Switch (The Forever Series, Book 7) (6 page)

They are completely black and like two death rays, they pin
mine in place and now I can’t look anywhere but at him.

“Would you care to explain exactly how that happened,
Aefre,” he says in a tone that suggests that if I don’t care to explain, tough
shit.

“I can, I can explain,” I say as my brain scrabbles to
remember how it happened. “I was asleep and I woke up and he was next to me. It
is, after all, his bed.” I make this point to two stony faces. “He was
apologizing to me for something that he did. Something that hurt her a lot. She
hadn’t forgiven him and he was asking me to forgive him. He looked so sad as he
remembered how she looked at him.” I chance a quick look at CK as I know how he
felt when I looked at him a certain way. Nothing. Okay. So I continue, “I
wanted to offer him some comfort. You have to understand that I had a bond with
him. Just as strong as ours,” I say to him. “Just as you had to her,” I say
this to Cole. “I leaned forward to kiss him and he took it in the way that his
wife would have intended. I got lost in it momentarily and then…” I trail off
as I am sure I don’t need to explain further.

“I see,” CK says.

Cole looks at him. “Oh you see, do you?”

“I do. I can say with some degree of certainty that the
other me is not that much unlike myself. If I was in bed with Aefre and she
leaned over to kiss me, I would probably do the same. I am also acutely aware
of the effect I have on her. We already know the bonds remained intact when they
switched and therefore I know what she would have felt. However,” he then
states as he catches me looking at him gratefully, “as usual, your misguided
charge side got you into trouble by trying to make him feel better. When will
you learn, Aefre, that it is NOT YOUR JOB?” He roars the last three words at me
as he takes a menacing step forward and I shrink back, pressed against the wall
clutching the sheet to me in a useless defense.

“I’m sorry!” I yell back. “I’m sorry that I don’t like to
see you in pain. Any of you or any of your alternate selves.”

“Not a good enough defense, my sweet.” He steps forward
again. “It is bad enough that I have to share you with everyone here, now I
have to share you with him too?”

“No, of course not. It was once. One time.”
Liar, liar
pants on fire
, my brain sings to me. Good thing I ain’t wearing any then.

“Liv,” Cole says quietly. “I can understand that you felt a
bond with him, but I don’t get that you would consciously do this to me. To
us.”

“Cole, I’m sorry,” I say, forgetting now about CK as I
shuffle forward with my sheet. Ah screw this, I need to get dressed. I Astral
off the bed in a foggy swirl and reappear fully clothed in front of him.
“Please, baby. Forgive me. It was stupid and I wasn’t thinking.” I take his
hands and he lets me but just barely.

“You knew I wasn’t there and instead of being sad about that
you go off and fuck your sire. What a fucking surprise,” he says bitterly.
“Once again, you chose him over me.”

“I would hardly say that, my boy,” CK says, interrupting.
“Seems she chose someone else entirely over both of us.”

“Stop it. Both of you. I didn’t choose anyone over anyone.
It was a mistake. A horrible, horrible mistake. Please forgive me.” I step
closer to Cole and he steps back.

“Not this time, Liv. Not as easily as that.”

What? Well, now the pointing finger is coming out, damn the
flimsy argument.

“You fucked her and I forgive you,” I say softly. “I know
you say that you didn’t know it was her but do you know how much that hurts?
That you couldn’t even tell?”

Oh, I am such a manipulative bitch, I am going straight to
Hell. To Hell I tell you, as he looks back at me, his beautiful, angry gray
eyes changing to sad light blue ones. “I knew something was off, I did,” he
says to me. “It never even occurred to me that someone else was in your body.”

Here’s where I wish that we were discussing this alone, as
CK coughs and says, “Christ, Aefre, that is a new low.”

I glare at him as Cole frowns at me. “Get out,” I snarl at
CK. “My husband and I are talking.”

“Not anymore,” Cole says as he pulls his hands out of mine.
“I can’t deal with this. I’ve tried, Liv, I really have. I promised you I
wouldn’t leave you but you just make it too fucking hard to keep that promise.
I’m done.” He steps back even further as my heart leaps into my throat and my
hand goes to my mouth. He looks at Constantine and says, “She’s all yours.” He
looks back at me with a half sneer, half grimace, and adds, “If you still want
her.”

