might’ve stuck,” I muttered without thinking.
He cocked his head. “Whatever do you mean?”
I hadn’t intended to bring this up. With everything else we’d touched upon, the last thing I needed was to confront Ian with what he didn’t feel for me. “Never mind.”
He came closer, that relentless gaze pinning mine. “Don’t put me off. What do you mean?”
Fuck it, why not? I thought despairingly. I’d have to spend years processing all the points he’d brought up about me. Why not give him something to think about, too?
“I mean you don’t love me.” I squared my shoulders. “It’s fine,” I added. “Things are still very new between us, even if the past couple months feel like years, and . . . why are you laughing?” I demanded, seeing his chest shake with mirth.
“Because you might be spectacular in bed, but no one’s that spectacular,” he got out between infuriating chuckles.
Anger shot through me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
His mirth faded as his expression sobered. “You’re serious? But you told me you remembered my last words.”
At that, pain arced through me enough that I looked away. “I do. You, ah, said that you could have loved me.”
“No. I didn’t.”
My gaze snapped back up. “What?”
“You misheard me,” he said, ripping my heart apart. This whole time, I’d clung to the hope that one day, “could have” would turn into “did,” and this whole time, I’d been wrong?
“Not really a surprise,” he went on, heedless to how he was shredding me. “Half my brain was pronged end to end with one bone knife while the other half was partially skewered by a second. Not a recipe for intelligibility, is it?”
I sucked a breath in and held it so I wouldn’t scream. “What did you say, then?” I managed to ask in a calm tone.
He closed the space I’d put between us. “Not ‘could.’ I didn’t chase you all over God’s green earth before branding myself a married man in front of the whole bloody vampire council because I could have loved you. I did it because my actual last words were ‘should have told you I loved you.’”
I froze with such suddenness, it was as if I’d used my abilities to make time stand still. I knew I should say something, but I was too shocked . . . and too afraid that somehow, this wasn’t happening. I’d wanted it too much for it to be real.
His lips curled as he yanked me closer. “Heard me properly this time? Or do you need to hear it again?” His mouth lowered. “Should have told you I loved you,” he said against my lips. “Whether you’re Veritas the Law Guardian, Ariel the vampire-witch, or Death’s scary demigod daughter. Doesn’t matter. In all your forms, in every manifestation of yourself, I love you.”
Then he claimed my mouth with a kiss that made me glad I was sitting down, because otherwise, it would have leveled me. He didn’t stop kissing me for the next several hours, but I managed to speak between them, and it was the same four words.
“I love you, too.”
Chapter 38
I never wanted to leave Mencheres’s beach house. Not when I would forever associate this place with where I’d truly discovered happiness—all internal conflicts about Tenoch and the other half of myself aside. In fact, I was already formulating an offer to buy this place from Mencheres when the water I’d cupped in my hands suddenly shimmered and a familiar, feminine voice said “Ariel” from it.
I was so startled that I dropped the water and jumped back from the sink. I was alone in the bathroom since Ian had left after our long, very enjoyable shower. I’d stayed to comb the tangles out of my sex-tousled hair and brush my teeth. I’d been in the process of rinsing my mouth out when the water in my hands suddenly began talking in Ereshki’s voice.
Either I’d just experienced a complete psychotic break, or Ereshki really had been trying to communicate with me through the water. I gave both possibilities fifty-fifty odds.
No point wondering which. I cupped my hands beneath the sink’s still-running faucet, filled them, and waited.
No voices, no strange shimmering. Psychotic break, then. I sighed. Well, I’d lasted nearly five millenniums without one. Guess I was overdue. It could be worse. I heard that writers had psychotic breaks every decade or so—
“Ariel,” a voice said before Ereshki’s shimmering image formed in the water cupped in my hands. “Don’t drop me this time,” she added. “This spell