Did he think me simple? “I know who you are,” I said, giving him a raking look. “And you should be running. Didn’t she make you promise to flee if you saw me?”

Ian held out a hand to Yonah, who started to circle me in a predatory way. “I’ve got this,” he told Yonah in a crisp tone.

His confidence was amusing, if misplaced.

“If she breaks free and threatens any of my people—” Yonah began, stopping when I swung to give him an icy smile.

“She won’t,” Ian said with that same confidence.

My gaze swung back to him. “You believe you could stop me?”

Ian smiled, lifting himself out of the hole in the floor with surprising grace. Then he brushed the shards and splinters from his bloodied torso as if dusting lint off a suit.

“I won’t have to.” Another smile, this one crafty as well as charming. “It’s also why I lied when I promised to run if I ever saw you. There’s no need. You quite like me.”

Impertinent. Perhaps I should rip the blood out of his body and slap him with it. “Do I?”

He came closer, that smile never slipping. “Oh, you do. You burst free whenever I’m in danger, and I also see you lurking behind Veritas’s eyes when she loses control in other ways.”

His caressing tone left no doubt as to which ones. Then he reached out, trailing his hand down my arm. The sensations that followed weren’t unpleasant, so I allowed it.

“She thinks you’re not her, but you are, aren’t you?” Almost crooned as he continued to stroke my arm as if gentling a wild beast. “You’re just another side to her. We all have our different sides. Yours is simply more . . . well-defined.”

“She thinks me evil.” Saying it made something sting as if I’d been poked with a clumsy stitch. Bitterness, she’d call it.

“I’ve seen evil.” Now his hand was in my hair. I tilted toward it to see if I enjoyed that more. If I didn’t, I could always rip his hand off. “You’re not even close.”

I did enjoy his hand in my hair. It was even more pleasant than the strokes on my arm. His body would be more pleasant, too. I knew that because he was right—I had, on occasion, watched through her eyes when she shared her flesh with his.

“You may leave,” I said, flicking my fingers at Yonah. “Or you may stay. Either way, he will pleasure me now.”

The demon muttered something I didn’t care enough to catch. Then he left. Ian laughed, a low, sensual sound that—surprisingly—affected me as much as his touch.

“Saucy little half-celestial minx, aren’t you?”

I pressed my mouth to his before he could say anything else. Yes, very enjoyable. His tongue was even more so, and his body created sensations I wanted more of. I had only watched this before. Now, I wanted to feel it.

I let out a hiss of disapproval when he caught my hands before I could rid him of his unnecessary pants.

“Hate to disappoint,” he murmured, “but we can’t do this.”

“Why?” To see if I’d misunderstood his interest, I grabbed his cock. Harder than a block of ice. Certainly no impediment there. “You want this.”

Another laugh, this time edged with something rough. “Oh, I want this all night and into next week, but your vampire half would object, so it’s not happening.”

“You said I am her,” I argued, not liking the feeling of being denied. “Begin the copulation!”

He brushed my hair back before tracing my lip with his thumb. Somehow, I felt that touch deeper than my skin. Sorcerer.

“You are,” he said softly. “One day, she’ll realize that, but right now, she still sees herself as two separate people. She’s wrong, but until she realizes that, I can’t accept your invitation. So again, with regret, this isn’t happening.”

Then he kissed me, ending with a nip that was hard enough to draw a drop of blood that he caught with his tongue. I liked that as well, which made his refusal all the more frustrating.

“Now,” he said thickly, “show her she’s wrong about you by willingly relinquishing your control back to her.”

I shoved him away, feeling stabbed by an enemy I could neither see nor destroy. This must be what betrayal felt like. “She will cage me again.”

“For a while,” Ian agreed. “She was taught to fear this half of herself, but what was learned can be unlearned. Besides,” his voice deepened, “the cage is only an illusion. You’re always there, aren’t you? When she frees you, she’s really only freeing herself.”

A sigh hissed through my lips. If he knew that, why did she not know it, too? Even still, I debated ignoring his counsel, but with each brush of his hands, her power grew. Soon, she would break free unless I stayed away from him.

Did I want to do that? My jaw tightened.

No. I did not. Sorcerer.

“Very well,” I said, and let her rise.

Chapter 30

I snapped forward as if I’d been slingshot back into control. For a moment, I could only stare at Ian. His hands were still in my hair and he was standing so close I could feel the heat from his body, elevated from the stress of fighting for his life in Yonah’s dangerous spell.

“You talked her out of it,” I finally said in disbelief.

Ian’s mouth curled in a knowing smile. “No. I talked you out of it.”

I realized with a jolt that he was probably right. I’d experienced decades of extreme trauma by the time Tenoch saved me, and he’d been adamant that I keep my other half locked away because it was too dangerous. Anything Tenoch feared, I feared, too, so I’d spent my life shunning that part of myself. It wasn’t such a stretch to imagine that my past trauma combined with incessant self-alienation resulted in a partial other identity, which was really me trying to continually disassociate from the parts of me that my beloved sire had feared.

If so, I had a lot of therapy in my future. But first . . .

“Does the spell work?” I asked, trying to stuff down my rage over how Yonah could have killed him with it. That rage was like rolling out the welcome mat for my other half . . . or the part of me I felt more comfortable calling my other half even though it really wasn’t? Gods, this was confusing.

If Ian sensed any of my inner battle, he didn’t comment. All he did was take my hand while also holding out his other arm. The horn flew over to wrap itself around his bicep as if it were a giant slap bracelet from the nineteen eighties.

“Let’s find out,” he said.

The spell embedded in his body led us out of the drawing room and all the way down to the basement level of the house. We were only a few doors away from the room we’d stayed in when Ian stopped and opened another door. Yonah, Ereshki, and Katsana were inside, and from their expressions, only Yonah wasn’t surprised to see us. He merely gave Ian a sardonic look.

“That took much less time than I expected.”

Ian ignored the slur to his supposed sexual stamina. “This proves what I warned you about,” he said. “This spell traced Dagon’s power right back to Ereshki. What’s to stop him from using one just like it to find her and the others he’s seeking?”

“It also proves Ereshki is telling the truth,” Yonah countered. “She doesn’t remember Ariel or any of her former crimes despite being one of the souls Dagon hoarded inside himself, which she must be or she wouldn’t have specks of Dagon’s power in her for the spell to trace now.”