“I mean you don’t love me.” I squared my shoulders. “It’s fine,” I added. “Things are still very new between us, even if the past couple months feel like years, and . . . why are you laughing?” I demanded, seeing his chest shake with mirth.

“Because you might be spectacular in bed, but no one’s that spectacular,” he got out between infuriating chuckles.

Anger shot through me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His mirth faded as his expression sobered. “You’re serious? But you told me you remembered my last words.”

At that, pain arced through me enough that I looked away. “I do. You, ah, said that you could have loved me.”

“No. I didn’t.”

My gaze snapped back up. “What?”

“You misheard me,” he said, ripping my heart apart. This whole time, I’d clung to the hope that one day, “could have” would turn into “did,” and this whole time, I’d been wrong?

“Not really a surprise,” he went on, heedless to how he was shredding me. “Half my brain was pronged end to end with one bone knife while the other half was partially skewered by a second. Not a recipe for intelligibility, is it?”

I sucked a breath in and held it so I wouldn’t scream. “What did you say, then?” I managed to ask in a calm tone.

He closed the space I’d put between us. “Not ‘could.’ I didn’t chase you all over God’s green earth before branding myself a married man in front of the whole bloody vampire council because I could have loved you. I did it because my actual last words were ‘should have told you I loved you.’”

I froze with such suddenness, it was as if I’d used my abilities to make time stand still. I knew I should say something, but I was too shocked . . . and too afraid that somehow, this wasn’t happening. I’d wanted it too much for it to be real.

His lips curled as he yanked me closer. “Heard me properly this time? Or do you need to hear it again?” His mouth lowered. “Should have told you I loved you,” he said against my lips. “Whether you’re Veritas the Law Guardian, Ariel the vampire-witch, or Death’s scary demigod daughter. Doesn’t matter. In all your forms, in every manifestation of yourself, I love you.”

Then he claimed my mouth with a kiss that made me glad I was sitting down, because otherwise, it would have leveled me. He didn’t stop kissing me for the next several hours, but I managed to speak between them, and it was the same four words.

“I love you, too.”

Chapter 38

I never wanted to leave Mencheres’s beach house. Not when I would forever associate this place with where I’d truly discovered happiness—all internal conflicts about Tenoch and the other half of myself aside. In fact, I was already formulating an offer to buy this place from Mencheres when the water I’d cupped in my hands suddenly shimmered and a familiar, feminine voice said “Ariel” from it.

I was so startled that I dropped the water and jumped back from the sink. I was alone in the bathroom since Ian had left after our long, very enjoyable shower. I’d stayed to comb the tangles out of my sex-tousled hair and brush my teeth. I’d been in the process of rinsing my mouth out when the water in my hands suddenly began talking in Ereshki’s voice.

Either I’d just experienced a complete psychotic break, or Ereshki really had been trying to communicate with me through the water. I gave both possibilities fifty-fifty odds.

No point wondering which. I cupped my hands beneath the sink’s still-running faucet, filled them, and waited.

No voices, no strange shimmering. Psychotic break, then. I sighed. Well, I’d lasted nearly five millenniums without one. Guess I was overdue. It could be worse. I heard that writers had psychotic breaks every decade or so—

“Ariel,” a voice said before Ereshki’s shimmering image formed in the water cupped in my hands. “Don’t drop me this time,” she added. “This spell is quite taxing.”

The only reason I didn’t hurl her watery image into the mirror was because I was curious why she’d dared to contact me.

“I’m sorry,” I said with heavy sarcasm. “Wouldn’t want to tax you. I want you hale and hearty when I rip you to pieces.”

She laughed. It hit me like a physical blow when I saw the corners of her eyes crinkle with her mirth. When I was human, that sight had been one of the only joys in my life. Now, it filled me with enough rage to make my hands quiver.

“You did surprise me with how vicious you’ve become,” she remarked. “I had no idea you’d go right for my throat when you first saw me. I thought you still had a sister’s love for me. If I’d known you learned of my duplicity back when you were Dagon’s, I never would have followed you into that bathroom.”

“I was never Dagon’s,” I spat. “But you have been since the moment we met, and every single moment after that.”

I saw a hint of her shoulder as she shrugged. “Famines were common when I was young. I didn’t want to die of starvation like the rest of my people. Dagon offered me an alternative.”

An “alternative”? That’s how she brushed off what she’d helped Dagon do to hundreds of men, women, and children who, unlike me, didn’t come back from the dead after they were sacrificed to him? I wished she were in my hands right now. I’d squeeze the life from her while smiling the entire time.

“Why are you contacting me? This spell is too complicated for you to use only because you want to gloat.”

She allowed herself another smile before it faded. “I didn’t realize the depth of your power until I saw you hold back part of the sea. Dagon told me you could tear blood and water from people, but that . . .”

“Is the least of what I’ll do to you,” I said pleasantly.

“That’s why I’m contacting you.” A hint of aggravation filled her voice. “I don’t want you to kill me. Do whatever you want to do to Dagon, but leave me alone.”

Laughter broke from me in harsh peals. “I had no idea you were so funny, Ereshki! Please, tell me another joke.”

Even through the unsteady sheen of the water, I saw ice fill her clear brown eyes. “Dagon long suspected that Ashael was hiding something. How amusing would you find it if I told Dagon that Ashael was the one who brought you to Yonah’s? Or that the two of you had ‘much in common,’ as you told Yonah?”

I stiffened. If she did that, Dagon would repeat it, and Ashael would be hunted by other demons for his allegiance to their most-wanted fugitive. Add in the speculation that Ashael wasn’t a “real” demon, and he would be marked for death by every species that feared mixed-race people, which was all of them.

Shit.

A knowing look crossed Ereshki’s face. “I thought you cared for the handsome demon. I was too far away to hear what was said, but you appeared to be pleading for Ashael’s life when your lover threatened him right after you arrived at Yonah’s.”

Dammit! That had happened within full view of Yonah’s house. With the mirrorlike quality of his windows, I couldn’t tell if anyone had been spying on us. Clearly, at least one person had.