Wicked All Night (Night Rebel #3) - Jeaniene Frost Page 0,3

presumably. Phanes didn’t just mean “to shine.” It was also the name of a primordial Greek god, according to the Orphic cosmogony.

A smug half smile curled Phanes’s mouth as I continued to stare at him. Big ego, I added to the list of things I knew about him, such as his ability to teleport and how when we’d first met, he had plucked a restraint spell off me as if it were mere lint. But Phanes was wrong if he thought I was admiring him. I was assessing his dangerousness.

Eight out of ten, I decided. Jaw-dropping looks aside, Phanes’s wings were a dead giveaway that he wasn’t human, yet he did nothing to hide them. Instead, he flaunted them.

If there was one thing my four-thousand-years-plus had taught me, it was that when a creature was this at ease while unarmed and alone in a foreign environment, then that creature was powerful. Worse, my magic bounced right off Phanes, as did my blood-ripping abilities. Whatever ran through his veins—assuming he had veins—wasn’t blood or any other liquid I could manipulate.

“Put me down,” I finally said.

To his credit, he did. Gently, too.

Potentially not a sadist, I added to my list.

As soon as I touched the sand, it swirled into golden flowers of every variety, until the beach looked like a magical garden. The air was also now so thick with that non-corporeal form of gold dust that I could no longer see the cottage.

Good gods, if any neighbors happened to be up at this hour and looked outside, they’d call the police! Or assume someone had slipped them LSD. Or both.

“Could you please stop making everything look like gold?”

Phanes waved, and the beach, sand, and air returned to normal. “Why did you flee from me before, my bride?”

He crossed his arms over his bare chest as he waited for my reply. He’d been bare chested the first time I’d seen him, too, though thankfully, his aversion to clothes didn’t extend to pants. I would have bet they’d be gold, too, but his pants were as black as his hair and made of a material I didn’t recognize.

I ignored his question because I had one of my own. “How did you find me?”

Ten days ago, he’d tracked me down because he felt it when I’d used my darkest power to kill Dagon. But I hadn’t used that power since I’d killed Dagon, and it’s not as if I’d left Phanes a forwarding address.

“Indus told me where you were,” he replied.

Indus? Who . . . ? Oh, right, Indus was the ruler of Leviathan—scary, psychic creatures that formed from seawater and could drown anyone they touched. But how did the Leviathan ruler know where I was?

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, putting it together. “Indus tracked me just from my splashing around in the surf these past few nights?”

A sly smile curved Phanes’s mouth.

“If you had only splashed? No, Indus could not have felt that. But you used your power on the water. That, he felt.”

Great. Now, every time I used my power over water, it sent a metaphysical GPS notification to the Leviathan’s ruler? That was a complication I didn’t need.

“How impressive,” I said in a cold voice. “Especially since the last time I saw Indus, he was halfway around the world. Or is he closer now?”

Phanes cocked his head. “I answered two of your questions, yet you haven’t answered mine. Why did you flee from me before?”

It took all my willpower not to glance at the cottage behind us. According to my brother, if Phanes found out that his “fiancée” was married, he’d kill Ian. I’d seen Ian defeat powerful enemies before, but never while unconscious.

I couldn’t let him know about Ian. Fortunately, I had another aspect of the truth to answer with.

“I don’t know how things work in your world, but here? People don’t get to show up and tell someone they’ve never met before that they’re engaged. That’s why I left. I’m not property to be promised to another without my consent.”

Interest sparked in his gaze. Not the reaction I wanted, but it could have been worse.

“You wish to be won over by me first, then?”

Not in the slightest. But if pretending that bought me time and got Phanes away from Ian . . .

“Yes. You must prove you are worthy of my consideration. I propose a quest. Find and bring me”—Gods, what? What?—“the thirteen crystal skulls from ancient Mesoamerica, famed for their mystic qualities,” I finished, then