descending the staircase behind Rafe, paused on the bottom step with one slipper-clad foot wavering over the floor, her face a white mask of shock. She’d been the one to put Carter in prison while she was still practicing law.
Ione’s hand tightened around Dev’s. “What do you want, Carter?”
“Just to see your faces when I tell you my good news. The conviction for the crimes you framed me for has been overturned. I’m a free man.”
Cake and champagne churned in Theia’s stomach.
Phoebe voiced her shock. “How is that possible?”
Carter’s eyes settled on her, bitter amusement dancing in them. “So you don’t deny you framed me.”
“No one framed you,” Rafe growled. “You murdered four people.”
“Well, the state doesn’t seem to agree. Nor does the Covent.”
Preceded by a flourish of his hand in the air, a champagne flute materialized in Carter’s fingers. “To the bride.” Carter raised the glass toward Phoebe. “Who looks almost as lovely in white as she does in nothing at all. And I have the pictures to prove it.”
A collective gasp rustled through the hall.
As Carter drank, Rafe charged him, the snake tattoo twisting and roiling beneath his shirt, but Carter’s physical matter seemed to dissolve into smoke at Rafe’s contact with him, leaving Rafe’s fingers to close around a nonexistent collar. The bright grin was the last thing to go, like an evil Cheshire Cat.
Ione was livid. “That was an astral projection. He’s out of prison and accessing powerful magic. What the devil is going on?” She was staring at Dev, as if he ought to know.
“I don’t know a thing about it, love, I promise. I haven’t been privy to Covent business since I resigned my commission as assayer.”
Rafe closed the adjoining doors forcefully and turned back to face the hall. “I, for one, am not going to waste a moment of my wedding day thinking about that insignificant, third-rate sorcerer. He wasn’t really here, and that’s precisely the way he should be treated.” He stepped toward Phoebe and took her hand. “Care to dance, Mrs. Carlisle-Diamante?”
Phoebe smiled gamely. “I’d love to, Mr. Diamante-Carlisle.”
The mariachi band Rafe had hired—its members all magical connections of the Diamante family—began to play, and Rafe led his wife out onto the floor.
Theia took a step toward Ione, intending to try to reassure her, but a hand on her shoulder made her turn.
“May I have this dance, Ms. Dawn?” Lucien’s smile was mischievous. How did he manage to make an offer to dance sound dirty?
Before she could decline, he’d tucked her hand into his and slipped his arm around her waist, turning her toward the dance floor.
He pulled her closer as she started to draw back. “You wouldn’t embarrass me in front of all these people by turning me down, would you?”
“I might.”
“I’ve never been turned down before. It might damage my confidence. Could set me back years emotionally.”
“Then I definitely should.”
Lucien grinned. “But you won’t.”
“Won’t I?”
“I fascinate you.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Theia shoved away from him and stalked to the bar.
Like a persistent mosquito, he was buzzing at her side as she ordered her drink. “What if I blackmailed you? Would you dance with me then?”
Theia whirled on him. “Excuse me?”
“That was an odd little display from the groom. And I swear I saw the best man’s eyes glow with their own fire. Not to mention the fact that someone just dematerialized right in front of us, and everyone is acting like nothing happened.”
“Who the hell are you, anyway?” Theia narrowed her eyes. “Do you even know the Diamantes?”
“Of course I do. I’m exactly who I say I am. You can ask Rafael. Our families go back a long way. And there have been rumors about the Diamantes for just as long. Looks like today I’ve seen evidence that those rumors are true.”
“Then maybe you should take up your concerns with Rafe himself, if you know him so well. I’m sure he’d find them very interesting.”
“Ooh.” Lucien gave a sexy little shiver that Theia tried not to physically respond to and failed. “It sounds like you’re suggesting something untoward might befall me. Are you threatening me? I suppose you’re one of them, too.”
Theia’s fists clenched at her sides. “One of what?”
Lucien leaned in intimately close. “Witches, of course.”
Theia laughed. “That’s what you’re planning to blackmail me with? We’re standing in the reception hall of the temple of the Sedona branch of the world’s largest organized coven. It’s not exactly a secret that there are witches here.”
“But it is something of a secret that Rafe Diamante is a necromancer, isn’t it? And that Dev Gideon is the host for a demon?”
It hardly seemed useful to argue the finer points of Rafe’s incidental command of the dead or Dev’s shared physicality with an enslaved dragon from the underworld. The fact was that Lucien’s statement was irrefutable.
Theia hoped the look she was giving him was as murderous as she intended. “What do you want?”
Lucien’s eyes widened and he let out a laugh of pure surprise. “Did you think I was seriously going to blackmail you? Sorry. I have a tendency to take a joke too far. I was just having a little fun with you.”
“Oh, well, I’m so glad it was fun for you. Now you can fuck off.”
“There is a little something I was hoping you could help me with, though.”
Theia sighed, steeling herself for more innuendo.
“I understand you’re working on your master’s in molecular biology at NAU.” That wasn’t creepy-stalkery at all.
“So?”
“I’m sure you’ve heard that Smok Biotech is undertaking a joint venture with the university microbiology lab.”
Theia acknowledged this with an uninterested lift of her eyebrows, even though the new lab actually interested her a great deal. Smok was just the sort of corporation she didn’t want the university to be associated with, a for-profit pharmaceutical giant. At the same time, it offered unprecedented funding opportunities for expanded research.