Chapter 4

“No! Cole!” I say as I step forward but he holds his hands
up and strides to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. “Cole!” I yell,
walking forward myself but CK grabs my arm and Teleports me out to a different
suite. An empty one.

“Let me go!” I say as I struggle in his grip. He squeezes
tighter and sinks his claws into my bare arm. Fuck that hurts. I scowl at him
as not only is he hurting me, he has also cut off my ability to Astral. “Let me
go,” I say again. “I have to go and make this right.”

“Aefre, leave it,” he says. “I forgive you.”

I stop struggling and look at him, “You do?”

“Of course,” he says. “I love you. I know you woke up in a
confusing and upsetting time and the bond that you had with him made you feel
better. Safe. Just as the one you have to me does. Even though I am angry about
what happened, I’m not angry with you. It’s just circumstance.” He shrugs and I
am now gaping at him. He is being so understanding (which makes me feel
dreadful about the rest of the story that I haven’t mentioned and never will).
He is being so reasonable and seeing how hard it must have been for me. He is
being everything Cole isn’t. He is being the anti-Cole and the penny drops,
that is his game. I breathe in a deep breath and say shaking my head, “It isn’t
over with him.”

“Yes it is,” he says and lets me go. “He gave you to me.
Just as he said he did in the future.”

“No. It isn’t over,” I say again. “I won’t let it be over.”

My phone starts buzzing in my pocket, startling me as I had
forgotten I Astralled it there when I got dressed.

“What?” I snap at Devon.

“It’s bad, Lizzie. He’s gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?” I say, feeling sick.

“Packed a bag and left. He didn’t say where he was going.”

“You let him go?” I shriek at him and having stepped back
from CK and his claws, I Astral off back to my suite to land in front of Devon,
who jumps a mile and throws his phone in the air. I catch it with deft hands
and give it back to him. “How could you let him go?” I ask him as CK lands next
to me with a glare.

“I am not his keeper, Liv. He wanted to go.”

“Dev, you know how much I love him, I need to make this
right.”

“Not right now you don’t, just give him some time. He’ll
come around. I promise,” he says quietly.

I slump onto the bed and my eye catches something on the
pillow. His ring. His wedding ring. I snatch it up and I start to cry. Devon
comes to kneel at my feet and takes my hands in his.

“He is just upset. It doesn’t mean anything, Kitten.” He
looks over my shoulder and his face hardens. “You can stop gloating. Can’t you
see she is devastated?”

“Please leave,” I say to both of them. “Please just leave me
alone.”

“Of course,” Devon says and I grab his hand.

“Check on him, make sure he is okay, please.”

“Of course,” he says again. “He won’t have gone far. He has
to be in Miami, so he won’t be far.”

I nod. Of course he is still in Miami. We are all here
because we followed him here.

I lower my head to the pillow, still gripping his ring in my
tight fist as the tears continue to flow. Devon wrestles CK out much to my
relief and I am alone. All alone. I can’t believe he didn’t forgive me and left
me. I should never have said anything. I should have kept it all to myself. No
one ever had to know. Why did I open my big mouth? I am the stupidest person in
the whole world. In reality, I shouldn’t have done it at all. I got swept away
thinking only of myself, as usual. This is so hard, trying to be what Cole
wants me to be. These restraints are difficult for me, but I told him I would
keep in the boundaries and I didn’t. I don’t really blame him for leaving me.

I lie like this for some time, it gets dark and still I just
lie there. I send everyone away and await Cole’s return. He has to come back
eventually. Marriage aside, he is too new to be away from me for very long. I
hold onto that hope that he will have to come back to me. He won’t have a
choice.

“I’ll go if you want me to but I would like to stay,”
Lincoln says from the doorway.

I shrug and he comes closer. “Can I sit with you?” he asks.

“You can but I don’t want to talk.”

“No worries,” he says, as he plonks himself next to me.

We sit in silence for a while and I sigh. He knows how much
I hate silences. I turn to him and he grins at me. “Right on time.”

“Fuck off,” I say lightly. “I suppose you know what
happened? What I did?”

