“I’ve gone without for years at a time,” I added just to see his reaction. “Sometimes, even decades.”

A look of horror crossed his features. Then it faded and a predatory light shone in his gaze. “I hope you enjoyed your appalling sexual fasts, because they’re over. In fact, you won’t last the next ten minutes.”

I made a show of checking the alarm on my mobile. “Sorry, but I have twenty-six more minutes of celibacy left.”

He leaned down, his mouth sliding over my throat until it reached the tender hollow where my pulse would have been. “No, you don’t.” His fangs lightly grazed the spot. Shivers raced over me. “I spotted two loos on this level,” he went on, moving up until his breath touched my ear like the brush of feathers. “Pick one and go. I’ll be right behind you.”

“We could always go back to our room,” I said, stifling a gasp as his tongue traced the sensitive strip behind my ear.

“Too far.” A growl that swept heat through me.

Without another word, I left his arms and headed to the nearest bathroom. Ian wasn’t the only one who’d marked their location when we first came into the ballroom.

Two human women were inside, one applying lipstick, the other toying with her hair. “You both look stunning,” I told them, lighting up my gaze with green. “Leave now and have a wonderful night.”

They turned on their heels and walked out, one saying, “You do look stunning,” while the other replied, “I know, so do you!” with the kind of confidence women didn’t often enough allow themselves to feel. I didn’t hear any more heartbeats, but I bent to glance beneath the bathroom stalls to check for people anyway. Empty.

When I straightened, Ian was behind me, already turning the lock on the door.

I stared at him as I reached beneath the wide skirt of my dress to pull my undergarments down. He unbuttoned his jacket and unbuckled his pants, his gaze burning as my panties landed near his feet.

“Just this once,” he murmured, picking me up and setting me on the countertop. “Don’t release your control.”

I wrapped my legs around his waist, already wet with anticipation. “We’ll see.”

Chapter 27

I’d never used a stranger’s semi-public bathroom stall to freshen up after impromptu sex before. No one had aroused me to the point that waiting for privacy wasn’t an option. Most cultures would expect me to be embarrassed, especially since the women who’d been waiting outside had no doubt as to the reason for the locked door when Ian flashed them a satiated grin as he opened it and left. But I wasn’t embarrassed. I practically took a bow before slipping into the nearest stall to clean myself up.

Ian was so gorgeous, those women should more than understand. If they didn’t, that wasn’t my problem. We hadn’t even broken a single fixture in this room, and the countertop had escaped with only a new crack in the marble. They had no idea the amount of control that had taken. We couldn’t have been more restrained if we’d both been bound hand and foot.

And it had been mind-blowing. He’d tried bondage on me before his memory loss, but shadows from my past had ruined that. Now, I couldn’t wait for Ian to break out the magic ties. I’d loved being restrained while everything inside me was seething out of control, and he’d had to restrain me to keep this room in its borderline-pristine condition.

I finished cleaning up, then came out and washed my hands. The bathroom was empty now, the other women taking less time than I had. I’d just finished fixing my makeup and securing my hair back in its knot when the door opened and a lovely black-haired woman wearing a deep-purple ball gown came in.

She gave me a polite smile before she disappeared into the stall. I smiled back, but it froze as my brief, disinterested glance suddenly set my brain on fire with recognition.

Even after all this time, I knew that silky swath of long black hair, those clear brown eyes, and the skin that was the same golden-bronze shade as my own. But it couldn’t be. Ereshki had died thousands of years ago, and the woman in the stall was most assuredly human. Her heartbeat more than proved that, as did the sound of her urinating.

Still, memories I’d done my best to suppress slammed into me. Ereshki’s hesitant smile when she was first thrust into my cage. I’d been often taunted with smirks, leers, and grins, but no one before her had ever smiled at me with kindness.

A flush sounded, then the woman came out of the stall. She seemed surprised to see me standing between the sinks and the door, staring at her as if transfixed. But then she began to wash her hands as if nothing unusual was going on.

“Do I know you?” I forced myself to ask in a calm voice.

She looked up and smiled again, more faltering this time. Her heart rate had sped up, too, indicating her new nervousness. Not that I could blame her. A vampire was blocking her path to the door while staring at her with unblinking intensity. If that didn’t make her nervous, she wouldn’t be smart enough to have survived whatever had forced her to take refuge at this island.

“I don’t think so,” she replied, then screamed.

I don’t remember making the decision to cross the room and grab her by the shoulders, let alone to hoist her up. But she was now in my hands, screaming while her high-heeled shoes kicked at the air since I’d lifted her off the ground.

That voice. Higher than mine but devastatingly familiar and with my same accent Ian said he couldn’t place when we first met. Few people could. Ancient Sumerian had died out as a language thousands of years ago.

“Who are you?” I snarled, just as the bathroom door burst open. The deadly magic horn had already exploded from Ian’s sleeve, but it retracted when he saw I wasn’t the one in danger.

“Veritas,” he said in a guarded voice. “What’s amiss?”

“Please, stop her!” the woman beseeched Ian. To me, she screamed, “Let me down, I’ve done nothing to you!”

She stopped, giving me a shocked look as I started cursing her in the first language I’d ever learned. From the way her eyes widened, she’d understood what I was saying, too.

“Who are you?” she breathed, speaking in Sumerian now, too.

I didn’t have time to reply when she began pounding on my arms and aiming her kicks at my body instead of the air.

“Who are you?” she shouted again, rage and frustration twisting her pretty features. “Do you know who did this to me? Was it you? Was it?” she finished in a roar.

Ian spun around, horn whipping out again at the crash as someone else flung the bathroom door open. Yonah strode into the room, red pinpoints gleaming from his moss green eyes.

“Who dares abuse my hospitality?” he thundered as the air in the room thickened until it felt like a tangible weight.

I dropped the woman only because I didn’t trust myself not to crush her to death in front of Yonah. “This woman,” I said through gritted teeth, “is not whoever she claims to be.”

“Ereshki is our guest of honor. This ball is in celebration of her being our newest member here.” Yonah’s tone sliced the air like a killing blow. For an instant, black wings spread out behind him, so large they touched the ceiling and pressed against each side of the hallway before they vanished.