Shades of Wicked

by Jeaniene Frost

  “Like me calling myself the Latin word for truth, when everything about me is a lie?” I noted.

  His laugh was lower now. “Yes, and I take my hat off to you. I thought I was a rebel, but you are the very definition of the word.”

  “You’re not wearing a hat,” I muttered.

  “No, I’m not,” he said, punctuating his point by pulling up the fold of drapery between us. I closed my eyes when I felt his bare, luscious body against mine. Only minutes ago, I’d been more than sated, but now, hunger rose as if I’d been long denied.

  Why wouldn’t I have known that sex with him would be addictive? He didn’t have an endless stream of women and men chasing after him for no reason. But I couldn’t afford to crave him this way. That was almost as dangerous as our perilous circumstances. He hadn’t only found an entry into my deepest secrets; I was afraid he’d also cracked a door into my heart.

  “What’s your real name?” I asked, hoping his rejection of the bald question would put brakes on my emotions.

  I felt him stiffen in all the wrong ways. I thought my deflection worked and he was about to leave. Then he said, “I’ll tell you on the condition that you never call me by it. I chose to keep the name Ian long ago and Ian I’ll remain.”

  “Agreed,” I said, curiosity getting the better of me.

  “Killian.” He said it with a touch of bemusement, as if he’d forgotten what it felt like for that name to cross his lips. “The name I was born with was Killian.”

  I absolutely should not tell him this next part. Should not, should not . . . oh, screw it. “The name Tenoch gave me was Ariel. He picked it because that was the name of the town he rescued me from.” I let out a small laugh. “Now, everyone who hears ‘Ariel’ thinks of a fictional mermaid. Even if I hadn’t been forced to change my name for secrecy long ago, I still would have changed it because of that.”

  “Tenoch gave it to you? You don’t remember the name you were born with?”

  I closed my eyes and saw only fire; the earliest memory I had. “No. I was too young when Dagon’s people burned my village. When I rose from the ashes, they took me to their master, and Dagon only ever called me ‘girl.’”

  I’d long wondered if the reason I burst into flames and turned into ashes every time I died was because that’s what had happened the first time. Or maybe, it’s what would happen to anyone with my lineage. I didn’t know. I was the only one of my kind, to the best of my knowledge.

  Now the hands that settled on me were comforting instead of sensual. “That must be why you’re so determined to see Dagon dead.”

  My laugh was bitter. “It’s not, actually. I wouldn’t risk the thousands of new years I could live by going on a probable suicide quest just to avenge myself.”

  His pause sounded surprised. “If not yourself, then who are you trying to avenge?”

  The thousands of people whose screams still echo in my ears. But if I told Ian that, I’d have to tell him the rest, and I couldn’t. The memories hurt too much.

  “Why am I telling you any of this?” I wondered out loud. “I don’t know what it is about you that’s gotten me to tell you secrets only Tenoch has known. I didn’t even tell Xun Guan what I really was, and she’s been my closest friend and occasional lover for centuries.”

  His snort rustled my hair. “You might have known Xun Guan longer than I’ve been alive, but she’s not a true friend. If she was, she wouldn’t have made you prove your claim about me. She would have let it go. People who value the law above all else might be admirable, but they make terrible confidants. If your other friends and former lovers are like her, it’s little wonder you shared your secrets with me. Circumstances might’ve forced you to reveal some of them, but you told me the rest because you know I need you, so you know I won’t betray you. And since I’m a scoundrel who’s done far worse, you also know I won’t judge you.”

  “You’re far less scoundrel than you claim. In fact, I’m going to have to rewrite your entire dossier once this is over.”

  He chuckled. “Don’t you dare. I’ve worked very hard to build my terrible, sleazy reputation.” Then his laughter faded and his tone turned serious. “There’s another reason, of course. The very real possibility that both of us will be dead soon. That’s why you’re sharing some of your most closely guarded secrets. Same reason I shared some of mine with you. When time is short, anything less than honesty feels like a waste of effort.”

  How true that was, too.

