“Tell me what I want to know,” she purrs at him as she climbs onto his lap. “I can make you feel so good, if you just tell me where Delinda is.”
“I don’t know who Delinda is,” Cole says. “Stop this, Liv. I don’t know anything.”
“Do you really want me to stop?” she asks close to his ear and placing a little kiss on his neck.
“No,” he chokes out. He has missed her so much. “Don’t stop.”
She pushes him back to the bed and grinds down on him. She places her hands on either side of his head and says, “Open up to me, Cole. Let me in.”
“Anything for you,” he murmurs. He wants to be with her, he wants her to do everything she wants to him. He still loves her. He always will.
“Say it, Cole,” she murmurs. “Say I can have you.”
“You can have me, all of me,” he replies. He feels his mind go foggy and he blinks.
No, this isn’t right. Her touch is all wrong. This isn’t Liv.
He struggles to sit up, but she pushes him back down forcefully and holds him in place. She is really strong and there is an evil undercurrent of power passing through her and into him. Her nails dig into him, hurting him. “Liv,” he gasps, struggling for breath. It feels like his chest is being crushed.
“Shh,” she whispers. “It will all be over soon.”
He feels her fingers penetrate his head and he lets out a loud howl. Why is she doing this to him?
“Keep yourself open for me, Cole,” she says soothingly. “Let me have you.”
“Yes,” he gasps. “Have all of me.”
The last thing he sees before he passes out, is Liv Shift into her mother, an evil grin on Her face as she tears Her fingers from his head.
Whatever She was looking for, She found it.
Chapter 1
The Dark Fae Kingdom, September 2014 - Aefre
“Sis-sister,” I say and choke back the bile that is threatening to come up. I turn into CK and nearly vomit on his shoes. He holds me stiffly for a moment but then he pushes me away. I reach for him, needing him, needing his strength, but he holds his arms out to Sebastian and it is like a punch in the face, until he catches Delinda swiftly before Sebastian drops her on the ground, looking as white as a ghost. Delinda, fortunately not noticing the sheer repugnance on not only my face, but that of almost everyone else around her, giggles and plays with CK’s tie, swishing it from side to side and twirling it around her fingers. We all just stare at her for several long, long moments.
“How?” I ask, breaking the silence. “How is that even possible and how can you possibly tell?” I spin back to my father and Pyleah, who has come to and is fanning herself.
“Aelfric’s essence is all around her,” Pyleah says. “I was with him for nearly three thousand years, I would know it anywhere.”
“Sebastian is his son, maybe it is similar?” This makes perfect sense to me, but she is shaking her head and so is Drake.
“The child is not Kalen’s, Aeval. It is Aelfric’s,” he says with only a smidgen of disgust.
“But…but…” I stammer, trying to make sense of this. “It was months ago, I nearly died, I was in a coma, I Shifted to Dragon form and my mother tortured me with that Power boost! How did she hang on through all of that?”
“Firstly, Faerie pregnancies are a year long,” Drake says. “The timing tracks.” He stops speaking as we all remember my rape here all those months ago. “The rest I cannot explain. She is that powerful.”
“So, I was already pregnant during my first Heat,” I mutter mostly to myself in order to start to try and wrap my head around this. It makes me sick; I don’t even want to look at her, but how can I not? She is my daughter. No matter how she came about, no matter who her father was, she is mine. “I still don’t get why the Dragons were convinced she was theirs,” I say quietly, not wanting her to overhear me, although, it’s probably a little late for that.
“It is a rare, rare gift, Aeval,” Drake says. “She can take any magickal part of herself and adapt fully to her circumstances. It’s the strongest of the survival instincts.”
That makes me feel proud and kind of glad. If, for whatever reason, Remiel and my mother found out she was not the true heir, I dread to think what would have happened to her.
“Oh, the gods,” I whisper as it finally sinks in. I am feeling slightly faint myself now. CK is still occupied with Delinda, Sebastian looks worse than I feel, and all of my other men seem to have abandoned me over this news. I almost drop to the ground, but then Devon is there to hold me up.
“Thank you,” I say weakly.