Wicked Bite (Night Rebel #2)(17)

I already had a theory about that. “Dagon’s after the people I’m tracking. He must have seen the same video I did, that led me to this place. So, he sent two of his demons here to stake it out in case I showed up.”

Dagon must not want to face me himself yet. He must still be too weak, but that wouldn’t last. Someone as determined as Dagon would find ways to scrounge every bit of power he could. He obviously still held a grudge. Those demons hadn’t accidentally been carrying a weapon powerful enough to take down a tank when they came across me.

Ian grunted. “Right wanker this Dagon is.”

“You have no idea,” I muttered, a stab of memory causing me to push away from him.

“Careful,” Ian said when my preoccupation made me ignore the loose ground at my feet. I almost tripped, but I caught myself, then looked at the pile of rocks where the ancient wall used to form the cistern’s entrance.

These ruins had survived for several thousand years, but they weren’t the only priceless loss today. Four murdered people were still buried beneath this pile of rubble. Four innocent lives I might have saved if I’d been faster, smarter, stealthier . . . just more!

Now, all I could give them was the dignity of being found. I’d place an anonymous call to the Greek authorities later about them. It felt so inadequate, but aside from killing their murderer, I could do no more to help them.

To cover my lingering frustration and guilt over that, I kicked one of the demon corpses nearby. “That’s what you get for shooting at me with an anti-tank weapon,” I muttered. “Gods, I hate demons!”

“And I don’t fancy coppers, present company excluded,” Ian replied. “Place will be crawling with them soon since one of the detonations set off the museum’s alarm.”

Yes, I’d also heard the mechanical wail from the only modern building located within the ruins. Before I could reply, Ian vanished. He reappeared almost immediately, Silver tucked under one arm and my purse slung over his shoulder.

Then, he grabbed me and everything blurred again. When it stopped, a stunned glance revealed rows of tall stone columns from the Athenian goddess’s temple gleaming in the early light of dawn.

“Here we are,” Ian said, as if teleporting us over a hundred kilometers away, to the Parthenon, was nothing exceptional. Silver didn’t seem nonplussed by the swift, drastic change of location. When Ian let go of him, the Simargl scampered off to explore his new surroundings.

Then Ian smiled at me, enticing and oh-so dangerous to my still vulnerable heart. “Alone at last.”





Chapter 8


I backed out of his grasp. His smirk mocked the distance I put between us. Anger stifled the part of me that had been far too focused on how good his arms had felt around me.

“Don’t let your impressive new abilities go to your head,” I said in my coldest tone. I couldn’t let Ian know how he affected me. He’d only use it against me. “I might not be able to outrun you now that you can teleport, but there are many other ways I can still escape you.”

“All involving my intense pain, no doubt.” He sounded amused. “Tempting as that may be, you won’t need such measures. Earlier, you agreed to talk with me where the council couldn’t overhear us and Mencheres couldn’t interrupt us. This meets both those requirements.”

I’d only said that to get across the villa’s threshold to spring my trap! I hadn’t truly intended to talk to him. It was pointless. I couldn’t tell him the truth, and he was too damn clever for me to get away with lying to him.

My need to stall caused me to do what I never allowed myself to do: fall back into memories of what the Parthenon had looked like when it was new, its columns whole and gleaming under the bright Grecian sun instead of highlighted by artificial lights in its ruined state.

Then I rewound to centuries before that and the smaller, far less impressive temple that pre-dated it. I rewound to several millenniums before that, when this mount was empty and the city was nothing more than some sparsely populated wooden huts.

When I blinked, the sight of the Parthenon’s long-standing ruins caused all my years to crash back into me. As I struggled between then and now, my sire’s oft-repeated warning rang in my head. You must never allow yourself to be consumed by the ancient past. Countless aged among our kind have lost themselves to madness that way. Always focus on the present. Speak the modern language. Wear modern clothing. Think with modern thoughts. That is the only way you’ll survive, Veritas . . .

I’d heeded Tenoch’s advice in all ways but one. I couldn’t let my many tortures and executions stay buried in the sands of what was now modern-day Iraq. Instead, I’d sworn that one day, Dagon would pay for all the people he’d tortured and murdered, myself included. More than four thousand years later, I was still dealing with the repercussions of that promise.

Now, so was Ian.

“There’s nothing crueler than time,” I murmured. “It stretches when you’re in pain, flies away if you’re happy, and crushes you when you remember all the years that are now gone.”

Ian seemed surprised by the change of subject. Then, his gaze became hooded. “True. And every so often, time can also be stolen from you. It was from me, and I won’t stop until I’ve recovered every bit of it.”

I let out a short laugh. “Then those ‘migraines’ you’re so dismissive of will be the least of your problems. You don’t want to know everything you’ve forgotten, but I will tell you this—Dagon has no claim on your soul any longer. It’s yours again.”