“I can see that,” he interjected sarcastically.
“—but you’re the last, and I mean last, person a stick-up-her-ass Law Guardian would want to marry.” I bristled at that, not that Cat cared. “And for the life of me, I can’t imagine why you’d marry her,” Cat went on. “We came here to figure out if she blackmailed you with one of your many crimes since the Ian I know would never willingly marry.”
“I would have said the same about Crispin once,” Ian replied, pinpricks of emerald gleaming in his gaze. “Or Mencheres, or even Charles, yet here we are, married men all. In truth, I should blame you lot. You must have weaponized matrimony and made it airborne.”
“You see?” Cat turned to Bones. “Who says that sort of thing if they’re happily married?”
Ian rolled his eyes. “Did you think an exchange of blood and some vows would change who I am? Nothing will, and if Veritas accepts that, my oldest friends should, too.”
Spade made an exasperated noise. “We are your oldest friends. That’s why we know you wouldn’t choose to bind yourself with unbreakable vows. You gleefully mock them instead.”
I’d heard enough. “If you truly knew Ian, you’d know he has more honor than the rest of you would dare aspire to.”
Cat’s eyes bugged. “We’re talking about this Ian, right?”
They had no idea what Ian had sacrificed for them. “Yes, this Ian!” Then my voice thickened with everything he still wouldn’t tell them despite his silence possibly costing him his life and his soul. “The one any woman would be proud to call her husband, and the same one any smart person would be honored to call their friend.”
“Did she just call us stupid?” Cat whispered to Bones.
“I believe so,” Bones drawled.
Spade stared at me as if I fascinated him. “I’ve never seen someone shagged into a state of witlessness before.”
“Then I pity your wife,” Ian snapped before I could give my own rude rejoinder. “Up your bedroom game, Charles, before Denise finds someone who will. More importantly”—his fangs came out as he snarled the rest—“the next person who insults her will get their mouth shoved up their own arse.”
A look of amazement crossed Bones’s features. “You’re genuinely offended . . . on someone else’s behalf.”
He said it as if he couldn’t believe the words were crossing his lips. Then his dark brown gaze turned stony.
“I can believe you indulging in a serious fling, but marrying? That’s falling off your promiscuity wagon so hard, you’ve shattered the earth’s crust. This is barely early days of dating. How long have you two been together? Weeks, at most?”
Ian gave him an irritated glare. “Refresh my memory, Crispin. Did you fall in love with Cat the first night you met her? Or did you hold all the way out until the second?”
Bones glanced away. “That’s not the same.”
Ian snorted. “Yes, there’s the very marked difference of how our dear Reaper kept trying to kill you back then. That said, we’re all old enough to know straightaway when someone is merely more of the same, or truly special.” His look my way lasted only a second, but it felt as tangible as a caress. “As soon as I had my first real encounter with Veritas, I knew no one else could compare. More importantly, I knew she was mine.”
I forced a smile while it felt like I was being mercilessly squeezed on the inside this time. He was only saying it to sell this sham, but gods help me, I wished it were true. It was for me. Dangerously so. I’d known in an hour how unique Ian was and he hadn’t stopped surprising me since. Worse, in a mere two weeks, I was possessive of him in ways I’d never experienced before, had shared nearly every secret I had with him, and had found him increasingly fascinating and irresistible. Could this be what people felt when they were falling in love? If so, it was more powerful than any magic I’d ever encountered.
Spade leaned closer to Mencheres. “You said Ariel is a powerful witch?” he asked in a low whisper. “Maybe she used a spell to force him into thinking he wanted to marry her . . . ?”
I was debating turning him into a proverbial toad when Ian flew at him. “Warned you, mate. Now, pucker up!”
Then he froze in midair, his hands on Spade’s ankles as if he’d been about to grab them to flip Spade’s ass up and his head low. Cat raised a brow at Bones, but he shook his head.
“Enough,” Mencheres said, revealing it was he who’d used his power to stop Ian. “Spade, you do not want to see what Ariel can do when she’s angry, and also, you were being very rude.”
“Seemed to be a fair question,” Spade muttered.
“Sure, why wouldn’t everyone assume I’d used witchcraft to force Ian into marrying me?” My voice was withering, probably because Spade had had the right idea, just the wrong persuasion method. If I didn’t know that they were acting out of genuine concern for Ian, I’d show them some real witchcraft right now. “It’s what every new bride wants to hear, isn’t it?”
A strained pause, then Cat said, “Maybe we should all start over, hmm? This isn’t what we thought it was, obviously.”
“Indeed,” Ian said in an icy tone. “Now, let me down.”
Mencheres grunted. “Not until you renounce your threat.”
“Charles needs to apologize first.” Ian’s voice was tight, either from continued anger at Spade, or from being frozen with his head at ankle level while the rest of him was at a slant.
Spade let out an elegant scoff. “I was concerned enough to drop everything to make sure you weren’t being coerced into matrimony. If I was overzealous toward that end, I apologize.”
“Not to me, you simpleton,” Ian ground out. “Her.”
“Why bother having a name at all?” I said irritably. “I’ll just call myself Her from here on out.”
“Speaking of, do you prefer Veritas or Ariel?” Cat asked.
“Veritas,” I said, putting my glamour back on for emphasis.
When both Mencheres’s brows rose, I realized I’d forgotten to mime using tactical magic or cover what I was doing with a verbal spell first. Thankfully, the rest of them didn’t seem to notice the significance.
“Then, Veritas,” Spade said, emphasizing all three syllables of my name. “I apologize for the unintended slight.”
“Apology accepted,” I said, which I meant as much as Spade meant his ground-out mea culpa. To Ian, I added, “Seriously, I have no desire to see what an ass sandwich looks like.”
Ian looked at Mencheres. Mencheres released his telekinetic hold and Ian dropped to the floor. He got up with far more grace than he’d fallen, a casual swipe dusting off his shirt and pants. Then he looked at Spade, smiled with teeth, and said, “Hope you weren’t hungry.”
I wasn’t the only one to stifle a laugh. Cat did, too.
“Well, it seems like this intervention has turned into a party,” Cat said, her tone becoming markedly more cheerful. “Let’s break out the booze! Mencheres, I hope your mini bar has gin and tonic. I don’t know about the rest of you, but all this near-slaughter stuff has made me thirsty.”
Chapter 30
After more polite interrogation disguised as get-to-know-you conversation, I was ready to leave. All the liquor in the hotel couldn’t take the edge off being on the receiving end of countless appraising looks, veiled trick questions, and endless false smiles. It took all of my control to keep from telling them not to bother. Ian’s friends might not be actively trying to kill me any longer, but it was clear they still didn’t trust me. They shouldn’t, either, though not for the reasons they believed.