Unexpected matings happened every day. She’d blessed enough unions to know it better than most. There was an entire entertainment industry devoted to telling fantastical and tragic stories about mismatched or starcrossed matings. Dragons and orcs were notorious for that sort of thing, what with their predisposition for near-instant infatuation and kidnapping.
Witches rarely stumbled into matings with one another, but the gods knew she wouldn’t be the first to find herself bound to another by fate rather than choice. As far as she knew, demons didn’t get much of a say in their mates, so it really was just that — fate.
Petra let out a shaky breath. She’d suspected it, but hearing it confirmed made her wonder,Glory, what in the world are you doing?
“I’m your mate,” she said again, more for herself than for him. She scanned his tense features, memorized the placement of his beauty mark, the exact color of his eyes. “What does that mean?”
Before the vexed expression on his face could turn into a full-on tantrum, she quickly amended, “Foryou,Silas. What does that mean for you? How is this going to work?”
He stuck his chin out at a stubborn angle. Petra touched it, cradled the angle of his jaw in her palm, and assured him, “It’s okay to not have the answers right now. It’s just a question, demon, not a demand.”
“I thought you’d be angry,” he admitted, a touch suspiciously.
“About being your mate?”
“Yeah.”
“Anger was never on the table.” Petra rubbed his cheek with the pad of her thumb, her chest squeezing again. He tilted his head into her hand. “I can’t even say I’m surprised. I’m just… I think this is one of those things that I’m going to have to sit with before it really sinks in. Butangry?No, Silas. Why did you think that?”
“Because you’re stuck with me as your mate,” he explained with heartbreaking frankness. “No one wants that.”
Petra sucked in a sharp breath through her nose. It was a surreal thing, experiencing the sudden and unreasonable urge to protect someone as terrifying as Silas.
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe you’re stuck with me, too? I’m not exactly a catch.”
Silas’s eyes glittered underneath the fans of his lashes. “Liar. Other people want you. Or did, anyway.”
“What are you talking about?”
Nodding toward the neatly lined up row of red leather cases, he said, “I took those from Vanderpoel. You know what I found in one of them?”
Petra’s attention immediately snapped to the cases. Her heart lurched. She’d glimpsed one of Antonin’s entourage carrying something red, but she’d been too distracted by the Protector to pay much attention at the time and assumed it was just more of his endless train of luggage.
“What’s in those?”
“Lots of things,” he answered in an ominous, measured way. “Files on just about everyone in the Temple. Passports. Off-shore accounts. Blackmail. Medical records.” He paused. A muscle in his cheek spasmed. “A marriage license. With your name on it.”
Petra’s skin crawled. It wasn’t out of fear of Silas discovering what Antonin wanted from her, but from the memory of the way the Protector had spoken to her, how certain he’d been that he’d be having sex with her after dessert.
And then there was the image permanently seared into her mind’s eye: Antonin pointing the gun at Silas’s head, his finger on the trigger.
He’s dead,she reminded herself as she tried to breathe past the echo of terror.He’s dead and he can’t ever touch you or someone you love again. Silas is safe. He’s okay. Antonin can’t hurt him now.
Swallowing around the lump in her throat, Petra closed her eyes and explained, “When Antonin visited the first time… just before he left, he said he’d decided I was going to be his wife. It wasn’t even a proposal. It was a— an order. He said he wanted tojoin forces. He said he needed a good woman by his side and an heir as soon as possible.”
Both the shadows and Silas’s hand on her throat tightened. Not enough to cut off her air, but enough to remind her theywere there. As if she could forget. Rather than alarming her, the reminder helped her relax a little as she continued to explain, “He said he’d give me a few weeks to get used to the idea while he wrapped up a big project.”
Petra found herself leaning forward, until her forehead rested against the smooth skin stretched over his pec. Her voice got smaller, exhausted by the memory of the marathon she’d been running for so long. “I never said yes. I never said no, either. I knew I couldn’t. I’d tried every other avenue of getting to the truth and failed. I neededhim.So I knew I couldn’t throw out the opportunity, even if it meant… I don’t know. When it came down to it, I wasn’t able to even pretend to give him what he wanted.”
Silas’s hand slid around to cradle the back of her head. His voice was a deep rumble from his chest when he confirmed, “He wanted your bond, too.”
“Yes.”
There was a long, tense silence. Petra waited for the shoe to drop, for him to accuse her of playing him. He’d be right. She had played him. Never in her wildest imaginings did she ever think she’d actually be standing there, committed to spending the rest of her life withhim.
But she was glad it had worked out that way. No matter what came next, Petra couldn’t regret any of it.
At length, he asked, “When you went up to the belltower, what did you think was going to happen?”
