“Does that problem have eyes that shoot silver beams while darkness billows behind her like a cape?” He grinned. “Made me rock hard seeing it.”
He was aroused by my supernaturally sociopathic other half? “Fuck. You,” I bit out.
He nodded. “Solid plan.”
He snatched me close, murmuring, “Don’t,” when I tried to shove him away. “Your other half never fights for control when you’re in my arms, does she?”
Damn his selective memory! Yes, I felt too much when I was in Ian’s arms. Those feelings might lock the bars on her cage, but oh, how they ripped at my heart now.
One crisis at a time.
With that in mind—and yes, some personal motivation—I wrapped my arms around Ian and kissed him with everything I’d been holding back before.
His grunt of surprise turned into a groan of pure lust. When I pulled away, his lip was bleeding. He grabbed my hair, stared into my eyes, then kissed me with such savage passion, my whole body vibrated from desire.
“Veritas!” I faintly heard. I pushed past the erotic fog enough to hear Leah say again, louder, “Veritas!”
“Sod off, ghost,” Ian growled.
I dragged my mouth away to see Leah hovering over Ian’s shoulder. “You are getting carried away,” she said in a tone that reminded me she’d been a Puritan when she was alive. “I’ve already seen too much with the two of you.”
I glanced at Ian . . . and Leah hadn’t exaggerated. His umber shirt was in tatters from where I’d torn it in blind need to touch his skin. His jacket had fared better, but not by much, and one more rip at his waist would have his pants off. As it was, they appeared held up more by Ian’s erection than by their remaining fabric. Add that to the blood covering him from the red wave I’d hit him with, and I’d seen people mauled by mountain lions that looked in better shape.
“Oh,” I said, mildly embarrassed. On the plus side, I didn’t feel my other nature at all anymore.
“Quite,” Leah said in an acerbic tone. “I don’t dare leave to give you privacy, either. I left for that reason earlier, which is why I wasn’t there when the demons first attacked you. It’s also unwise to continue your tryst in the exact same spot the demons found you at, don’t you agree?”
I did, and if I’d been thinking with my brain instead of my lower parts, I would have realized that.
“She does have a point,” Ian said. “Hold on.”
I didn’t have a chance to say anything else. Ian’s arms tightened, then everything around us blurred again.
Chapter 12
When it stopped, we were back in our hotel room with Silver flying around in joy at our sudden appearance. I didn’t take time to pet him, though. I left the room and went straight to the adjacent hotel room door. Ian, no surprise, followed me.
“What are you doing?”
“Blocking Dagon’s blood trace on you.” After a few sharp raps, the door opened, revealing a rumpled man in his fifties.
“What?” he began in French, then stared in horror at Ian.
Before he could scream, I hit him with the power in my gaze. “You’re perfectly calm,” I told him in French, pushing him aside to enter his room. “You’re not concerned with anything we’re doing.”
Once inside, I grabbed one of the room’s complimentary coffee cups and took out my silver knife.
“You feel no pain,” I told him, making a small slice in his wrist while I held the coffee cup beneath it. When the cup was full, I sliced my finger on a fang and rubbed my blood over the slice in the man’s wrist. It healed in seconds.
“Once we leave, you won’t remember us or anything we did,” I told him. “Now, go back to sleep.”
He got back in bed. His eyes were already closed by the time Ian and I left.
“Dagon murdered that woman four nights ago, so he’s had the power to track you ever since,” I said once we were back in our room. “Your ability to teleport might have thrown him off initially, but why did he wait until tonight to attack you?”
Ian shrugged. “Likely because I spent half that time with the entire vampire council.”
I stared at him. “You’re right.”
Dagon wanted Ian dead, but the demon was no fool. Murdering Ian while he was under the protection of the highest court in vampire society would be seen as an act of war. Vampires and demons might detest each other, but neither side wanted war. Ian’s litigious stunt had probably saved his life.
