“You gonna tell me why I had to drag my ass across the continent or what?” Rasmus asked, one scarred eyebrow cocked.
Rolling his shoulders to ease some of the tension knotting his muscles, Silas strode over to Rasmus’s car. The were watched him closely. His eyes had a wild gleam to them, something dark and animalistic, but that wasn’t new. Rasmus always looked like he was half a step away from letting the beast explode from within. He claimed it was part of his charm.
“Here,” Silas grunted, shoving the package into Rasmus’s chest with more force than necessary. To his credit, the man didn’t stumble.
Wisely, he also didn’t reach for it. “What’s this?”
“We came across some information. This is a bit you’re gonna wanna see.” Considering the amount of raw, encrypted data his systems were still trying to process, qualifying what they’d uncovered as “some” was probably the understatement of the century. Rasmus didn’t need to know that, though.
His explanation didn’t put the were at ease. Instead, he wisely appeared to grow even more suspicious. “And you just want to give it to me? For free?”
Silas shoved the package into his chest again, but this time he let go of it, forcing Rasmus to catch it before it fell to the gritty asphalt.
“I’mnot giving you shit. My mate is.”
Holding the package in one hand like it might explode at any moment, Rasmus dared to glance toward the car again. “The only reason I bothered to come here is to see if she’s alive. Is she doing all right?”
“Fine.”
“Really? Because last time I saw her, she had a hole in her side.”
Silas’s shadows rippled, itching to act on the surge of aggression that coursed through him, but he got a handle on them just in time. He had no particular fondness for Rasmus, and Silas hated that he’d seen Petra when she was at her most vulnerable, but killing him served no real purpose.
Maybe that wouldn’t have stopped him before, but it did now. Because now he had a mate to think about. Petra asked him not to hurt Rasmus and so he wouldn’t.
Even if hereallywanted to.
“She’s healed,” he bit out, forcing his shadows to settle at his feet, where they began to writhe in the darkness below Rasmus’s vehicle. The urge to slash his tires was a visceral one.
She’s healed,he silently repeated, reassuring himself.She’s healed and she’s mine and no one can take her from me.
And when they got back to his den, he’d finally,finallyseal that claim.
Rasmus shook his head, his expression troubled. “Look, I certainly can’t say shit about mismatched pairings, but you and Pet? Are yousure?I want to talk to her, just to see for myself that you haven’t fucked with her head or something. She deserves better than you, Shade.”
Silas couldn’t deny it. He still felt her fingers gently combing through his hair, still heard the sweet nothings she whispered in his ear. He couldn’t stop thinking of her quiet certainty that hecared.
Petra Zaskodna was a woman of masks, but those masks hid an exquisitely fragile heart. She cared about her people. She was loyal to a fault. She believed in justice, however it might be delivered.
She was good — and that was why she needed someone very, very bad.
No one else could give her what she needed to thrive. He might be a bad mate who couldn’t love her in the way he should, but he’d tear the world down to the studs for her.
And he’dneverleave her.
“I don’t give a fuck,” he replied, aggression steadily rising like steam within a kettle. “She’s my mate. She’s happy and she’s healthy and she’s safe. That’s all you or anyone else needs to know.”
Rasmus’s lips pressed thin. “I want to see her.”
“Sounds like you want to die, too.”
“She’s my friend, Shade, and I’m the one who made the colossal mistake of connecting you two. I need to see that she’s okay afteryougot her shot.”
“The fact that you’re her friend is the only reason you’rehere,”he snarled. His blood felt too hot, his skin too tight. The glare of the sun was searing on the crown of his head and in his eyes.
Fuck this and fuck the sun. We should be in my den.
On the brink of losing control, Silas sought out the bit of himself tied around Petra’s neck. The phantom touch of her — the beat of her pulse, the salt of her skin, the hot bite of her magic — soothed the sharpest edge of his rage. For a moment, anyway.