  “I still would like to know why you’re risking your life to kill Dagon,” he said, his tone softer now. “But if you don’t want to tell me, or if you simply can’t, I understand.”

  Part of me did want to tell him, surprisingly. He must be right. After Tenoch died, I’d lost the only person who’d known everything about me and had accepted me anyway. I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d been until I’d found someone else I could share my secrets with. And yes, time might be short indeed, so clinging to my secrets might be the very definition of wasted effort.

  But I also couldn’t bear to relive the most horrifying aspects of my past. Not now. I needed to keep them buried. Dangerous though Ian was to my heart, I knew he could wipe the past and everything else from my mind.

  “I don’t want to talk anymore,” I said, turning around and pressing my mouth to his.

  He responded at once, as if he knew how desperate I was to escape the memories that chased me. Soon, his mouth, hands, and body claimed my complete attention. This time, I didn’t need any prompting to release all my control. He’d already proved that he could take everything I had, and I gave it without restraint.

  As for the club . . . well, that turned out to be more fragile. Still, that’s what insurance was for, right? In case it didn’t cover all the damage, I’d arrange for a check to be sent to the owners later. It would be the best money I’d ever spent.

  Chapter 28

  We left the club at dawn. As a vampire, that was my least favorite hour to travel, yet at the moment, it was also the safest. With the sun out, we didn’t have to worry about Dagon sneaking up on us if he decided to ignore my father’s warning so soon. And the bright rays of light now elicited a smile from me instead of how I’d recoiled from them yesterday. What a difference a lack of hangover made. And lots of sex.

  I dressed in clothes I’d found in the club’s Lost and Found. They didn’t match, but it hardly mattered. Ian was wearing a police uniform. I doubted he’d found that in Lost and Found, so I surmised that one of the officers who’d showed up at the club last night must have left wearing a lot less than he’d arrived with. I could only imagine the story Ian would’ve implanted in his head to explain the lack of clothes, too.

  Silver walked by our side, leashed as if he were any other pet. I’d glamoured him so his wings and feathers were invisible. Now, he only looked like a smaller version of a gray Samoyed.

  I’d glamoured myself, too, using the appearance I normally wore. The waif, to hear Ian describe it. Yes, it was less beautiful and curvy than my true form, but Tenoch had given me this appearance, using his biological daughter for the template. I’d kept my skin color, but I still considered wearing his daughter’s face and form one of the highest honors of my life. Tenoch had loved her so much, he’d remembered every detail of her even thousands of years after her death. He’d shared his beloved memory with me to help conceal me from Dagon, my former captors, and the rest of Dagon’s followers. Even before he’d made me a vampire, Tenoch had treated me as if I were family.

  “Bloody hell!”

  Ian’s curse turned my head around. He held the new mobile he’d somehow acquired to his ear. His lips were compressed into a thin line as he listened. I couldn’t make out the words, but I thought I recognized Mencheres’s voice. It sounded as if Ian were listening to a recorded message. Then Ian suddenly hurled his phone to the ground so hard, it shattered.

  “What’s wrong?” Had Dagon done something horrible to one of Ian’s friends? That would be ju
st like him.

  “Xun Guan,” Ian snarled.

  I blinked. “What about her?” She wouldn’t hurt anyone . . .

  Ian stomped on the remains of his phone as if he hadn’t already destroyed it enough. “The jealous bitch voiced so much dismay over our supposed marriage, word of it reached Mencheres. Now, he’s demanding to know what the devil is going on, and if I ignore him, we’ll have two people hunting us.”

  I knew countless words in hundreds of languages, but “Oh, fuck!” was what flew out of my mouth.

  Ian gave me a frustrated look. “Exactly.” Then he muttered another string of curses, ending with “Mencheres will tell Crispin, then Crispin will tell Cat, and Cat will tell everyone. Might as well start shopping for a bloody wedding band now.”

  “Fuck,” I said with even more vehemence. “That means Dagon will hear about it, too!”

  Ian shot me an irate glance. “As if I care what he thinks.”

