Trials (The Forever Series, Book 6) (23 page)

I breathe in deeply. “Fine. But I get my free week. The only
people I will be spending any time with is Cade and Xane. And Jess,” I add.
“Oh, and Cole.” I smile at him and he glows.

“No fair,” Devon grumbles.

“I will still see you, baby. I just can’t dedicate my days
to you. Any of you.”

“Why me?” Jess says, not happy to be singled out.

“You are my assistant, are you not?” I ask her. “Plus I said
we would do some training of our own.”

“Oh,” she frowns at me.

“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 Vampire? 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 11

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.”

“Aefre, you cannot go after him.”

“I can and I am going to.”

“And what then?” he asks, now losing the gentle, soothing
voice in favor of his annoyed tone. “You bring him here and then what? You pick
up where you, not he, left off? Which leaves the rest of us where, precisely?”

“Is that why you are trying to talk me out of this? Because
you think I will run off with him and get our happily ever after?”

“Well, will you?” he asks.

“No, of course not,” I say vehemently, much to the relief of
everyone in the room. “But if there is even the slightest chance that he, any
version of him, is alive and well, I want him here with me.”

“Liv,” Cole says quietly. “Don’t do this. I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t,” I say to him, taking his hand. “None of you
will. There is a space here for him and he will fill it again.” As far as I am
concerned this discussion is closed so I pull my hand out of Cole’s and go to
the bedroom. I close the door quietly and heave a sigh as I get undressed. “I
will come for you, my love. I will not leave you at the hands of that woman,” I
whisper as I sink to the bed and fall asleep before my head hits the pillow.

I stir when Cole joins me but I am too tired to move. He
sighs and drapes his arm around me. I want to give him comfort, so he knows
that I won’t abandon him when Fraser gets here, but I am exhausted and sleep
pulls me under once again. I dream of Fraser. Regular dreams, not the fake
ones. I must have hurt The Thirteen more than I thought. I thought it was going
to come back at me with its remaining five but they stay away from my dreams.
Thankfully. Or at least up to a point. I am lying in the bed in the hotel in
Toronto and I open my eyes. I stare straight into the mossy green eyes of
Fraser.

“Morning, lass,” he whispers, giving me that perfect smile I
miss so much. My heart lurches. I know this is a dream, one of the fake ones,
but I don’t care. I am going to go with it because it means I am with him.

“I have missed waking up with you,” I murmur as I lean
forward to kiss him.

“I have missed you too. Every day. I didn’t get enough time
with you, Emmie. I didn’t get to tell you how much I loved you. But we can be
together now. As we should have been.”

“I love you too,” I whisper. He pulls me to him and I can
feel his muscles rippling under his shirt. I rip it off him, much to his
delight and he pulls me onto his lap.

“Make love to me, Emmie. I want you so much.”

I know in the back of my head that this isn’t real but he
feels so real and I want to. Dream me wants to make love to him more than
anything.

I kiss him tenderly and he kisses me back, desperately
pushing his hands into my hair. I can feel him hard against me and I trail my
hand in between us, eager to get my hands on him.

“Oh yes,” he sighs as I touch him. “Just how I remembered.”

He brings his hands up to squeeze my breasts and I moan at
his touch.

“Liv!” I hear Cole’s voice in the dream but I ignore him as
I kiss Fraser again, bringing my hands up to cup his face as he moves his down
to my hips.

“Liv!” I hear Cole again this time, desperate. “Shit!” he
yells. “Get here now.”

I have no idea what he is saying, I just want him to go away
and leave me to my precious dream.

“Aefre!” Constantine barks at me.

Oh for fuck's sake. Can’t a girl be left alone with her
dreams in this place?

“Aefre, get away from him.”

I pull away from Fraser and turn finally to glare at my
worried sire and Cole.

“Will you go away and leave me and my husband in peace,
please?” I snap at them and Cole’s face drops as he hears my words.

“Aefre. Get away from him,” Constantine says again this time,
stepping closer but not able to reach me.

“Do as the lady says,” Fraser says, looking smug. “Leave.”

“Get your hands off her right now,” Constantine hisses at
him.

“Or what? She quite clearly is happy to be here with me.
Leave us.”

“Yes, go. I am happy here. I want to stay in this dream,” I
say.

“Aefre, this is not a dream, my love,” Constantine says
worriedly and I cast a quick glance at Cole who has a matching expression.

“Yes it is. It is my dream and I don’t want you two in it.
Go.”

“Liv, baby. This is not a dream. That isn’t Fraser,” Cole
says, holding his hand up gently.

I look at Fraser who is looking back at me perplexed. “I am
your husband,” he says. “I love you, Emmie.”

