“Dev, about the Shifting…”
“Don’t,” he croaks out. “Please. I just…can’t…”
“We need to talk about this. You know it doesn’t change anything…”
“It changes everything,” he interrupts me heatedly.
I turn to look at him with sorrow filling my heart.
“I love you just as much now as I did when I was Elizabeth. Nothing has changed for me,” I tell him, squeezing his hand.
“That’s easy for you to say, Lizzie,” he exclaims. “I am not the one that has changed. You are.”
“So you don’t love me anymore?” I ask him, not without a tinge of annoyance. But I need to get h
im to say it, so he can see that nothing has to change.
“Of course, I do,” he huffs out. “But the fact that I will never see Elizabeth ever again, hurts me. Devastates me. More than you can possibly imagine.”
I suddenly get the urge to throw up, as there is one very definite way, he can see Elizabeth again, and I know he is thinking about that too, as his cheeks have gone a bright red and Devon never does that.
“I wouldn’t,” he says quietly, but it’s hardly reassuring. He has already been there and could quite easily succumb to her again now, just to see his true sire.
“I’m so sorry, Dev…”
“Stop!” he exclaims. “That bitch…that cunt…is the one responsible for this.”
His word usage makes me cringe. He hates that word. I hate that word, even though it just about sums Jess up perfectly.
“I will never forgive her for this. I am glad that I was there to watch what Constantine did to her,” he adds.
“Ripped her head off?” I ask lightly, just to try and drag his attention away from the morose place he has descended into.
It works. He snorts with amusement. “And the rest. Just wish I’d managed a bit of limb tearing myself.”
“I love you,” I blurt out. “Please don’t let this affect what we have.”
He just shrugs and I know then and there that it’s too late. He doesn’t know it yet, but he has changed how he looks at me. Any chance we had at making it work went down the pan the second I lost my Dragon.
“I love you too,” he says gruffly, but leaves it at that. I know that this subject is as dead and buried as Elizabeth is. It hurts my heart, but he will never discuss this again with me. I have no idea what to do about the ring on my finger that he gave me.
Silently, he slings his arm around my waist, snuggling further into me. He lays his hand on my stomach and then freezes, we both do, at what happens next, ensuring the horrible subject of Elizabeth is well and truly brushed under the carpet.
“Erm, Lizzie?” he inquires, pulling his hand away quickly and sitting up. “Was that?”
“No!” I cry out and jump off the bed to stalk over to the window. I press my turbaned forehead to the cool pane and squeeze my eyes shut to block it out.
“That was…”
“It wasn’t!” I round on him vehemently. “It was nothing.”
“It was an electric shock, just like before… When did you fuck him?” he asks just this side of coldly.
“In the Fae Kingdoms,” I say quietly. “It was once. It was a mistake. I never meant for it to happen…”
“And yet…” He lets it hang there awkwardly between us.
“Dammit!” I cry, still not believing it to be true.