  His sharp wits must have been dulled by his horror over being outed as a supposedly married man. “Dagon now knows I’m alive, but he doesn’t know what identity I’m hiding under. He does know that we’ve partnered up, so how long do you think it will take him to figure out that I’m really Veritas once he hears you’ve suddenly married a Law Guardian?”

  Ian’s brows came together in the darkest of frowns. “Everything you’ve done to hide yourself—”

  “Exposed,” I said, shuddering. “Just like that.” Dammit, Xun Guan! How could you?

  But it wasn’t her fault. I shouldn’t have let Xun Guan get close enough to me to hurt her this way. I’d known her feelings were deep, and I’d still sought comfort in her arms from time to time. Like Ian, she’d also sensed that I’d been holding back, both in bed and out of it. But I’d never dropped my guard with her. My refusal had hurt Xun Guan deeply, as had my disavowal of serious relationships. Now, my supposed about-face by marrying a virtual stranger must have been too much for her. I had only myself to blame for her talking to others about her pain.

  Still, all the people I needed to get justice for didn’t deserve to have Dagon beat me because of this. Ian didn’t, either, and he needed me to ensure his victory. The clock might be winding down on my alias, but the game wasn’t over yet.

  “We’ll deal with Mencheres by playing the happy couple, then we’ll have to move fast to kill Dagon.”

  “How?” Ian asked bluntly. “Even if we could fool Mencheres into believing our marriage was genuine albeit supremely idiotic, our plans for Dagon required time. We don’t have that now.”

  “I know!” My brain ached from all the ideas I thought up and immediately discarded. My distress must have been palpable, because Silver whined and pressed himself against my leg. I bent to pet him while trying to figure out how we could compress our original, elaborate plan into a much speedier version.

  Ian knelt next to me. “Didn’t mean to snap at you. None of this is your fault.”

  “No?” I said, with a humorless laugh. “It’s not one of your ex-lovers that blew our plans all to hell.”

  “Could’ve been,” he said, flashing me a sudden grin. “Statistically, it should have been. Despite your vast age, you’ve probably limited yourself to a mere four or five lovers a year. I’ve frequently gone through that number in a single night, so my exes doubtless outnumber yours.”

  Since he’d vastly overestimated my lovers, he was right. “I do remember what you were doing when I found you,” I said.

  “Eh, that.” Ian’s wave dismissed the carnival-themed orgy. “Wasn’t even really enjoying myself.”

  “I agree. You looked more miserable than anything else.”

  His brows went up. “‘Miserable’ might be stretching it . . .”

  I sighed. “Come on, Ian. You thought you only had a hundred weeks to live. You chose to spend that time not with your friends, or members of your line, or even strangers who found you attractive. Instead, you spent it with people you paid to be there. That had to be horribly lonely, making that orgy only a few steps up from self-flagellating on the misery scale.”

  A sardonic smile twisted his mouth. “How like you to ignore the surface and see what’s beneath. Most people don’t bother. You’re wrong about one thing, though. Being with my friends would have been more miserable. Then, I’d have to think about how much I’d miss them. Still, with time running short, I did want more memories of what it felt like to have people touch me without meaning me harm. Knew it would be some of the last I’d get since I had less than two years before Dagon came to collect my soul. ’Course, the orgy only served to make me feel more alone. May as well have been slamming doors in an empty house just to pretend the noises they made were other people’s voices.”

  I touched his face. “I know what it’s like to medicate pain in unhealthy ways. I sometimes get judgy and forget that, but when I was recovering from my worst trauma, I did things that don’t give me room to criticize you or anyone else.”

  He covered the hand I held to his face with his own. “Perhaps one day, you’ll tell me about your worst trauma.”

  I glanced away, catching a glimpse of his sardonic smile again before he dropped his hand. At once, I missed his touch, but I was still unable to open up the way he wanted me to.

  “So, Xun Guan’s actions aren’t your fault,” he said, going back to his original point. Silver picked up on my inner turmoil. He whined again, rubbing his head against me. I fluffed the feathers near his wings, then paused when I felt something bumpy. Then I plunged my fingers deeper to see what it was.

