Adjusting the strap of her bag over his shoulder, Silas pushed her past the heavily glamoured man who waited for them at the end of the gravel driveway. Despite the thick, smoky glamour disguising his features, the witch hadn’t bothered trying to hidehis tattoos, nor the way he’d dressed to the nines. Sporting a rower’s build and a general air of tightly restrained power, whoever it was Silas had wrangled into transporting them to San Francisco was no common gatekeeper for hire.
Wearing what looked like a luxury sweater with neat, slim-fitted slacks and a thin black leather belt, he looked entirely out of place against the wild backdrop of trees and underbrush that nearly consumed the narrow track of the driveway. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t place where she might know him from.
If anything about the situation bothered him, however, she couldn’t tell. His body language was relaxed and the line of his broad shoulders smooth. He’d tucked his hands in his pockets. She could make out a thick silver watch around his wrist — and more tattoos dotting the backs of his hands.
He was covered with them, and they weren’t the decorative kind. They weresigils.The closer she peered, the more she could make out.
A sort of recognition rippled through her mind. It was the same kind she felt when she sensed Tal, and perhaps any being related to the shadows that now coiled around her throat.
She knew without needing to look closely that at least some of those sigils were Silas’s work. It wasn’t just the jagged, distinctive scrawl of them, but a particular hum of energy she recognized instinctively.
Gatekeepers, those few witches powerful enough to tear holes in space, often used sigils to help stabilize their abilities, but she’d never seen so many before. This man’s tattoos peeked above the collar of his sweater and ran down the forearms he’d freed from his sleeves.
She couldn’t make out his expression or see where his gaze was aimed, but she felt the weight of his attention when heturned it on her. “Nice to see you again, High Priestess. And all in one piece, too.”
Petra blinked. “Have we met before?”
“I repaid one of my favors to Shade a few weeks ago,” he explained, unruffled by the way Silas bared his fangs at him. “You wouldn’t remember, since you were passed out at the time.”
Oh.She’d figured an m-gate had been involved in their quick trip across the continent, but Petra hadn’t thought too hard about who might have done it. Maybe she hadn’t thought to question it because it wasSilas.He was capable of anything. If he’d revealed some hidden ability to teleport, she wouldn’t have been terribly surprised.
“And you’re repaying another one by taking us back to San Francisco,” Silas growled, “not by chatting up my mate.”
The gatekeeper shrugged. “Can you blame me?”
Petra gave him a quelling look. “If you like your head where it’s at, I wouldn’t antagonize him.”
“It’s more fun this way,” he replied mildly, like he didn’t have a single worry in the world. That was remarkable, considering he stood not three feet away from a demon who really wouldn’t think anything of killing him.
She was about to tell him how stupid that was, but when her gaze drifted down to the sigils on his neck, Petra stopped herself. A man whose power needed to be contained likethat…Maybe he really didn’t have anything to fear from Silas.
Still not smart, though.
Petra wouldn’t put it past her mate to ruin his life in other, more creative ways.
“Open up the fuckin’ gate,” Silas ordered. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and dragged her close, until she fit snugly under his arm.
The gatekeeper slowly inclined his head before he pulled his hands from his pockets. “You’ve gotten a lot more direct since you took a mate, Shade. I like it.”
While he readied himself, Petra stretched onto her tiptoes to whisper in Silas’s ear, “What about Tal?”
“He travels in his own way,” he assured her. “He’s probably already there, actually.”
Petra figured as much, but it was nice to know. She couldn’t speak to Tal — yet — but she felt a deep kinship with him. Not only because he was a fellow lonely soul who fell through the cracks, but because he’d been there for Silas when she couldn’t.
Tal was Silas’s family just as much as his parents or the rest of his clan was. Maybe even moreso, because he’d made the choice to stick by Silas even when he didn’t have to. That meant he was her family now, too, and she intended to take care of him.
Magic began to gather around them. The finest strands of her hair stood up as an electrical charge hummed in her ears. It was like an approaching thunderstorm — all static and ozone and curiously heavy air in her lungs. The tang of metal came with it. The taste of blood dripped down the back of her throat with every breath.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the gatekeeper raise his tattooed hands. Light gathered before him, sparking into existence from nothing but the raw, blinding power he carried inside him. Heart lurching in her chest, she asked, “Do you think we can do this?”
Silas gazed at her for a beat. Tracing the line of her jaw with his thumb, he replied, “I think we can do anything, baby.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
Petra had never consciously traveledby m-gate before, so feeling like she’d been squeezed through a pinhole and then extruded out the other side took a bit of adjusting to.
As soon as a solid surface reformed under her feet, she was forced to swallow a surge of nausea. Bizarrely, she got the sense that she’d stumbled and also that she hadn’t moved at all. Her sense of self became malleable, as did her relationship with her various limbs, bits, and parts.
