“How do you think?” I reply.
“Shit?” he asks. “I know you didn’t want Sebastian to die, but what he did to you was unforgivable, Lizzie. Just because he is dead, don’t ever forget that.”
“Humph,” I mutter and climb off the bed to go to the window. After a long pause, I say, “I used to stare out of this hole in the wall all day, from sunrise to sunset, until Constantine came to put me to bed. It started off so small, just an arrow slit, until he knocked it through for me, stone by stone in a painstaking job that took someone months to accomplish so as not to destroy the structure.”
Devon remains silent, wanting to hear stories I have never told him.
“It was viciously cold in winter. I weirdly felt it from the starvation, but I welcomed the fresh air and the chance to escape, even though I was bound by these very four walls. It took me so long to come back to myself, they owed me the truth, Devon. I should have known.”
“And what would you have done?” he asks.
“Probably freaked out even more. Tried to throw myself off the battlements as Vito once accused me of trying to do,” I add with a small laugh.
“What?” Devon splutters.
“I wasn’t trying to,” I point out wryly. “I was trying to see in the dark. My night vision failed me when I was starving myself.”
“Oh,” he says with a frown.
“I guess we will never know,” I say. “It was my fault, Dev. All my fault.” I place my hand on the cold glass, keeping my back turned to him.
“Lizzie, no. You have to stop believing that,” he says, keeping his distance as he knows I need him to.
“Not Lance,” I say, shaking my head. “Sebastian. If it weren’t for me, he never would have gone back to the Fae Kingdoms, he would never have killed his brother, he would never have become King. He would never have turned into…his father.”
To my surprise, he stays quiet. No platitudes or assurances that I am wrong.
“Huh,” I say, nodding my head slightly. “You agree with me.”
“So what if I do?” he says carefully. “It was you, but you had no choice, Lizzie. Your life got turned so far upside down, all of us were floundering. None of us had any idea what to do, or what to say or how to act. We all made mistakes. Every single one of us fucked up royally, pardon the pun. But all of that is behind us now. We have to move on and face what happens next.”
“And what’s that?” I ask, finally turning back around.
“A Vampire war and then who knows?” he says with a shrug.
“What do you think I should do about the Vampires?” I ask him.
“Why ask me? Ask your husband. He ruled them for over two thousand years,” he says.
“I am asking you,” I say. “As my husband-to-be.” He beams at me.
“Take back control,” he says quickly. “Show them that they can’t mess with you.”
“Which would mean being Queen again,” I complain. “I don’t want that.”
“So put Constantine and Remiel in charge, whatever, it doesn’t have to be you. But if you don’t do something, they will keep on coming,” Devon says.
“If I don’t give them back their Silver, they will still keep on coming,” I say bitterly.
“So, speak to Vito. Maybe he will be willing to share,” he says with a loud guffaw. “Speaking of….”
I roll my eyes at him, knowing he was only kidding. But it does pose a large insurmountable problem. “Go on,” I say with a sigh.
“He is so in love with you. What are you going to do about it?” he says bluntly.
“I don’t know,” I reply honestly and then suddenly, I blurt out the information that I have been sitting on for a few days now, needing him to know. “He was the father of the murdered child.”
“He what?” he bellows at me, sitting up from where he had been lounging on the bed. “I thought….”