“I told you to be careful. That the consequences would be dire,” she goes on ignoring me.
“I don’t know what you mean!” I cry at her and shove the phone at Frederick. I don’t have time to listen to her ramblings. I need to get my children safe. I need to get myself safe from this man who tried to kill me. This man, I don’t even know anymore.
“Listen to her,” Frederick says as he shoves the phone back at me.
“I don’t…”
“Just listen.” He puts the phone on speaker, so I have no choice but to hear what she has to say.
“…the spell…the one that I cast on him to save him from killing his charge…only the kiss of true love woke him up…it’s been broken…I can feel it…”
I stop listening. My heart is hammering in my chest.
The spell she cast on him to stop him from killing Lance and I woke him up with true love’s kiss. And now, he is back under the spell…
“…because he is no longer my true love,” I mutter into the deafening silence. “I no longer trust him, so he cannot be my true love.”
I retch. Placing my hands on the floor to steady myself, I lean over and throw up my last feed all over the priceless carpet.
There is a muttered curse as Frederick helps me up and Marguerite disappears down the stairs, no doubt to find a bucket and a mop. I shake him off me and stand up, my back straight as a rod. I fold my hands in front of me and clear my throat. “Please take him to our room and make him comfortable,” I instruct Remiel. Without waiting for a response, I continue, “I will be going to Cassis now. Feel free to join me,” I say clearly, before I duck into Thia’s room to gather her things. There is no way on this Earth or any Other that I can stay here in this castle now. I don’t know what is going to happen to Constantine. He may wake up at any moment if the curse fails, or another true love pops up out of nowhere to rescue him. He will surely finish the job he started if he finds me still here in his home, pregnant with Vito’s baby and lounging around like I own the place. Technically, I do, but I push that aside. I cannot stay here.
“Mama?” Delinda asks tentatively as she pushes open the door to her sister’s room.
“I’m okay,” I mutter, as I concentrate on steadily putting things into a bag, I managed to find by rummaging through her armoire.
“No, you aren’t,” she says astutely.
“Can we talk about this later,” I say, not even making it a question she can refute.
“’Course,” she says with a shrug. “I’ll get my things.”
“Good girl,” I say quietly as I watch her go.
I pick up Thia and then scoop up the bag with my other hand and head for the door.
“I’ll take us,” Frederick says, stroking my hair and curling a short lock behind my ear. His black eyes look at me with longing and also something else. Hope? Hope that he can finally have me all to himself? Yep, sure looks that way, doesn’t it?
“Take us home,” I say and with a nod, he Teleports us out of Ponte and to Cassis, leaving everyone else to make their own collective ways if they choose to or not.
Chapter 22
Cassis, France, August 2033 - Aefre
Eighteen years have passed and my daughter, mine and Vito’s daughter, Savannah, is ready to go and live with her Grandfather.
“I wish Savvie didn’t have to go,” I complain to her father. “It’s not fair. First Delinda is back and forth and now Savvie! I can’t cope with it!”
“It’s okay,” he soothes me. “She will be just a Puffport away.”
I let him hold me close for a moment. Only a moment. I cannot let him get too close to me ever again. I love our daughter with all of my heart, as I do her sisters, but we can never have another child together. Not ever.
I pull back abruptly as I remember. It is never too far away from my thoughts, even though so many years have passed, I still can’t forget how Constantine tried to kill me and my unborn baby when he discovered about her existence. I know now it was Drake that told him. Inadvertently, but still, I could kill him for being such a fucking idiot. What did he think was going to happen?
“Maurelle will treat her well,” Vito says quietly, avoiding my sharp gaze, which lands on him suddenly.
“I am not concerned about that,” I say truthfully. Maurelle is besotted with her niece. Her mother’s namesake.
I couldn’t keep her away even if I was still a thirty-foot Dragon. Man, eighteen years have passed, and I still miss Her on occasion.