“Livvie, please. This isn’t what you think,” Devon pleads with me, his hand outstretched.
Livvie? He called me Livvie. My brain tries to make sense of this, but it is exactly how it looks.
“Oh, now,” the skank drawls and I turn to ice. “It is exactly how it looks.”
My heart turns to stone as I recognize her New York accent. “YOU!” I bellow at Other Liv and fire a blast of Faerie magick at her so hard, she goes careening off into the woods, hitting several trees on the way before falling into a heap on the floor. I ignore Devon’s pleas for the moment as I just can’t look at him. I march off after her and find her just getting to her feet.
“What the fuck?” she yells at me. “What the fuck was that?”
I blast her again, wanting to set her on fire for daring to go anywhere near what’s mine. She yelps as the agony rips through her. She’s not so tough after all. Seems I can beat her and so help me god, I am going to beat her, to death, preferably. I fire
a stream of lightning at her and she spasms as it hits her, but she recovers quickly and draws on her own magick. She is pissed, but she has no right to be.
“I have every right to take what is yours,” she says to me, seeing my thoughts on my cursed face. “You are taking mine from me, so I am taking what is most precious from you, you bitch.” She sends a stream of Dragon fire my way, but I dodge it and douse the burning trees with a nice little Dark Fae weather system. I dodge another blast and roll out of its way through the bracken, coming up in a crouch, and firing her again with the ice-cold lightning I saw Drake use and that I used on Xane. She screams and I straighten up. Definitely should have opted for fighting gear, I think as I check to see if my shoes are still in one piece.
Fortunately for her, my Louboutins remain intact and I stride up to her, my fist ready.
“What the Hell are you?” she chatters to me.
I peer at her curiously and all of a sudden it strikes me. All this time and I never even noticed. She doesn’t have the Fae markings!
“Just a little something courtesy of my father,” I say to her and enjoy her shock.
“You know who our father is?” she says, stunned.
“I know who my father is!” I shout in her face. I want some physical contact with her, my knuckles are itching to bruise her. I punch her square in the face, flattening her and scream, “You are nothing to do with me. Leave this place and don’t ever return.”
She Astrals off in shock, bleeding and shaking, and I take in a deep breath as I turn back and see everyone watching me. I storm past them all and slam Devon up against a tree. “How could you?” I spit out at him. “With her? After everything you came to me about the other night. What you asked me? You fucking Substituted me with another World version, it is disgusting.” I let him go and the adrenaline rush from the fight disappears as quickly as it came. I feel nauseous. My stomach is churning as I say to him, “You disgust me. I change my answer to ‘no’, not ever, you fucking prick! I never want to see you again.”
“No!” he grabs my arms. “Livvie no, don’t say that.” He has tears in his eyes, but I feel nothing. This betrayal reaches down into my very essence and rips it into a million pieces. “I can explain,” he says in desperation. “I never meant to…”
“Save it,” I say and shake him off. “We all saw what you were doing. It couldn’t have been spelled out more clearly.”
“Lizzie, please.” He reverts to his name for me and it furthers my resolve.
“Is that what you called her?” I ask in absolute revulsion and walk away. “I will never forgive you for this, Devon. Never!”
I start to run and as I pass Jess, I see her looking on calmly. She knew about this. It’s obvious. The bile rises in my throat and I really regret eating that sandwich before. I clamp my hand to my mouth as I run, or I am going to lose it all over my Louboutins. I hear everyone following me and I make it to the terrace, but no further. I grab hold of a nearby rose bush, the thorns digging into my palm as I lean into it and throw up the entire contents of my stomach. I am devastated and furious. No wonder he couldn’t look me in the eye, he would have been thinking about hers. Oh gods, please don’t let him have been with her before I threw myself at him as Elizabeth. But I know that he was. All his actions now scream at me, making sense. I bend over again and retch until my stomach hurts. How could he ask me to marry him when he was screwing that whore behind my back? Or maybe that’s what this was. Guilt.
I can feel everyone hovering and I feel so foolish. He has made me look like the biggest fool on the planet. I am glad now that I didn’t say anything to anyone about his proposal. This is worse than CK’s Substitutes. He never found an actual Other me to fuck. I stand up straight and wipe my mouth. I pluck my palm from the thorns and walk up the stairs with what remaining dignity I have left, which is almost nothing.
I enter my bathroom and rinse my mouth out. I am never eating food again. Even as I think that my stomach growls and CK hands me a bottle of blood. He looks more than cautious and so he should. This has dredged up everything I have tried to forget about him. “Aefre,” he says softly, but I shake my head. “I can’t think about it, or speak about it,” I say.
“Okay,” he says and pats my shoulder. It starts my tears and I fall weeping into his arms. Cole consoles me as well, stroking his hand down my back to soothe V.A.
“Liv,” he says. “Hear him out…”
“Do not defend him to me, Cole. He has pissed on everything that we meant to each other by doing this. It’s, it’s unforgivable.” I step back from them both and dry my eyes. This has been the day from Hell and I just want a bath to soak away the disgust and despair of this betrayal. I take the cap off the blood bottle. Holding it to my lips, I tilt it back. I find myself gulping back a mouthful of air as it has suddenly vanished from my hand.
“I wouldn’t drink that if I were you,” Remiel says as he tips it down the drain.
“What? Why? Grrrrr, you!” I forget about his lethal claws and lunge towards him with my own extended. He grabs my hands and holds me effortlessly away from him.
“Calm yourself, my dear. I just saved you from drinking poison,” he says.
I stop struggling as I take in his words. “What?” I ask again as CK and Cole advance on him. He holds his hand out and it has them slamming back against the wall, completely immobile.
“You two, stay out of this,” he says and wags his finger at them and then runs his hand over my stomach lovingly. “I need you healthy and strong for our baby,” he adds, and his all-too familiar piercing blue eyes find mine and I look down in dread at his hand stroking me. It wasn’t a dream; it wasn’t a Heat-induced delusion. It was him! He Astrals us off, leaving my two husbands alone in the bathroom.