"Tell me about it," I said.

Elyssa jolted to her feet. "What did you say?"

I ignored her. How could someone go from being the love of my life one day to a complete stranger? My experience with women before Elyssa had been overwhelmingly bad. Awful, in fact. I really didn't have a basis for comparison. It felt worse than just about anything else, like glass churning in my stomach and my heart sputtering and clenching like it might stop at any moment. It felt like the time Elyssa had figured out I was an incubus and told me she never wanted to see me again.

My heart welled with agony as I glanced up and saw Beck talking to her in hushed tones while she smiled. Her eyes caught mine and, for a fleeting moment, I saw something besides distrust in them. Something so tiny it was possible I'd just imagined it. But it was enough to blow a gentle breeze on the spark of hope I still held onto.

I would not give up.

After one of the tensest meals I'd ever endured in my life, Bella led us to the town hall to meet with the council.

"I'll come in after the spawn tells me the story," Elyssa said, crossing her arms and standing outside the building.

"Let it wait," I said.

"I think the council should hear both sides," Bella said, eyes shining with curiosity. "It will be very interesting gossip."

I groaned. "Exactly what I need."

"Do you have any sensitives?" Elyssa asked. "I'd like him to tell the story to someone who can feel his lies."

"As it happens, we do!" Bella rubbed her hands together. "So, it's agreed. We'll ask Maria to judge the truth of the matter."

"Agreed?" I said. Before I could object, Bella pushed me inside and announced my predicament to the council and her solution. They cheered. These people were way too delighted with my misery. I felt as though I were in my own reality show and everyone was enjoying the train wreck of my life. Maria, a plump middle-aged woman, wasted no time in directing me to drag two chairs into the middle of the circle.

"Wait a minute!" I shouted, finally finding control of my mouth. "What's the meaning of all this? Why am I being subjected to a lie detector test?"

"This is to help you," Bella assured me with a smile. "If a sensitive confirms your story, then Elyssa will have no choice but to believe you."

"Doesn't mean she won't still be a bitch to you, though," Fausta said with a grin.

"How accurate is this—this sensitive reading stuff?" I asked Maria, my stomach doing flip-flops. The last thing I needed was an inaccurate reading. For all I knew, she was worse than a regular old lie detector.

"She has never failed to detect a lie before," Bella said. "Though it is very exhausting."

"How does this work?" I asked Maria.

"I will bind us together and when you tell your story, I will feel the truth."

"Bind us? With rope?"

She giggled. "No, with magic."

"Um, didn't you guys want to talk about something else besides my love life?"

"Oh, no, absolutely not," Bella said. "We must get to the bottom of this and help you solve your problems."

Great. The magical equivalent of Oprah and Dr. Phil were about to tag team my ass.

Maria didn't waste another second, drawing a circle around the chairs and sealing it, infusing our small area with the static sensation of magic. She sat facing me and gripped my hands in hers. A knot of panic grew tighter and tighter in my chest. I saw Elyssa sitting forward in her chair, hands clenched in white-knuckled fists. Beck flirted with Bella who kept trying to shush him.

The door opened and Lina entered. Red rimmed her large dark eyes. She had changed from the revealing red dress into a tank top and khaki shorts that seemed pale next to the copper of her skin. She slipped into a chair against the wall.

I thought back to the conversations I'd had with her trying to pinpoint a moment where I'd given her any sort of hint I liked her like that. I'd told her from the beginning I had a girlfriend. Had I somehow increased her desire when I'd fed on her? Guilt became roommates with the butterflies in my stomach and I looked away from her. Somehow, it had to be my fault. I was still a newbie when it came to feeding and if I'd damaged her or made her feel more strongly about me because of it, I didn't know how to set it right.

"I am ready," Maria said, releasing my hands and sitting back in her chair.

I nodded. I felt sweat beading on my forehead and wiped it away with the back of my hand. "What now?"

"First, I ask you to lie."

That seemed pretty standard, given what little I knew about lie-detector tests. "I am Zargon, master of the universe."

She smiled. "And now tell me a truth."

"I am not a bad person."

Another smile. "You do not believe yourself to be a bad person, but tell me something more concrete."

"I have ten fingers."

