“Yes, it’s me,” he snaps at me. “I told you before, Aefre. Things have changed. I have changed. My priority lies with my daughter now. You are free to be…ahem…you.”
I glare at him in anger. How can be bring this up again knowing how insecure it made me last time? Clearly, Frederick being here has done nothing to ensure his attitude towards me has changed.
“Well, thank you for the permission to ‘be me,’” I drawl sarcastically. “But you ask a question I do not have the answer to.”
“So that’s a ‘no’?” he ventures cautiously.
“It’s an ‘I don’t know,’ Constantine. I have other things to concern myself with presently and Remiel, he won’t….” Shit. Wrong thing to say. “You are allowed to ask me to stay away,” I amend quickly for his benefit. “I may not pay heed, but you can ask.” I feel I must add that.
His eyes go darker and now I feel like I have messed up this entire conversation. But he dropped the grenade without warning, and I have absolutely no idea how to answer his question.
“I will not beg you to remain within your bonds,” he spits at me.
“That’s not what I meant,” I wail at him. “This was unfair, CK. You caught me off-guard.”
“The best time to get a true reaction, my sweet. Or did you forget?”
“No, I didn’t forget,” I say meekly. “For now, no, I don’t plan on resuming my relations with him. I will let you know if that changes.” What else can I say? And furthermore, how can I even begin to resume my relations anyway? He beat all the love that I had for that man out of me, over thirty consecutive days. I don’t even know how to begin to start over with him, even though, in my heart, I want to. I loved him more than words can say. Perhaps not more than I loved my sire (of the time), and probably not more than I loved Fraser, but more than anyone else I have been in love with after he was ripped from my arms and sent away. I know how that sounds. Believe me. I do. It doesn’t diminish how I feel about any of the men in my life, right now. Or any of the men that I have loved over the centuries. But what we had…surpassed just love. It was…putting it into words is difficult. Especially now, as I am not supposed to feel this way anymore. Constantine made sure of that a long, long time ago.
“That’s all I ask,” CK says stiffly and turns on his heel to head down the main staircase.
I sigh with annoyance at him. He started all of this with his jealous rage. If he wanted Frederick to stay away indefinitely, he should have killed him. Banishing him was an unusual punishment for him at the time, where to kill anything that got in his way was his first instinct. I have no idea what he got out of that particular arrangement. Clearly, something though or he would have just killed him, of that I have no doubt. It was a fear I had every time I met up with my lover. I knew it would enrage Constantine, but I just couldn’t stay away. My life was not worth living without him in it at the time. Who knows what would have happened, had we been able to pursue our relationship? It is definitely something that I haven’t stopped thinking about since Frederick returned to me. Along with why it took him so long. It makes me hesitant. Surely if he wanted me, he would have tried to contact me sooner after he thought CK had calmed down, or on the many, many times we were apart in the last five hundred years. I huff out in exasperation. Men! They are all the fucking same. I wish that I didn’t need them so much, as they mess with my head, and my heart, so much. How nice it would be to just be happy on my own, with my girls to keep me company.
“Rah!” I spit out but turn and head in the opposite direction to where CK went and into the right wing. A few corners later, I make my way down the winding, narrow staircase. The main one was reconstructed centuries ago to be wider and straighter, but all the little back cases are exactly the same. It is pitch black and my footsteps echo as I make my way down.
I am almost upon Frederick before I sense him. He is sitting on the third-to-last step, smoking a cigarette.
“Move,” I say to him, irrationally pissed off with him because of CK’s questions and all of racing thoughts about him.
“So, fucking rude, mi’ lady,” he answers with a smirk, but stands up to let me pass anyway.
“What is your game here?” I ask as I push past him but then turn back to face him in the darkened corridor.
He gives me a quizzical look, his black eyes like two deep pits of nothing in the dark. “Game?” he inquires. “I am merely smoking a cigarette. A bad habit, to be sure, but hardly likely to kill me.” He reaches out to pull my hairband loose, letting my hair cascade down my back before he fists his hand into it to draw me closer.
“You are a tease, Frederick.” I push on his solid chest to get him away from me. He confuses me. One minute he is all in and then he fucks off leaving me wanting. This is why I haven’t decided what to do about him. Us. I don’t know if letting him back into my heart is going to make it or break it. I have no idea if he still feels anything for me or if this is all a game to piss CK off. He won’t tell me, and until he does...I simply cannot let myself think about a future with him again.
He chuckles quietly at me. “A tease? I have been called many a name in my day, but never a tease. I see what I want, and I take it.” His tone has gone ice-cold and it makes me shiver.
“I guess you don’t want me then,” I manage to get out, shoving him harder so that he stumbles back from me. “So, what are you doing?”
His eyes flash and it both thrills me and scares me. “Do you want me to take you, mi’ lady?” he murmurs instead of answering me.
“Do you want t
o?” By all appearances, he does. But then his demeanor changes and it twists my heart into a small ball.
Again, he chuckles. “All you have to do is ask.”
“Never,” I say, regaining some of my composure. “You want me, come and get me.” I turn around and stalk off, only getting two steps away before he has me pressed against the cold, stone wall. Again.
“It has been a long time since I took a woman who wanted me,” he whispers menacingly in my ear.
“You are so full of bluster,” I whisper back, deliberately reminding him of words I said to him that first time we had a proper interaction on the roadside to Florence back in 1452. “You had plenty of chances to rape me and you never did.”
He chokes back the noise of surprise at my harsh words. “If I recall, the first time I took you, I ripped your skirts and had you bent over a desk with your cheek pressed against the hard wood and a hand on your back. I had every intention of raping you.”
I remember that. It had scared me for all of a second, before I knew what I wanted from him. It had been as sexy as hell and an encounter that has left its mark on me in a big way. I can already feel myself get wet when I remember him taking me that way the first time. “Oh, please. You don’t scare me, Frederick. Do you really think you could have gotten me into such a position if I didn’t want to be there?” I boast to his utmost astonishment, throwing him off his game to my delight.