flashed them a satiated grin as he opened it and left. But I wasn’t embarrassed. I practically took a bow before slipping into the nearest stall to clean myself up.
Ian was so gorgeous, those women should more than understand. If they didn’t, that wasn’t my problem. We hadn’t even broken a single fixture in this room, and the countertop had escaped with only a new crack in the marble. They had no idea the amount of control that had taken. We couldn’t have been more restrained if we’d both been bound hand and foot.
And it had been mind-blowing. He’d tried bondage on me before his memory loss, but shadows from my past had ruined that. Now, I couldn’t wait for Ian to break out the magic ties. I’d loved being restrained while everything inside me was seething out of control, and he’d had to restrain me to keep this room in its borderline-pristine condition.
I finished cleaning up, then came out and washed my hands. The bathroom was empty now, the other women taking less time than I had. I’d just finished fixing my makeup and securing my hair back in its knot when the door opened and a lovely black-haired woman wearing a deep-purple ball gown came in.
She gave me a polite smile before she disappeared into the stall. I smiled back, but it froze as my brief, disinterested glance suddenly set my brain on fire with recognition.
Even after all this time, I knew that silky swath of long black hair, those clear brown eyes, and the skin that was the same golden-bronze shade as my own. But it couldn’t be. Ereshki had died thousands of years ago, and the woman in the stall was most assuredly human. Her heartbeat more than proved that, as did the sound of her urinating.
Still, memories I’d done my best to suppress slammed into me. Ereshki’s hesitant smile when she was first thrust into my cage. I’d been often taunted with smirks, leers, and grins, but no one before her had ever smiled at me with kindness.
A flush sounded, then the woman came out of the stall. She seemed surprised to see me standing between the sinks and the door, staring at her as if transfixed. But then she began to wash her hands as if nothing unusual was going on.
“Do I know you?” I forced myself to ask in a calm voice.
She looked up and smiled again, more faltering this time. Her heart rate had sped up, too, indicating her new nervousness. Not that I could blame her. A vampire was blocking her path to the door while staring at her with unblinking intensity. If that didn’t make her nervous, she wouldn’t be smart enough to have survived whatever had forced her to take refuge at this island.
“I don’t think so,” she replied, then screamed.
I don’t remember making the decision to cross the room and grab her by the shoulders, let alone to hoist her up. But she was now in my hands, screaming while her high-heeled shoes kicked at the air since I’d lifted her off the ground.
That voice. Higher than mine but devastatingly familiar and with my same accent Ian said he couldn’t place when we first met. Few people could. Ancient Sumerian had died out as a language thousands of years ago.
“Who are you?” I snarled, just as the bathroom door burst open. The deadly magic horn had already exploded from Ian’s sleeve, but it retracted when he saw I wasn’t the one in danger.
“Veritas,” he said in a guarded voice. “What’s amiss?”
“Please, stop her!” the woman beseeched Ian. To me, she screamed, “Let me down, I’ve done nothing to you!”
She stopped, giving me a shocked look as I started cursing her in the first language I’d ever learned. From the way her eyes widened, she’d understood what I was saying, too.
“Who are you?” she breathed, speaking in Sumerian now, too.
I didn’t have time to reply when she began pounding on my arms and aiming her kicks at my body instead of the air.
“Who are you?” she shouted again, rage and frustration twisting her pretty features. “Do you know who did this to me? Was it you? Was it?” she finished in a roar.
Ian spun around, horn whipping out again at the crash as someone else flung the bathroom door open. Yonah strode into the room, red pinpoints gleaming from his moss green eyes.
“Who dares abuse my hospitality?” he thundered as the air in the room thickened until it felt