She nodded. "I believe I am in sync." She looked to the side. "Bella?"

The dhampyr's eyes lit up like Christmas ornaments. "Please, Justin, start at the beginning."

"Beginning of what?"

"Your association with this pretty young woman."

Elyssa blushed.

"Um, well, that might take all day."

"Please, Justin, the television reception in this town is terrible, and Colombian TV is even worse. Allow us to enjoy a good story. Hopefully, a true story."

The rest of the council seemed to lean forward in unison.

"Good lord, you people must be deprived."

I sighed and rewound events in my head all the way back to what seemed like the beginning. "It all started with a girl named Katie, a big ape named Nathan, and a Goth girl named Crye Rayne."

Elyssa's eyes widened. She fell back in her chair as though I'd slapped her.

"Little did I know this girl named Crye would be my princess bride and I would be her Westley."

Even more shock mounted on her face and I could tell it was taking everything she had to keep from blurting out a response.

I told them just about everything I could remember, giving them every gory detail about how grossed out I'd been initially by Elyssa's Goth dress code and how I'd grown to regard her, Ash, and Nyte as friends. How suddenly one day, I felt a connection click between the two of us. I kept things somewhat sterile, however, because I knew if I expressed my emotions, I'd probably lose it in front of everyone and break out in girly tears. So I told my story—our story—about how we'd met and the crap we'd been through since then.

When I reached the part where I'd first met Elyssa's father, I caught her nodding as I recounted how he'd responded to me, and tried not to smile despite the negative emotions associated with the incident. What an awful night that had been. I'd saved Stacey from hellhounds later and nearly died for it.

By the time I hit the part about running from shadows in El Dorado, everyone seemed entranced by the story even though I'd already told the council most of this. I decided to end the recitation of events at the part where I discovered the Templar I'd saved from the aircraft was, in fact, Elyssa.

"The end," I said with a croak and slumped back into the chair. My dry throat ached for water.

"Hopefully to be continued," Bella said to murmurs of agreement from around the room.

"And it was true," Maria said. "I only detected minor falsehoods. For example, he really did think the felycan, Stacey, was very attractive and it took far more effort than he admitted to not take her up on her offer of sex."

My entire body went white hot with embarrassment.

She patted my hand. "And there were other sexual encounters with random women that he barely avoided. Not just the one with the woman in the grocery store."

Beck burst into laughter. "Dude, you are the worst incubus ever."

"Shut up," I said, unable to force my eyes off the floor.

"Sexual super powers and you want to stay a virgin?"

"I said, shut up."

"That's just sad, man."

I stood so abruptly that my chair almost toppled over.

I gave Beck my meanest glare. "Guys like you don't understand, Beck. Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic. Maybe I'm a loser virgin in your eyes. Frankly, I don't give a damn what you think. All I know is that none of my carnal urges for other women meant a thing. There's only one truth that matters to me." I glared at the faces around the room. "I only want to be with one woman and she's sitting right there." I stepped toward Elyssa.

"No!" Maria said. "I haven't unbound myself. You must not break the circle."

My foot brushed the circle and the magic escaped in a tidal wave through the gap. "I love you, Elyssa."

Gasps went up around the room. Elyssa pressed a hand to her heart and sucked in a breath as she stared at me. Beck's forehead wrinkled in absolute befuddlement. Maria loosed a string of angry Spanish and grabbed me.

"You shouldn't have broken the circle."

"I felt that," Bella said, a tear trickling down her cheek. "Oh my, I have not felt such young love for so long." She wiped away the tear. "How I miss that innocence."

"It felt beautiful. So pure," another woman said in a thick Spanish accent. "Even better than the romance novel I am reading."

"Even better than El Diablo Del Mi Amor?" asked another woman in a shocked voice.

"I would not go that far."

Elyssa jumped from her chair, shaking her head as if she could fling away an unpleasant memory. She gave me a look bordering on anger and contempt.

Then she stormed from the room and slammed the door behind her.

Chapter 25

Beck sauntered over to me, a smirk on his handsome face.

"Dude, that's really sweet how you feel for her and all, but I have bad news."

"Yeah, what's that?" I growled.

"Taking the White is permanent. She won't ever remember any of the stuff you talked about. To her, it'll just be a story."