Even better, my father couldn’t punish me for breaking his command. Dagon would strike as soon as he saw me. Then, whatever I did to protect myself could legitimately be called self-defense.

For a split second, alarm passed over Ian’s face. I couldn’t imagine why, but then it was gone as if it had never been there. “Arrogant or no, Dagon is no fool. He’ll still come in force. We’d need all our combined strength to kill him, plus several spelled mirrors at the ready.”

Why did anything he said have the ability to surprise me anymore? “You’re intending to use the mirror trap on Dagon?” I certainly had been, but I hadn’t shared that with Ian.

He gave me an amused look. “Why do you think I tested it on you first? Believe me, there were many other ways I could have won that bet between us.”

“You think?” I said, grinning because I had hope again.

He leaned down. “Not think,” he murmured. “Know. Just like I knew I had to have you even when I despised you for what I thought you’d done.”

His nearness was distracting enough. When his mouth slid to the most sensitive spot on my throat, I almost forgot what we were talking about. When he lightly bit it, desire shot through me like an arrow fired from a high-tension crossbow.

“I’d never murder an innocent,” I managed to gasp out. “Just because Katie was born different doesn’t mean she was born wrong. Actions, not existence, define character.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” He growled against my skin before a slow lick made me shudder. “All my instincts told me that about you, yet I’d seen you at that execution. Couldn’t reconcile it with what my gut told me until your drunken confession.”

More and more, I was glad I’d gotten completely wasted the other night. That also was very much not like me, but here I was, an apparent proud binge drinker.

“Stop,” I said, pushing him back reluctantly. “We have work to do. Call Mencheres and try to settle him down. Once we have him taken care of, we’ll move on to getting those mirrors ready for Dagon.”

A slight grin curled his mouth. “Any more orders?”

Dozens of explicit ones instantly raced through my mind. Ian inhaled as if tasting the air. “I miss your true scent when you’re aroused. This one smells the way you look: boring and sweet. But when your glamour drops and you are as you were meant to be”—another inhalation brought his mouth to my throat again—“your scent reminds me of spring rains during a lightning storm—wild, pure, deadly and stunningly beautiful, just like you are.”

I closed my eyes, letting his voice, words, and nearness wash over me. I’d never had someone affect me on so many levels. The part of me that loved it greedily gulped at every mystifying sensation. But the logical part said that all of this would only turn to pain. Worse, I knew the logical part was right.

Ian needed me now, but when he didn’t, he’d be gone. He’d made no pretense about that. He might be enjoying the perks of our being thrown together, but I was the only one feeling things on a deeper level. That had to stop, before Xun Guan wasn’t the only one nursing a confused and wounded heart.

“Save your compliments for later,” I said, opening my eyes. “We’ve got too much work to do now.”

Now Ian’s smile was also part smirk. “Love raising those shields back up, don’t you?”

When they were the only things protecting me from an onslaught of emotions I alone was feeling? Yes. “I don’t know what you mean, but don’t you have a call to make?”

“So I do.” He went to the person nearest us, gave him a few flashes from his gaze, then walked back holding his mobile phone. Once he punched in Mencheres’s number, it was answered on the second ring. “Mencheres,” Ian said in a bright, chipper voice. “Got your fifteen messages.”

“Is it true?” I was standing so close to Ian, I could hear Mencheres clearly. The former pharaoh had never sounded more upset. “Did you actually get married?”

Ian winced but said, “Seems good news travels fast,” in the lightest of tones. If I hadn’t known how much he hadn’t wanted news of this sham to reach Mencheres, I never would have guessed what it cost him to confirm that.

Silence for a full, very uncomfortable minute. Then Mencheres said, “Are you still in New York City?” in a tone so flat, I was rattled. Mencheres being upset was one thing. His sounding this cold usually meant that people were going to die.

“For the moment,” Ian replied. “But we’re leaving soon—”

“I am already here,” Mencheres interrupted. “I flew in as soon as word of where you were and what you did reached me.”

Ian rolled his eyes. “Of course you did.” Then he shook his head at me as if to say, parents, what are you going to do? “We’ll stop by. Staying at the Ritz? Or the Waldorf?”

“The Ritz,” Mencheres replied crisply. “Penthouse suite. Come now, and do not bring her with you.”

Her? I didn’t even merit being called by my name? Mencheres’s normally faultless manners pre-dated chivalry by so many thousands of years, I’d often wondered if he’d been the one to invent it. Now I was “her.” He must have been truly furious.

“See you shortly,” Ian said, and hung up.

I gave him a look after I double-checked that he’d truly disconnected the call. “You know I’m coming with you, right?”

Ian’s laughter was as careless as the tone he’d used when confirming the marriage he’d never wanted. “As you reminded Xun Guan, where one vampire spouse is, the other is allowed regardless. But you do need to change.” His gaze took in my mismatched clothes and too-big shoes while letting out a tutting sound. “Can’t have you seeing your new father-in-law looking like a street sweeper.”

“Unless I compel someone to switch their clothes with me, I don’t see how my outfit can improve. We left our wallets back in the hotel room those vampires trashed, remember?”

“Don’t you know a troll that owes you a truckload of gold?” he countered.

“He doesn’t owe me,” I corrected, but Ian was right. I’d never intended to pick up the gold Nechtan promised me, but it would be a lot easier to convert some of that into cash at a local pawn shop than it would be to get the new identification I’d need in order to access my accounts. Cash would also be harder to trace us with. Nechtan it was, then.

“Let’s swing by Central Park.”

Chapter 29

It only took pawning one of Nechtan’s lake offerings for both Ian and me to look much nicer. I pawned a few more items for traveling money, then stored the rest at a warehouse I hastily rented. Driving around in a truck filled with gold left us primed for more trouble than we already had. But as soon as we stepped through the doorway of Mencheres’s penthouse suite, I knew this would be much worse than meeting a disapproving in-law. Ian saw it right away, too.

“What is this, an intervention?” he demanded of the three men and the single woman who were lined up around the hotel’s doorway. “You look as if you’re poised to attack.”

“We are if you try to leave,” Mencheres replied in a bitingly smooth tone. “And I told you not to bring her.”

“‘Her’ is here anyway,” I said, irritation making me ignore the terrible grammar of the statement.