“Liv!” a voice shouts. It’s Cole. I am at the door in a flash and yank it open.
“Cole.” I fling myself into his arms, but he pushes me away giving me a ‘who the Hell are you?’ look.
“Cole. Baby. It’s me,” I say to him and he looks twice.
“Liv?” he asks incredulously.
I nod. “Well, Xerxei, actually. But yes, it’s me.” I push him out into the corridor and grab his hand. I head for the stairs and take them two at a time, dragging him up with me as I push open the door to our suite. “Are you okay? What are you doing here?” I ask him in concern. He pulls me closer to him and kisses me but then stops as he inhales deeply and mutters, “Devon.”
“Sorry,” I mutter back. “I will go and get showered.”
“No, it can wait,” he says. “I need to be near to you. After you told me about Devon, I had to come. I knew you would be in knots about it. And him,” he adds as an afterthought. “I just told them I was coming, and I’d be back Monday, and it was tough shit if they didn’t like it.”
I love his boldness. “I’m glad you’re here. But tell me, how do you feel?”
“Like crap,” he admits. “I was fine until I got on the plane and then I just felt…alone. Completely alone. Abandoned,” he whispers. “I didn’t know if it was because you were so far away or if something had happened to you. I tried to call but I couldn’t get through from the plane’s phone. Then my cell battery died so I just rushed straight here from McCarran. I ran into Nico downstairs and he told me where you all were.”
“Oh, Cole. There is something I need to tell you.” I explain my tale of woe to him and he is trying not to panic, as am I, but we both seem to fail miserably.
“No longer a Vampire? That means you are no longer my sire, Liv. What does that mean exactly, for me? For us?”
“I don’t know,” I touch his face, expecting a charge like reaction, but there is nothing. Shit.
An insistent knocking on the door distracts me and I go to open it, more for time to think than out of a need to know who it is.
“Xerxei,” Xane says as he steps into the suite, “I knew you would come.” He leans down to kiss me. I put a hand to his chest as Cole barks, “Get your hands off my wife.”
Xane looks up and acknowledges Cole for the first time, although I am sure he knew he was there all along. “Your wife? You must be Cole. I am Xane.”
“Yes, I have heard about you,” Cole says unpleasantly.
Xane just smiles in response and his eyes return to me.
“Xane, I have an issue. I Shifted earlier inadvertently, and I can’t Shift back. I am no longer a Vampire and it is destroying my bonds. I need to get back to the real me.”
“Maybe this is the real you,” he says slyly.
“Xane!” I snap. “This is serious.”
He sighs. “You say you are no longer a Vampire? At all?”
I shake my head.
“It may be that for all your mother’s wishes your Vampire self is the strongest part of you. The part you need to be whole. It may be that the wards are preventing you from Shifting.”
I stare at him, it makes perfect sense, “Are you saying that somehow I have lost my Qu
eenly ability because I am not a Vampire anymore?” I ask. His insight is pretty helpful.
“Have you tried to do other magick?” he asks.
“I tried to magick up an outfit, but I couldn’t. I thought I was just tired.” I try to Astral and nothing. “I can’t Astral.” I try to light the candles and still nothing. Cole steps closer.
“You need to get out from behind the wards and try.”
“I have a house not far from here that isn’t protected,” Xane says, grabbing my arm. “Come.” He Astraports me out as I yell to him, “Wait, Cole….” but it’s too late, we are standing in the sitting room of a dark house a few miles away from the hotel.
“For fuck's sake, Xane. You cannot just exclude my husband like that. And how come you can Astraport?”