Aefre looks up at him in annoyance, but he knows her features well enough by now. He has studied them and he knows when she is tired.
“Very well,” Drake says. “Be back here at sunrise tomorrow. Jerrick will be waiting for you at the border.”
To Sebastian’s relief, she nods and goes to hug her father goodbye. He understands there is some urgency to her visit, she has made that clear, but she cannot go into the lion’s den fatigued. She will be eaten alive, or worse, captured and held prisoner while Thrace tries to get her with child. That thought does not sit well with him at all. He wants to tell her he will go with her, but he was banished and threatened with execution should he ever step foot on Light lands again. He would do it for her, but she won’t allow it. He knows her well enough by now not to even bother suggesting it.
“Come,” he says and tugs her hand. She relinquishes herself to him and wraps her arms around him. Drake looks on approvingly and with a slight nod, he transports them straight back to her Underworld home.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Constantine growls at them as soon as they appear in the library.
“I can explain,” Aefre says quickly, still so eager to keep him pleased.
Sebastian keeps his hold on her so that he can keep Aeval in control, but Constantine grips her other arm and she gasps in pain, her face scrunching up as, he assumes, two of her personalities duke it out. He doesn’t like to see it and knows he is causing her this agony, so he lets her go. Constantine is smug and he wants to hit him and tell him he did it for her. If Constantine loved her half as much as Sebastian does, he would have done the same and let her go.
“Please,” she gasps. “I can’t take it.” She sits heavily on the sofa, but Constantine doesn’t let go of her. He is sitting very close to her and he must know what she has been up to. Sebastian wonders if he knows with whom after all this time.
“Didn’t Xane come to find you?” she asks after a minute.
“No, was he supposed to?” Constantine growls at her.
“Well, I didn’t ask him to, I just assumed he would.” She sighs and shakes her head.
“If he so much as sets foot in this house, I will kill him,” Constantine says.
“No,” Aefre says quickly. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” Sebastian asks, eager to get back in on the conversation.
“Because he helped me,” she says. “He was the one who told me where they were and kept Corinne and her guards away from me for long enough.”
Sebastian nods grimly. “Fair enough,” he mutters.
“What are you talking about?” Constantine asks and Sebastian really wants to be the one to tell him that Aefre rescued Vito and then fucked the living daylights out of him.
“I released the Dark Fae who were being held captive for their blood,” she says stiffly and stands up and away from Constantine.
Sebastian feels immense satisfaction as he sees Constantine pale and swallow loudly.
“Aefre,” he says. “I can explain.”
“No,” she says, holding her hand up to stop him from touching her. “You cannot explain to me why you took your own man, a man you called ‘friend,’ and did that to him. There is no explanation that you can come up with to defend your actions to me.”
Sebastian watches this with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face. He does so love to see her stand up to Constantine. It is a thrill that sends an arrow of lust through him, not only for her, but for his sire as well.
“He was going to take you away from me,” Constantine says, recovering his attitude quickly and glaring at her for daring to talk down to him. “I had to do everything in my power to stop that from happening.”
“Not that,” she whispers, shaking her head. “Not that.”
She looks completely downtrodden and Sebastian goes to her, but before he can reach her, Xane pops in out of nowhere, right next to her, and takes her by the arm. Both he and Constantine growl at him, as he clearly has a sense of what is going on in her head as well. Xane glances at both of them with a look of triumph as Aefre–or should that be Xerxei?–smiles up at him.
“Thank you for your help. I got them home,” she says to him.
“It was my pleasure, beautiful,” he smarms at her and kisses her hand. “We need to talk.”
She nods her acceptance and without another word, he Astraports her off to the gods know where before Sebastian can stop him.
Constantine turns to him with a look of absolute fury. “She fucked him, didn’t she?” he asks, his eyes having gone that very eerie red that now signifies his total loss of control.
“Yes,” Sebastian says, not caring if they go for round two right here, right now. “More than once by the looks of it.”