When it stopped, we were back in our hotel room with Silver flying around in joy at our sudden appearance. I didn’t take time to pet him, though. I left the room and went straight to the adjacent hotel room door. Ian, no surprise, followed me.
“What are you doing?”
“Blocking Dagon’s blood trace on you.” After a few sharp raps, the door opened, revealing a rumpled man in his fifties.
“What?” he began in French, then stared in horror at Ian.
Before he could scream, I hit him with the power in my gaze. “You’re perfectly calm,” I told him in French, pushing him aside to enter his room. “You’re not concerned with anything we’re doing.”
Once inside, I grabbed one of the room’s complimentary coffee cups and took out my silver knife.
“You feel no pain,” I told him, making a small slice in his wrist while I held the coffee cup beneath it. When the cup was full, I sliced my finger on a fang and rubbed my blood over the slice in the man’s wrist. It healed in seconds.
“Once we leave, you won’t remember us or anything we did,” I told him. “Now, go back to sleep.”
He got back in bed. His eyes were already closed by the time Ian and I left.
“Dagon murdered that woman four nights ago, so he’s had the power to track you ever since,” I said once we were back in our room. “Your ability to teleport might have thrown him off initially, but why did he wait until tonight to attack you?”
Ian shrugged. “Likely because I spent half that time with the entire vampire council.”
I stared at him. “You’re right.”
Dagon wanted Ian dead, but the demon was no fool. Murdering Ian while he was under the protection of the highest court in vampire society would be seen as an act of war. Vampires and demons might detest each other, but neither side wanted war. Ian’s litigious stunt had probably saved his life.
He flashed a cheery grin. “More proof that married men live longer than single ones.”
“How’d you get so good at teleporting?” I asked, ignoring that. Then I ran water into the sink until it was full. “You’ve only had this ability for what, three weeks?”
“Four,” he replied, a brow arching when I looked back at him. “Had plenty of incentive to practice with Crispin and Cat hovering over me. How do you think I finally got rid of them? I’m finished with people telling me they know best about my own life.”
That was directed at me, and I was torn. If I were Ian, I wouldn’t put up with people withholding parts of my past, either. I grabbed his hand and held it over the sink. Then I dipped a finger into my hotel-neighbor’s blood and started filling the blocking spell with power.
When I used up the power from the water in the sink, I sent my senses out and used the power from the water in the rest of the hotel. My other half reacted, of course. I owed my affinity with water to that part of me, not my vampire side.
When the spell was ready, I flash-froze some of the water into a sliver of ice. Then I raked that shard across Ian’s palm. His blood darkened the water, and at the same time, the other man’s blood in the cup began to boil.
I took my finger out of the boiling cup and drew a blocking symbol across Ian’s forehead. As soon as I was done, the cup shattered, but no blood stained the tile. It had all flash-boiled away when the spell sealed itself into Ian’s skin.
“There,” I said in satisfaction. “Dagon can no longer use your blood to find you.”
A slow smile curved Ian’s mouth. “Have I ever told you you’re irresistibly attractive when you use forbidden magic?”
“Yes,” I said, then could have kicked myself. Now his gaze was filling up with green flame.
“Don’t,” I said when he reached for me.
The look in his eyes made me shiver. “You want me, and I want you more than anything I’ve wanted in my entire life.”
I had to look away. If I didn’t, I would take him up on every decadent promise in his gaze. “Yes, I want you. But desire is an emotion, not a decision, and I still say no.”
The green flame left his gaze and his eyes hardened into turquoise gems. “Very well, I respect your decision. Now, respect mine and tell me everything you’ve