He flashed a cheery grin. “More proof that married men live longer than single ones.”
“How’d you get so good at teleporting?” I asked, ignoring that. Then I ran water into the sink until it was full. “You’ve only had this ability for what, three weeks?”
“Four,” he replied, a brow arching when I looked back at him. “Had plenty of incentive to practice with Crispin and Cat hovering over me. How do you think I finally got rid of them? I’m finished with people telling me they know best about my own life.”
That was directed at me, and I was torn. If I were Ian, I wouldn’t put up with people withholding parts of my past, either. I grabbed his hand and held it over the sink. Then I dipped a finger into my hotel-neighbor’s blood and started filling the blocking spell with power.
When I used up the power from the water in the sink, I sent my senses out and used the power from the water in the rest of the hotel. My other half reacted, of course. I owed my affinity with water to that part of me, not my vampire side.
When the spell was ready, I flash-froze some of the water into a sliver of ice. Then I raked that shard across Ian’s palm. His blood darkened the water, and at the same time, the other man’s blood in the cup began to boil.
I took my finger out of the boiling cup and drew a blocking symbol across Ian’s forehead. As soon as I was done, the cup shattered, but no blood stained the tile. It had all flash-boiled away when the spell sealed itself into Ian’s skin.
“There,” I said in satisfaction. “Dagon can no longer use your blood to find you.”
A slow smile curved Ian’s mouth. “Have I ever told you you’re irresistibly attractive when you use forbidden magic?”
“Yes,” I said, then could have kicked myself. Now his gaze was filling up with green flame.
“Don’t,” I said when he reached for me.
The look in his eyes made me shiver. “You want me, and I want you more than anything I’ve wanted in my entire life.”
I had to look away. If I didn’t, I would take him up on every decadent promise in his gaze. “Yes, I want you. But desire is an emotion, not a decision, and I still say no.”
The green flame left his gaze and his eyes hardened into turquoise gems. “Very well, I respect your decision. Now, respect mine and tell me everything you’ve been hiding from me.”
“You do notice the blood leaking from your eyes, ears, and nose every time you get a new memory? That’s a massive cerebral hemorrhage, so your own body is telling you to leave this alone. Didn’t the Grim Reaper also warn you that pursuing your memories could destroy your mind?”
“He did,” Ian said at once. “I told him I wanted my memories back regardless, and he, a creature who had no regard for me, still respected my decision. Why can’t you?”
I’d tried avoidance, half-truths, outright lies, and fake personas. Nothing had worked. Might as well go with the truth.
“Because you’re right! Yes, sex with you was amazing. Yes, I know why you killed yourself, and yes, I remember your last words. That’s why I can’t bear to talk about them. Back then, I felt things for you I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in thousands of years. And I did respect your wishes. That’s why, when you insisted on facing Dagon with me, I didn’t stop you, and what happened? You fucking died.”
I found myself heaving in breaths as if the sobs I’d been holding back were now beating against the confines of my body.
“People die, Veritas.” Ian’s voice was soft, yet no less emphatic. “It doesn’t mean you were wrong to resp
ect my wishes. It simply means no one is immortal.”
“I used to be,” I muttered.
“What?” he said sharply.
Damn whatever it was about Ian that always led me to spill my secrets! “Never mind. What’s important is that if you remember everything, you could end up with the vampire version of brain death. You hide your brilliance to manipulate your enemies because they all make the mistake of underestimating you, so are you going to risk all that knowledge for a few details that have no bearing on your life now?”
“Yes.”
I slammed my fists against my legs hard enough to crack the bones. Ian’s gaze darkened with concern. I seized on that like a drowning person grabbing at a lifeline.
“Fine, you don’t care about the danger to yourself? What about the danger to me?”
Now I had his full attention. “What danger?”
This was more than I wanted to reveal, but if it would stop him from finding out the rest, I’d let it rip.
