Something that was moving directly toward me.

I yanked my power to the forefront, ready to hurl it at the figure if it wasn’t Ian. I couldn’t tell yet. Then that disorienting light faded enough to reveal a shirtless muscular man with large golden wings that touched the floor when he folded them behind his back. His skin was a rich honey shade, his hair was the blue black of a raven’s wing, and his eyes were the color of newly minted gold coins.

His features were also so stunning, I understood for the first time what the word blasphemous meant. Nothing short of the Most High god should be allowed to possess this much beauty.

But he wasn’t Ian, so I sent my power at him to rip all the fluids from his body if he made a threatening move toward me . . . only my power skipped right over him and moved to the vampires huddled around the council members behind him.

What?

I tried it again to the same futile effect. After I tried and failed a third time, I realized what the problem was. My power kept skipping over him because the man didn’t have a drop of blood or water in his body.

That wasn’t possible. All species except ghosts had either one or the other, and he was no ghost, as he proved when he reached out and plucked Xun Guan’s unbreakable web spell from me as easily as if he were removing a speck of lint. Then he removed my wrist restraints with only a look.

“What are you?” I asked as I backed away from him.

“Phanes,” he replied in an orchestra-worthy baritone.

I kept backing away. “What’s a Phanes?”

Surprise flashed over his features. “Not what. Who. Phanes is my name. How do you not know me?”

“Easy,” I replied while searching my memory. No, I would have remembered that face, not to mention the huge golden wings. “We’ve never met.”

“We have not,” he agreed. “The last time I felt your power, you were not at the spot it originated from by the time I arrived.”

The last time . . .

“How long ago was that?” I asked warily.

His wave was dismissive. “Four or five thousand years.”

Ice shot through my veins. He didn’t mean my fluid-ripping power. He meant my soul-snatching one. If he could feel that, and he didn’t have any blood or water in him, could he be . . . could he be like my father?

He didn’t look like my father. My father didn’t have wings or gold-colored eyes, and the Warden to the Gateway to the Netherworld had certainly never had golden clouds precede his presence. Phanes also spoke Greek the way it had been spoken thousands of years ago versus the more modern dialect.

Wasn’t there Greek mythology about a lesser deity named Phanes? If so, his name meant “to shine,” which would explain the star-studded, gold dust fog-machine effect that heralded his arrival. What it didn’t explain was why Phanes was here at all.

“Why should I know you, if you admit that we’ve never met?”

Phanes smiled. A flock of doves soaring into the sky on sunlit wings would’ve been less lovely. “Because your power proclaims you to be the child of the eternal river bridging this world and the next. Since long before you were born, you were promised to be my bride.”

The. Fuck?

I opened my mouth to tell him what I thought of that, but a tremendous inner yank claimed all my attention. In the next instant, the gold-shimmered room with the council members cowering behind visibly shaken Law Guardians vanished, and I was inescapably pulled toward somewhere else.

Ian had placed his call.

Chapter 45

The next thing I saw was the large stone fireplace and white wood-framed windows of Mencheres’s Hamptons cottage. Ian was on the floor in front of that fireplace, the symbols that made up my name for the summoning ritual written in my blood in front of him.

“Ian!”

He leapt up in a lithe motion that belied his still frighteningly injured body. Then he pulled me to him. I gripped him back as hard as I dared, once again hoping that rest, time, and lots of blood would repair the horrific damage he’d inflicted on himself to free us from Dagon’s trap.

“Can I come out yet?” a familiar, impatient voice asked.

“No,” Ian replied while I pulled away in surprise.

“Ashael’s here?”

Ian flashed a tight smile. “Couldn’t risk bringing you to me until I was far enough away for the council not to find us. Also couldn’t hijack a car and drive that distance since someone in that group might be associated with Dagon, and I didn’t trust leaving you in their care for long. So, I chanced walking to the nearest bar and toasting Ashael in it to see if he’d answer.”

Despite his dislike of Ian, my brother had answered. Ashael must have teleported Ian here, which would have been risky for him with the bright sunlight and nearby ocean. It must hurt Ashael to even be inside this cottage. Being indoors might protect him from the sun, but I could taste the salt from the surf in the air. It must feel like knives grating his skin.

“Thank you,” I said, a catch in my voice.

I heard Ashael let out a soft, wry grunt. “Anything for my baby sister.”

Ian let me go to dump several bottles of hydrogen peroxide onto the symbols he’d drawn. The liquid bubbled on contact, dissolving my blood more thoroughly than bleach. Trust a vampire to know how best to get rid of blood. Then, despite not a hint of the symbols remaining, Ian dragged the thick area rug over the spot to cover it.

I was touched. I’d trusted Ian with the secret of how to summon me, and he was making damn sure he kept that secret.

Finally, Ian drew the drapes, blocking the sunshine from streaming into the room. “If she permits it, you can come in now,” Ian said, arching a brow at me.

“Yes,” I replied.

What I had to ask took precedence over my lingering anger at Ashael for sending Ian after that horn. If not for Ashael’s doing that, we’d still be trapped inside Dagon’s circles. Or dead. Ashael’s duplicitous trick had helped save our lives.

Ashael entered, wearing deep blue silk pajamas, of all things. He even had on matching blue slippers. No question what he’d been doing when Ian’s toast reached him. “Sorry to have woken you,” I said to Ashael. To Ian, I said, “We’re in more trouble than you realize.”

Ian snorted. “I’ve been in trouble since the day my father set me up for my brother’s murder so I’d be the one imprisoned instead of his legitimate heir. Being a fugitive might be new to you, luv, but not to me. Don’t fret.” He gave me a quick, sly grin. “I know all the best places to evade the law. Be like a vacation for you. You’ll love it.”

“Being a fugitive is suddenly the least of my concerns,” I said, marveling at the irony.

I’d taken such care to avoid being discovered for what I was. Now, the vampire council, Enforcers, and Law Guardians’ wrath seemed trivial things to worry about.

Ian’s brows rose. “You mean Dagon’s potential allies at the highest levels of vampire law? Assuming I haven’t lost my teleporting abilities for good, I’ll pop in and verify if what I felt was truly a mark of Dagon’s power on any of them or not.”

“Not that either,” I replied.

Now I had his full attention. “Then what?”