I turn around, ready with a sarcastic comment, but I stop dead, my mouth hanging open.
“Thought I might surprise you,” she says, her light Italian accent catching me off guard. “It has taken me some time to master this to get here.”
I stare at Empress Aefre and quick as lightning I am in front of her, grabbing her by the arm. “What are you doing here?” I hiss at her. “You need to leave, right now!”
She pulls her arm out of my grip and says, “Oh, I am not going anywhere, Liv. I have some things to say to you, and you will listen.”
“Hm, I’m sure you do,” I say with more than a bit of arrogance. “As it turns out, I have a few words of my own for you.”
We stare at each other for a few moments before I hiss, “I can look past the Cole and Devon thing, but you had no right to sleep with Sebastian. Do you know what a problem you caused me?”
She shrugs, unconcerned, and replies, “You had no right to go anywhere near either of my men, nor did you have the right to forgive Constantine for his actions and to top it all off the worst part is you giving Cassis your blessing on her marriage to that…to that man!” She stamps her foot and I can see a tantrum about to go down. I don’t have time for this. She must leave, if anyone comes in here and she spills the Other World beans, I am dead.
“Look,” I say quietly. “I understand you are mad at me for what I did. They thought I was you, I tried to resist, but it was hard. Constantine was so upset that you wouldn’t forgive him, it broke my heart. I shouldn’t have said what I did to him and I apologize. As for Cassis, I certainly had no intention of letting her marry that bastard had I been forced to stay in your World. I loathe that man more than anything in either of our Worlds so rest assured, Aefre, I would never have let it happen.”
She stares at me after my impassioned speech and looks away. “Thank you,” she says formally. “I accept your apology. I, too, have my own to extend to you. I had no right to do what I did with your men. I know that I caused a problem for you with Sebastian. But being in my body in my World, you must understand why I couldn’t stay away?”
I nod stiffly at her. “I accept. But you must leave now, no one here knows what I did and believe me when I say that no one can ever find out. Tiamat will have my head.”
She looks at me quizzically, but I don’t have time to explain it, so I brush her off.
“I am here to ask for your help. If you refuse, I will have no choice but to tell of your actions,” she says.
“Excuse me?” I ask, hands on my hips. “You are blackmailing me?”
“Yes,” she says boldly.
I gape at her before I say, “What do you want from me?” I am clearly going to have to give it to her as there is no way I can have her blabbing my secret.
“I need your help to go back to the past,” she says to my utter surprise. “I am incapable of managing it, it took everything I have just to get here. I know you are able, your Constantine told me what you did, and I need you to take me back to the past.”
“Whatever for?” I ask seconds before the penny drops. “Devon? You want to go back to your past and get Devon, don’t you? I bet you have already been for Cole. Am I right?” I step even closer to her, wanting answers.
“Yes,” she says. “I went to get Cole and I have turned him. But I want Devon as well. I want what you have with your charges. I want Devon.”
“I can’t help you,” I say. “I cannot go back to your past to bring him into your present. It would be catastrophic if he was supposed to live. What if he got married and had kids who went on to, I don’t know, invent something, something important? You can’t do this.” I cross my arms to make my point. I p
ush away the thought that I am very much planning to go and get Fraser from my own past to bring him here, but that is different. He died. To bring him here would change nothing.
“I have thought about everything you are saying, but I am willing to risk it,” she says. “It is my World to worry about.”
Well, she does have a point. It won’t be any skin off my nose if she sets off a chain of events that destroys her World.
“Have you researched it? Do you know if he married and had children?” That thought makes me queasy. In fact, this whole conversation is making me a bit nauseous. I had wondered if she would go for Cole, but it never occurred to me she would want to go back in time for Devon.
She shakes her head. “It will take too much time, I don’t have it,” she says.
“Why not?” I ask and my eyes zero straight in on her stomach where her hand is resting, and I feel myself go pale. “Oh gods,” I whisper. “Oh gods, you are pregnant, aren’t you? With Sebastian’s child. Oh, gods, did it happen while I was over there?” I really don’t want to know the answer to that question, but when her eyes go cold, I get my confirmation.
“Yes,” she snaps at me. “I hope you are happy with yourself that I wasn’t even there at the conception of my own child.”
I bring my hand to my mouth, absolutely mortified. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, but it falls on deaf ears.
“There is only one way you can make it up to me,” she says stiffly.
I nod at her, because I can’t refuse her request. Not now, not after this revelation. I feel awful. “I will make my excuses and come to you tomorrow, we will go from there. But you know that it is two in, two out?”
She looks at me in confusion, so I explain, “I can’t bring Devon forward unless I take someone with me.”