“Know when I started having my split personality problem? After you died in front of me. I didn’t even know my other nature could break free, but she did. Now”—I gave a frustrated swipe at myself—“if I’m not careful, she’ll take permanent control. So, if you feel any gratitude for me bringing you back from the dead, don’t endanger me by staying, or by pressing me for details that endanger you, because in case you haven’t noticed, she bursts free whenever you’re in danger.”
He’d been listening with furrows dug into his features, but at the finale of what I thought was a good argument for him to get the hell out of there, his frown smoothed.
“Ah, I see the problem.” His tone was so light, it was almost cheerful. “You’re so strong, it’s been ages since you’ve been knocked on your arse. You’re also so brave, it must’ve been even longer than that since you’ve felt fear. I’ve had more recent experience with both, so let me remind you: when you’re knocked down, you get back up, and when you’re afraid, you press on regardless. As the saying goes, sometimes you have to kick the darkness until it bleeds daylight. Besides, fear can be a good thing. It reminds you not to take what you care about for granted.”
“Take for granted?” I repeated in disbelief. “Did you listen to anything I said?”
“I listened to all of it, and both of us know that ignoring a problem won’t make it go away. Also,” he flashed a charming smile, “your blocking spell might stall Dagon now, but it won’t stymie him forever. Do you truly want me out there with only a ghost to watch over me?”
He’d just put into words everything I’d been worried about. “You’re using my fear to manipulate me. Whatever happened to pressing past my fears?”
His flash of teeth wasn’t a smile. It was a warning. “Did you think I’d play fair? I won’t, and since you’re being truthful, I’ll be equally frank: I don’t care that demons are after you. I don’t care that you have a warring nature of indeterminate supernatural origin, and I don’t care that you’re afraid of what you feel for me. I only care that you do feel it, and since you admitted that, I’ll let you in on another secret.”
Suddenly, he was gripping my shoulders, while his gaze was the real weight that kept me rooted where I stood.
“I might not remember my last words, but this whole time, I’ve remembered what I felt when I said them.”
Chapter 13
The statement hit me like a full-body blow. His last words had been could have loved you. All this time since, I’d believed everything Ian had felt for me was lost along with his memories.
“How?” I asked in as calm a voice as I could manage.
A brow rose. “I woke up in that whorehouse with a pounding headache and a burning conviction that I was supposed to be somewhere else, with someone else. None of Crispin’s lies dissuaded me. At one point, I said, ‘Where is she?’ Then your father showed up. Crispin nearly fainted, but I told Crispin he was only seeing what he feared on this side of the veil.”
“How?” I burst out without any calmness this time. “The Warden told me he’d erased every part of your time with me!”
Ian’s grip on my shoulders became caressing. “He told me he said that to ease your pain in case I felt nothing for you, but that when emotions ran deep, they could never fully be erased.”
The words slammed into me, making me as raw and vulnerable as an exposed nerve. I’d spent my life detaching from people because my survival depended on no one getting close enough to find out my secrets. Now, I was feeling everything and I had no idea how to handle it.
“I’m going to need additional clarification,” I found myself saying. Then I groaned. Over four thousand years of cold survival mentality had me sounding like an IRS agent questioning a taxpayer about a dubious deduction!
He snorted. “To clarify, I might not have known your name, how we came to be together or why you’d left me, but you were not erased. That’s why I was willing to chase you to the point of proving our marriage to a council I despise. It’s also why I’m not going anywhere now. I won’t let a little danger stop me from fighting for what I want.”
The choked sound I made was part laughter and part despair. “It’s more than ‘a little danger,’ and you know it.”
“My favorite kind, then,” he said with a dark laugh.
“You assume I want to start things with you again.” My voice was almost a whisper. “What if I don’t?”
He smiled, sensual and absolutely ruthless. “If you could stop what you felt for me, you already would have, so don’t waste your energy on a battle you will lose.”
A strangled laugh escaped me. “If I didn’t know how much you liked pain, I’d punch you in the face for such conceit.”
