I turned to my brother. “You’re twice my age, and you know a lot more about our father than I do, so . . . did you hear anything about me being betrothed prebirth to a gold-winged, possibly ancient Greek deity named Phanes?”

“The fuck you say?” Ian burst out.

“My thoughts exactly,” I said without a touch of irony this time. “Well?” I prodded Ashael, who had paled.

“How did he find you?” Ashael asked in a stricken voice. “Our father cloaked you so that none of the other deities or demigods could feel you!”

“Another piece of news I’ve never heard before, but not the most relevant at the moment,” I said through gritted teeth. “It’s true? This Phanes, whatever he is, thinks I’m promised to be his bride?”

“Over my dead body,” Ian snapped.

“That’s exactly the terms Phanes will demand, once he hears that Veritas married you,” Ashael replied darkly.

Oh hell no. “That’s not going to happen because no one gets to decree who I marry, let alone do it before I even existed!”

Ashael gave me a look of calculated alarm. “Independence may be prized in this world, but it isn’t in the celestial realms. That is why our father sought to protect us from them.”

I couldn’t claim you, my father told me long ago. I’d assumed it was because impregnating a mortal was a no-no for his kind, so he was protecting himself by staying away from me. Or that he lacked the emotional depths to care enough to claim me. If Ashael was right, there was a more compelling reason.

I took Ian’s hand. Once again, everything I thought I knew had turned out to be wrong or very, very incomplete. Still, I’d survived Dagon, finally gotten justice for everyone he and Ereshki had harmed, and now had the man I loved at my side. That was infinitely more than I could’ve said a month ago.

In fact, it had taken me my entire life to get to this point, so somehow, I’d find a way to survive these new challenges, be they a demon-acolyte council member, being hunted by both the vampire and demon world, or some gold-fogged lesser deity who thought I was his mandated fiancée.

Wasn’t I the optimistic one all of a sudden? Love did strange, wonderful things to people indeed.

I tightened my grip on Ian’s hand. He squeezed back, a silent promise that we’d face this together. Then, I let out a sigh.

“You need to tell me everything I don’t know about our father’s world, Ashael, and you need to do it now. I don’t know how long we have before Phanes finds me again, but whenever he does, we have to make sure we’re ready.”