“To make our deal, obviously.” He glanced over his shoulder. “D’you want me to turn the mics back on?”
“It’s too late now,” she answered, a grave note of exhaustion in her voice.
He wasn’t stupid enough to actually take themout,but he wanted to see what she’d do if she thought he had. Silas initially suspected that they belonged to her — paranoia was always smart and Petra Zaskodna was, if nothing else,smart— but her distress felt genuine. There were no lies this time.
Petra hadn’t bugged her own office, but she knewsomeonehad.
Silky red curtains partially obscured a small, diamond-paneled window. Silas fingered the material as he watched her set the sketchpad back on the desk. It was so fine as to be almost imperceptible, but a tremor shook her hand.
The smell of fear, faint but sour, pierced the cloud of sunshine and rich incense that filled the air around her. Silas frowned.I don’t like that.
His brother was always telling him he needed to be more conscious of other people’s feelings, but Silas argued that he was plenty conscious. He just didn’t care. That’s why it was an awfully foreign feeling, that pang of dissatisfaction he experienced when that sour scent singed his nose.
“Who bugged your office?”
Petra sighed. “Tell me what you want, Shade.”
Silas flicked the curtain away. Normally he found it funny when clients tried to negotiate with him or withhold information he wanted, but something aboutherdoing it was… annoying.
No matter how much self-reflection his brother or his clan urged him to do, Silas never cared to examine where his impulses came from. His urges were unerringly straight lines. They didn’t weave or tangle or circle around in uncertainty. He had an urge and he acted. Easy. It hadn’t steered him wrong yet. Why fix a system that wasn’t broken?
Those impulses, alongside a childhood promise, had brought him to San Francisco when he’d gotten wind of a suspicious bounty weeks prior to the announcement of the m-generator. They’d brought him to Petra, who unknowingly held the key to fulfilling that promise. Now they urged him to close his fist around the little goddess and hold fast, no matter how hard she squirmed to be free.
Silas canted his head to one side, fascinated by the way light from the window played across her sunshine hair and golden skin. Maybe that was why he wanted to possess her so viscerally. Demons were creatures of the dark, which meant the thing they craved most was a taste of the light.
Or the thought of having a perfect priestess, all sunshine and bite, stooping to ask for his help just made his cock hard.
Bit of both.
When he’d let the silence hang long enough to make the spark of anger reappear in her eyes, he answered, “It really would be better if you just got me into the Tower, you know.”
Solbourne Tower, where the top-secret research and development of the m-generator prototype was planned to take place, was perhaps the only building in the world he couldn’t break into. He’d tried, of course. Too bad the crazy bastard who built it, Thaddeus II, had been as paranoid as he was cruel. Thedamn skyscraper had wards pressed into every steel girder and panel of triple-reinforced glass.
Hecouldget through eventually, but Silas wasn’t exactly known for his patience. Using a cunning, desperate witch with good connections was much faster.And pleasurable.
Petra’s expression tensed. “I said no.”
Silas clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “So loyal to your sovereign’s mate. Seems a bit silly to me.”
Most loyalties did. He’d never been able to get a good grasp on why people felt the need toclingto one another, especially when it went against their best interest.
“Margot is a friend,” Petra replied, voice tight. “Now drop it.”
Turning her wooden desk chair to face her, Silas plopped into it and spread his legs. He balanced the heel of his boot on the floor and twisted his ankle one way, then the other, his attention drawn to her tiny reflection in the polished leather stretched over the steel toe box. “It’s cute that you think you can order me around. Does that normally work for you?”
“I’m High Priestess. Of course it does.”
“Ah, but you’re a scared High Priestess, aren’t you? Scared enough to beg a monster for help.” He dropped his foot and leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees. “You’re atmymercy, little goddess. Might be good to remember that.”
The memory of how she’d fought him about the whiskey and how much that enhanced the urge to make her bend rose unbidden, sending a lick of flame down his spine. The way she’d looked up at him when she finally did as she was told… Yes, that was something he planned to repeat.
Silas liked having her at his mercy. A lot.
He was impressed by the way she approached him then, dressed in her service finery but holding herself like a sheathed switchblade, ready to spring at any moment. Petra stalked across the room to stand just between his knees. She looked downthe slope of her proud nose with an expression of stark finality when she said, “Listen to me, demon: I don’t have time to play games with you. I’m not negotiating terms. If you don’t want my money, then you canget the fuck outof my office.”
Silas couldn’t help but marvel at her.Tal is going to love her.
His brother had been against Silas’s back-up plan — which, he argued, wasn’t really aback-upwhen it would lead to the generator eventually. Tal was all for murder and mayhem, but apparently this was a line even he wouldn’t cross.The poor thing simply didn’t have the stomach for it.