“Liv. You are not dreaming, my love. This is real but that
isn’t Fraser. You need to get away from him right now.”

I frown at him. “This is a dream,” I insist.

He shakes his head, stepping forward, but again not getting
close enough to me to reach me. He holds his hand up carefully as if scared he
might frighten me off. “Come to me, Liv.”

“No,” I say. “I want to be with Fraser.” Why does he keep
insisting that this is not a dream? I know it is a dream because Fraser is
dead. And yet I can feel him under me now, feel his hands tighten on my hips. I
put my hands on his chest to feel him.

“Look at your rings, Liv,” Cole says to me. “Look at them.
That is what is real. I love you. We are married. Come here to me, please.”

“This isn’t a dream?” I ask, shaking my head.

Cole and Constantine shake their heads, “No, Liv. This is
reality. You need to come to me now.”

“Don’t listen to them. Stay with me,” Fraser says as he
plays with my hair to distract me. It does distract me. I don’t look like
Emily, I look like Liv. Every time I dream about Fraser I always look like
Emily. Every time in the last two hundred and sixty-seven years. I pull away
from him confused and scramble to the edge of the bed pulling the sheet up over
me.

Fraser sighs, “What gave me away? I was fairly certain I was
believable.”

I stare back at him, dumbstruck. This isn’t a dream, this is
reality, and I have just been sitting on and kissing The Thirteen who has taken
on the guise of my dead husband. I was ready to make love to him and it was all
real? My heart breaks as I look at him, “How dare you? How dare you use him to
get to me.” I call the sword to my hand ready to take out this thing that has
manipulated me for the last time.

“Oh now, now. We don’t need to go through that again,” he
says as he stands up.

“I will kill you for this. I will find the way,” I say
through gritted teeth as he stares at me through the eyes of my beloved dead
Fraser.

“Not if I get to you first,” he says with a cruel smirk,
which just looks wrong on his face, and he disappears. The forcefield goes down
and Cole is on me instantly.

“What the hell was that?” he asks me, the terror evident in
his voice.

“I was dreaming. Or at least I thought I was. Shit. I can’t
even separate my dreams from reality anymore. What the hell?” I pull the sheet
up higher in my panic.

“Aefre. Calm down,” CK says as he strokes my arm. “Tell us
why you thought it was a dream.”

“I was asleep. Dreaming of Fraser. Not the fake ones, just
the usual kind. I opened my eyes and I was looking right at him. I was so sure
though that it was a dream.”

“You dream of him like that often?” Cole asks as if he
doesn’t really want to know the answer.

“Sometimes,” I admit. “Not that much anymore.”

He looks pained but then adjusts his features, “Well, that’s
it. I have had enough of this thing messing with you. You are not to be alone
at all until you defeat it. Someone will be next to you at all times.”

“Cole, that isn’t necessary.”

“Yes it is,” he insists.

“I agree,” CK says. “No arguments,” he adds as he sees me
about to do just that.

“No, I don’t want to be coddled,” I sulk.

“Liv, you are clearly vulnerable to this thing. It knows how
to manipulate you. What if I hadn’t been here? What would have happened if I
hadn’t walked in here when I did?”

I gulp. I would have had sex with it. I really do need to
get myself under control. This is ridiculous. “All right, point taken,” I
mumble.

“We need to keep you safe,” CK says softly. “I will get Cade
to work up a rota.”

“No, that isn’t necessary,” I say again.

“Aefre. Just do as you are told for once. Please,” he says
with his world-weary sigh.

“Fine.” I sigh myself. I slump back to the bed and stare out
of the window. “Wait. It’s light out.”

“Yes, it’s morning,” Cole says.

“What time?” I look at the clock and it says 8 AM.

“I came to bed at 9 PM. I slept for eleven hours?” I ask
incredulously.

“That thing drained you of quite a bit of your energy last
night, my love,” CK says, sitting on the bed. And you didn’t feed. You
shouldn’t be surprised.”

“No, I suppose not. Would one of you get me some blood,
please? I’m starving.”

“Ah, now that I can help you with. I have someone here for
you. Well, in my suite at least,” CK says.

“Oh? Well would you mind getting them?” I say as he doesn’t
make a move.

“I am staying right here with you. Nico can bring him up,”
he says as he messages someone, presumably Nico.

“This doesn’t fit into my plans of a vacation time,” I
grump.

“Tough shit,” he says offhandedly. “You may wish to put some
clothes on?” he adds as there is a knock at the door followed by whomever it is
just coming in anyway. Seriously, we need some boundaries around here. I hear
Nico and summon up some clothes, nice and casual again today. Loose fitting and
barefoot.