He scrunches his eyes shut as he disturbs Arathia. She lets out a yell so loud it sends Devon running into the room, his hands outstretched to scoop up his daughter.
He resents it.
He shouldn’t. He should be pleased that there is someone there to help her should she find herself in need of assistance.
It just bugs the shit out of him that, firstly, it was Devon and secondly that at the moment, he was the one who disturbed her by crying out.
“Jesus,” Devon mutters as he sees Constantine on his knees, gripping the bars of the crib. “What happened?”
“Aefre,” he chokes out around the pain. He has never felt anything like it. He knows this has happened to her and therefore, he is feeling it. “They...they are torturing her.” He struggles to his feet and quickly pulls his shirt off before his healing kicks in and molds the fabric to his skin. He can only hope that Aefre is able to do the same. As the pain subsides when he heals, he has a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He can still feel a residue of the pain. She isn’t healing. It makes him catch his breath. She is burnt and in agony and she can’t heal herself.
Constantine stuffs his shirt into Devon’s still outstretched hands and picks up his daughter to console. She settles once again almost instantly. Going back to sleep in his arms. He rocks her gently for a few seconds before he places her back down and stalks out of the room with Devon hot on his heels.
“Explain,” the boy barks at him to his annoyance.
“Excuse me?” he asks, glaring down his nose at his wife’s charge.
“Why do you have Lizzie’s wounds? Or did have?” Devon asks, looking more than confused.
“Long story,” Constantine replies shortly.
“Spill it,” Devon demands, shoving Constantine’s shirt back at him.
Constantine snatches it off him and throws it on his bed. He contemplates his answer while he rifles through his armoire for another. Dragging it over his shoulders, he purses his lips. “Aefre’s life is tied to mine. We did a spell to make her invulnerable. It may have unintentionally backfired, a little bit.”
“A little bit?” Devon repeats suspiciously. “How?”
“We feel one another’s pain…and pleasure,” Constantine answers him, giving him a level glare. “But I am certain that she cannot be killed. At least not by anything other than the sword with which no one no longer has access to.”
“You have to be joking,” Devon splutters. “She agreed to this?” His incredulity pisses Constantine off. Okay, so he obviously knows that Aefre wouldn’t have agreed to it, but still.
“Of course,” he says stiffly.
“Humph,” Devon mutters, seeing straight through him. “You mean you went ahead, and did it and she agreed to it after it was done.”
Constantine refuses to dignify that with an answer, so he turns his back to stare out of the window.
“Why can’t you get to her then? If your lives are so inextricably tied?” Devon asks the question that has been needling at him all this time.
“A damn good question,” he mutters. “I have spoken to her. Contacted her in my head, but her location is shrouded by a cloud of magick so powerful, even I couldn’t penetrate it.”
“I don’t understand that,” Devon says, shaking his head.
“Neither do I. Point is. I don’t know where she is. And before you ask, yes, she has tried to call her pain-in-the-ass-sire, but he can’t hear her.”
“Have you?” Devon asks. “I tried.” He shrugs.
“Obviously,” Constantine says witheringly. “Aefre sent him to the Dragon Realms to look after Delinda and told him not to come back for anything. Like the stubborn fool that she is!” His heated outburst causes Devon to take a step back and he calms himself visibly. Getting angry with her won’t help her and she is in need of assistance in the worst way. “We have to help her,” he adds forlornly.
“How?” Devon asks desperately. “Tell me what to do and I will do it.”
Constantine turns to him to see the urgency on his face. The sheer panic that his sire might be lost to him. Again.
“I don’t know yet,” he admits, closing his eyes hoping inspiration will strike. Unfortunately, it does not.
“Think, man,” Devon urges him. “We are running out of time.”
Constantine grits his teeth and ignores him. No one needs to tell him that. With Aefre about to go on trial for her crimes, he is one hundred percent positive that there will be a list a mile long with Gustav being only the tip of the iceberg; the actual reason she is there. It will be a free-for-all once she is in the dock and he knows that she will get blamed for far worse than just the things that she has done.