I snuggled and listened to the traffic as Nick ran a hand over my head. He seemed inordinately relieved. “Nick?” I questioned. “What would you have done if I hadn’t said no?”

He took a slow breath. “Put your spell pot just inside the door and left,” he said, his voice rumbling up through me.

I straightened, and he winced as my body weight shifted against him. “You would have let her tear out my throat?”

He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Ivy wouldn’t have drained you and left you for dead,” he said reluctantly. “Even in the frenzy you had her whipped up to. I heard what she offered you. That was no one night stand. It was a life commitment.”

My demon scar tingled at his words, and frightened, I pushed the feeling away. “Just how long were you standing there?” I asked, going cold with the thought that the nightmare might have been far more than Ivy simply losing control.

His grip around me tightened as his eyes failed to reach mine. “Long enough to hear her ask to make you her scion. I wasn’t going to stand in your way if it was something you wanted.”

My mouth dropped open and I pulled my arm from around behind him. “You would have walked away and let her make me into a plaything?”

A flash of anger flickered in his brown eyes. “A scion, Rachel. Not a shadow or plaything, or even a thrall. There’s a world of difference.”

“You would have walked away?” I exclaimed, not willing to get out of his lap for fear pride might make me leave his apartment. “You would have done nothing?”

His jaw clenched but he made no move to dump me onto the floor. “I am not the one living in a church with a vamp!” he said. “I don’t know what you want. I can only go on what you tell me and what I see. You live with her. You date me. What am I supposed to think?”

I said nothing, and he added in a softer voice, “What Ivy wants is not wrong or unusual, it’s a cold, scary fact. She’s going to need a trustworthy scion in about forty years or so, and she likes you. To tell you the truth, it’s a damn fine offer. But you had better make up your mind as to what you want before time and vamp pheromones make it for you.” His voice grew halting, reluctant. “You wouldn’t be a plaything. Not with Ivy. And you would be safe with her, untouchable by just about every nasty thing Cincinnati has.”

Gaze distant, my thoughts lit on small, seemingly unrelated instances of friction between Ivy and Nick, seeing them in a new light. “She’s been hunting me all this time,” I whispered, feeling the first hints of real fear.