Wicked Bite (Night Rebel #2)(2)

“Driving away while wanting to kill your husband,” Ian replied, shrugging. “Don’t know why. I can’t remember much of the month after that, either, except for the slivers shoved into my mind a few days ago from a creature I’m fairly certain was the Grim Reaper. But those memories mostly consist of the woman who married me, then fled.”

And ignored his repeated calls and texts in the three nights and four days since. Why? Another clear memory he had was of Veritas shouting, “Don’t go!” at him with the same blindingly intense emotion he felt for her. Yet she’d abandoned him when he’d been at his weakest, and he had no idea why.

“If you have more to add, be quick about it,” Ian went on. “You’ve already cost me two days’ looking for her by insisting this meeting be in person.”

“This isn’t the kind of news you relay by text or over the phone,” Leila said softly.

“Does it have to do with Dagon?” When Leila’s eyes widened, Ian grunted. “Crispin told me Veritas warned him that a demon named Dagon was after me. Happen to know what I did to brass him off?”

Leila looked away. “No. But Dagon really hated you, and you avoided him with a warding spell until you thought Mencheres had been murdered—”

“Murdered? By whom?”

Leila edged away from the new harshness in his tone. Then a sparking line of white extended from her right hand; a reminder of the voltage running all through her body. The lights in the room also briefly dimmed as she pulled power from them, too. She was readying herself in case he attacked.

Must be very bad news, indeed.

“A group of necromancers had the power to kill me,” she replied in a steady voice. “They told Vlad they would unless he killed Mencheres for them. Vlad faked Mencheres’s death to buy time to find them, but you were there when Vlad made the supposed execution video, and you didn’t know the person Vlad killed was only glamoured to look like Mencheres. So, when you saw what you thought was Mencheres’s body, you . . . you cut off your protective ward to summon Dagon. He came, and you sold your soul in exchange for Mencheres’s life.” At that, her voice cracked. “I saw it, but I couldn’t stop you. I’m so sorry, Ian. So very, very sorry . . .”

She kept speaking, reiterating apologies, regrets, and other platitudes he paid no attention to. He was too stunned by sold your soul. He would’ve sworn she was lying, except his vampire sire, Mencheres, was one of the few people in the world he would have sold his soul to save. And had, if Leila were to be believed.

This must be why his blood tasted wrong. He hadn’t told Crispin this, either, but since he’d woken up in that whorehouse four days ago, his blood had been altered. He’d hoped there was another reason aside from being branded by a demon who now owned his soul. Apparently not.

After everything he’d overcome in his life, he’d been taken down by a simple trick involving a glamour spell? Gales of harsh laughter broke from him. Leila backed away, her electric whip growing until it coiled at her feet.

“No need,” he finally managed to say. “I’ve never harmed someone for merely being the bearer of bad news.”

“And Vlad?” she asked in a cautious tone.

Another burst of bitter laughter left him before he controlled himself. Oh, he would like to kill Vlad, but he couldn’t. His own fault was glaringly clear. “I should’ve sensed the glamour Vlad used on the poor bloke he killed. I also should have verified that Mencheres was dead before bargaining away my soul. I didn’t do either, so that’s on me, not Vlad.”

Leila’s whip disappeared back into her hand. Then she sprang forward, taking his hands. “Once again, I am so sorry.”

Ian jerked away from her pity. Leila gasped, then her eyes narrowed and she tried to run her right hand over every inch of his skin that wasn’t covered by his clothes.

“Stop that.” What sort of pity-pawing was this?

“It’s gone,” Leila said with shock. She got in a few more swipes before he held her wrists in front of her. She only rubbed his hands with her fingers, repeating “It’s gone.”

“What’s gone?” Her sanity, clearly.

“Everything! Take off your pants. I need to see if that’s still there, too.”

Ian rolled his eyes. “It is, and while I would’ve found it hilarious to cuckold Dracula under his own roof a short time ago, I’m not interested now—”

“Neither am I,” Leila interrupted. “But I am interested in seeing if you still have Dagon’s demon brand on your groin since nothing else on your skin is the same.”

Ian loosened his grip on her wrists. “Explain.”

“You remember that I pull psychic impressions from people when I touch them with my right hand?” At his impatient nod, she went on. “When I touched you months ago, I saw your worst sin, same as when I touch anyone for the first time. Your skin was also littered with emotional imprints from other people, but now, they’re all gone.” She tapped him with her right hand for emphasis. “Makes you wonder what else might be gone, right?”

Could he have somehow gotten out of the soul deal? Ian let her go and unzipped his trousers. Leila knelt down, whisking the hem of his shirt out of her way. At the same moment, the drawing room doors opened, revealing Vlad and Crispin.