  The bumps were scars. Anger burned through me. I couldn’t imagine the damage Dagon must have done to leave permanent scars on a creature that healed nearly as well as I did. Thank all the gods that the Nordic vampire had been loose-lipped. If not for him telling me about Dagon’s blood-tracking spell, Silver would be back in the cruelest of captivities, all so Dagon could profit from a creature that was created to be cherished—

  “Silver!” I cried out, leaping up in excitement.

  That startled the Simagyl so much, he flew back until his new leash stopped him. I began to soothe him at once, all while Ian eyed me as if I’d lost my mind.

  “I’m not crazy,” I announced, then laughed when the couple nearest us overheard that and did a double-take. Yes, I suppose that was hardly a ringing endorsement of anyone’s sanity. “I know how we can bring Dagon to us as soon as we want.”

  “Cut off your warding spell on my brands,” Ian replied.

  I waved at his crotch. “Not that, though that would do it, too. Still, then Dagon would know it was a trap since you’d never accidentally do that. But if I let the blocking spell on Silver’s blood dissipate, Dagon will be able to trace him again. He knows Silver’s with us, and Dagon’s arrogant enough to believe his magic poked a hole through my spell. If Dagon thinks he overpowered my magic, he shouldn’t expect a trap.”

  Even better, my father couldn’t punish me for breaking his command. Dagon would strike as soon as he saw me. Then, whatever I did to protect myself could legitimately be called self-defense.

  For a split second, alarm passed over Ian’s face. I couldn’t imagine why, but then it was gone as if it had never been there. “Arrogant or no, Dagon is no fool. He’ll still come in force. We’d need all our combined strength to kill him, plus several spelled mirrors at the ready.”

  Why did anything he said have the ability to surprise me anymore? “You’re intending to use the mirror trap on Dagon?” I certainly had been, but I hadn’t shared that with Ian.

  He gave me an amused look. “Why do you think I tested it on you first? Believe me, there were many other ways I could have won that bet between us.”

  “You think?” I said, grinning because I had hope again.

  He leaned down. “Not think,” he murmured. “Know. Just like I knew I had to have you even when I despised you for what I thought you’d done.”

  His nearness was distracting enough. When his mouth slid to the most sensitive
spot on my throat, I almost forgot what we were talking about. When he lightly bit it, desire shot through me like an arrow fired from a high-tension crossbow.

  “I’d never murder an innocent,” I managed to gasp out. “Just because Katie was born different doesn’t mean she was born wrong. Actions, not existence, define character.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” He growled against my skin before a slow lick made me shudder. “All my instincts told me that about you, yet I’d seen you at that execution. Couldn’t reconcile it with what my gut told me until your drunken confession.”

  More and more, I was glad I’d gotten completely wasted the other night. That also was very much not like me, but here I was, an apparent proud binge drinker.

  “Stop,” I said, pushing him back reluctantly. “We have work to do. Call Mencheres and try to settle him down. Once we have him taken care of, we’ll move on to getting those mirrors ready for Dagon.”

  A slight grin curled his mouth. “Any more orders?”

  Dozens of explicit ones instantly raced through my mind. Ian inhaled as if tasting the air. “I miss your true scent when you’re aroused. This one smells the way you look: boring and sweet. But when your glamour drops and you are as you were meant to be”—another inhalation brought his mouth to my throat again—“your scent reminds me of spring rains during a lightning storm—wild, pure, deadly and stunningly beautiful, just like you are.”

  I closed my eyes, letting his voice, words, and nearness wash over me. I’d never had someone affect me on so many levels. The part of me that loved it greedily gulped at every mystifying sensation. But the logical part said that all of this would only turn to pain. Worse, I knew the logical part was right.

  Ian needed me now, but when he didn’t, he’d be gone. He’d made no pretense about that. He might be enjoying the perks of our being thrown together, but I was the only one feeling things on a deeper level. That had to stop, before Xun Guan wasn’t the only one nursing a confused and wounded heart.