“Go and get some blood. You are looking like you are about to go feral on me.”
“Sorry,” she mumbles. “I am still so hungry all the time.”
“I know. It won’t be much longer,” I try to reassure her. “Meeting dismissed,” I say then, suddenly really tired. Everyone stands as I walk back to the bedroom. “Oh, and one more thing,” I say over my shoulder. “Will one of you please find me a loner Vamp? An unproductive member of society, preferably one with no charges and no sire.”
“May we ask why?” Lincoln asks.
“Because two go, two come back, and Fraser is coming home. To me.”
Chapter 21
What happens next is quite comical. Had I not been deadly serious about my intentions, I would have laughed. A lot.
Almost in slow motion, they all turn to me, mouths hanging open in shock. I brace myself for the barrage that is headed my way and it comes. In spades.
Cole reaches me first and grips my arm. “Liv!” he says desperately. “You can’t do that.”
I don’t hear the rest of what he is saying to me over the shouts from the rest of the group. They all descend on me and I take a step back. Cade pushes his way to the front of the crowd and stands in front of me. “Get back!” he snaps at them, and I go over all mushy at his defense of me. He pushes me back into the bedroom and closes the door on everyone still yelling at me that I can’t do what I said I was going to do.
“What’s the big deal?” I ask him. “I mean, I expected some complaints but geez.”
Cade shakes his head at me. “Liv. You cannot just go to a parallel universe and take one of its people.”
“It’s not just any people. It’s Fraser.”
“Look, I get that he meant a lot to you, but you can’t replace him with…well, himself. It’s not right.”
“I don’t care about right. I care about him. Being here with me, like he was supposed to be.” I start crying then and he stands there awkwardly, looking at me. He shuffles forward to pat me stiffly on the back and I find a small amount of comfort in it as, for him, that is like giving me a bear hug.
“Liv.” Cole pushes the door open and comes to me as he sees me crying. “We’re sorry, we didn’t mean to crowd you. Please come back out and talk about this.”
“There is nothing to talk about,” I sniffle.
“I beg to differ,” CK says from the doorway. “There is a whole hell of a lot to talk about.”
Cole takes my hand and leads me back into the sitting room where everyone is sitting, nice and quiet, albeit with varying degrees of horror on their faces at my declaration.
“Liv, sweetie,” Lincoln starts. “The Lance creature was probably lying just to unnerve you. Fraser is probably not still alive over there.” He looks at me sadly.
“Why wouldn’t he be? It makes perfect sense that he would be alive because Gregor would be dead,” I state much to everyone's confusion.
“What?” Devon asks. “I don’t quite follow your logic.”
I sigh impatiently. “I became Queen there five hundred and seven years ago, which means I would have killed Gregor and Eloise in 1506. That is two hundred and forty years before Fraser was killed by Gregor at Culloden. It also means that she got more time with him. Enough time to be able to turn him.”
Realization dawns on them as they hear my words and I can see the dread seeping into each and every one of them that, by this rational argument, it is, in fact, very likely that Fraser is still alive in the alternate universe.
“Regardless, my sweet. You cannot go there with someone from here and leave them there so you can bring him here. You will cause all sorts of damage to the timelines.”
“I think we did enough damage when we went on our travels, this won’t make much difference.”
“It will. Even if he is alive, who is to say that he is the same man you knew and fell in
love with?” he asks softly.
Everyone waits with bated breath as I think that over.
“It doesn’t matter who he is now. Of course, he will be different. She turned him. He is a Vampire now. He has seen and done things that he wouldn’t have done here.”