His chuckle was drenched with wickedness. “Threats of violence? Now you’re just trying to switch me on, aren’t you?”
Heat swept over me. His hands were still on my shoulders, and his clothes were so tattered, one tug would have them on the floor. I wanted to do that so badly, my hands ached. But when Ian moved closer, I twisted away.
“We need ground rules first.”
“No we don’t.” His voice was a growl. “Do anything you want to me. I promise to love all of it.”
A thousand explicit thoughts raced through my mind, making me lose a step backing away. “Not that,” I forced myself to say. “Ground rules for you getting your memories back.”
His eyes blazed emerald. “Your turn to elaborate.”
I took in a breath, regretting it when his scent filled me. It was heady with lust—another wrecking ball to my willpower.
“You want to reclaim your lost memories despite the risk. You’re right; that is your choice to make, not mine. So, ask me anything, and I vow to tell you the truth. But then you agree to leave and stay hidden until I take care of Dagon.”
His nostrils flared. Anger or anticipation, I couldn’t tell. “That’s your offer?”
“Yes.”
“I counter.” Now I knew what the flare was. Anger. “You tell me nothing, but I stay and help you take down Dagon, and we let fate decide what I do or do not remember.”
I closed my eyes. “Ian . . .”
“Yes, I know. Danger, mayhem, and vicious demons await.” Amusement threaded through his voice now. “The same awaits me if I leave you and Dagon finds me, so I ask again—which do you think I have a better chance of surviving? With or without you?”
Damn him for knowing exactly where to strike. Not that I’d made it difficult. No, I’d bared my most vulnerable spot, and like the ruthless fighter Ian was, he’d aimed right for it.
Well, I knew one of his weaknesses, too. “No sex,” I said, opening my eyes. “You stay, you keep your cock to yourself.”
He clasped his hands over the member as if sealing a solemn oath. “Very well. Until you request otherwise—and you will—consider this locked away.”
“That’s not all,” I said, determination blanketing my more fragile emotions. “If my other nature assumes control, you teleport awa
y, because she is dangerous.”
His brows rose. “‘She’ is you, you know.”
“No she’s not, and don’t assume she cares for you like I do, because she doesn’t.”
He parted his lips as if he were going to argue. Then he shrugged. “Very well.”
This was too easy. Ian had to be up to something.
“I also have responsibilities that will require me to leave at a moment’s notice, and no, you can’t come. Agreed?”
“My compliments on your ego,” he replied, grinning. “It’s quite impressive if you thought I’d insist on being chained to your side every moment of the day.”
“Fine,” I said in frustration. “Now that that’s settled, we need to leave. Dagon might not be able to track you through your blood any longer, but he’ll still be searching for you, so we need to get far away, fast.”
Ian stretched his arms while arching his back as if relieving a kink. The movement shifted his torn clothes, revealing his taut abdomen as well as lots of groin cleavage. I looked away, knowing none of this was accidental. When I looked back, a little smile teased his mouth.
No, not accidental at all.
“You might want to change,” I said as if I hadn’t been caught admiring the show. “Being half naked and coated in demon blood is bound to attract the wrong kind of notice.”
“Mmm, yes. Also need to shower so I don’t give Dagon the chance to track me through his people’s blood, if he’s clever enough to think of that—”
Ian stopped talking and tensed. At once, I looked around for danger. “What?”
“Blood is the most common way to trace someone.” Ian spoke as if he were still working something out in his head. “Essence trails are next, if you know a powerful-enough psychic, but both can be blocked. What can’t be blocked is power, and a demon’s power is as unique to them as their blood.”
“It could be,” I said, mulling the possibilities now, too. “But power traces fade quickly. I know where some of Dagon’s power was several nights ago, but I doubt the traces would be concentrated enough for us to use to make a locator spell, assuming I could figure out how to do one that could trace a demon by their power alone,” I added.
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