“I do. Devon explained it to me.”

“Do you hate me as well?”

“Liv, I love you. I could never hate you. What you did was a
bit…dumb,” he says, “but I understand. He will too. You came clean, you told
him. It would have been worse if you hadn’t said and it came out later.”

Oh god, I think. There is more to come out. A lot more.
Fortunately I am the only one who knows in this world and the other two who
know cannot shift between worlds so it should be safe. It has to be.

I sit up suddenly and cross my legs, looking away from him.
“Oh, Linc. I am such a shit person, and an even shittier wife and even shittier
sire on top of that.”

He scoots forward and puts his legs on either side of me and
pulls me back to him. “Maybe, but you are the best Alpha mate a Wolf could ask
for,” he chuckles and I smile through my tears.

“Thank you,” I say to him. “I didn’t think I would smile
again, ever.”

“You are welcome,” he says. After a pause he adds, “He’ll
come back. He loves you.”

“Doesn’t matter now even if he did,” I say woefully.

“What do you mean?”

I hold up my right hand, flashing him my ring. “He was
there. He witnessed the entire thing.”

“Oh.” Another pause. “Crap. I am surprised he didn’t thrust
divorce papers under your nose already.”

“I think he would have if Devon hadn’t put him in his place
for being a smug bastard,” I say dryly.

He chuckles and says, “See, you can’t be that shit of a sire
if your charge comes to your defense.”

“I must be a really shit sire to have both my charges leave
me in the space of a couple of months.”

“Oh Liv, don’t think like that, please, baby. Devon came
back, Cole will as well.”

“But then what? CK is not going to just overlook this. No
way in Hell.”

“So you will lose your husband, but your charge will be
back.”

I frown at him over my shoulder. “That doesn’t make me feel
better.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I was just trying to look on the
bright side.”

“I don’t understand how he could just give up like that? He
knows what the consequences are and he just handed me off. I think that hurts
more than anything else.” I pick at the covers and sigh.

“You will get through this. I promise you.”

“I don’t want to be going through this. It all could have
been avoided.”

“But it is what it is now. Come, I think you should get some
sleep. I’ll stay with you until you drop off then I’ll leave. Just in case he
comes back.”

“Thank you, Linc.” I let him settle me under the covers and
I close my eyes. I don’t suppose sleep will come soon but if it does, I pray I
don’t end up back there.

“Well, geez, finally. Anyone tell you, you sleep like the
dead?” a horribly familiar voice drawls at me as I open my eyes.

I groan, “You. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Aren’t you impressed I got here?” other me asks. “After
your disdain the other day, I thought you would be happy I mastered the art of
time shifting.”

“Eurgh, hardly. Now I have to look at your slutty self every
time you decide to pop on over.”

“Well, I won’t take offense at the slutty remark, seeing as
you are quite pot-shaped yourself there.”

I sit up then, remembering that Cole has left me and why.

“I am surprised to find you alone. I hate sleeping alone.
Where is your husband?” she asks idly as I glare at her lying on the bed next
to me.

“He isn’t here,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Obviously,” she says. “You are taking too long to come
back. I am here to ensure you go to my sire today.”

“No, I told you I am not going to sleep with him pretending
to be you. You just go and do it. He already wants it.” So, that isn’t exactly
true as what he wants is to have sex with me, but whatever. A technicality I am
sure she can work around it.

“No, it has to be believable the first time. You have to do
it. I will tell you everything else you need to know if you do,” she wheedles.

I sigh. I am still no further in trying to figure out how to
get rid of the cursed thing. Maybe I could go and talk to him. Try and convince
him, with words, to give me what I need. Or better yet, go and pretend I had
sex with him. She doesn’t need to know, I mean it isn’t like she is going to
stand there and watch. My eyes snap to hers, or would she? I wouldn’t put it
past her.

“If you are thinking that you can go and pretend to fuck him
just to get what you want from me, think again,” she says.

Crap. Me and my stupid expressive face.

“Look, I would go, really, but I have a whole load of shit
to deal with here. Personal shit. I just can’t step away and trust me when I
say that now is not a good time for me to be putting it out.”