters. “She isn’t coming back here?”