“I believe so. That’s why I need your help.”
But it wasn’t the full story. That was clear enough. “Who’s watching?”
Petra’s expression went carefully blank. “I can’t say for sure.”
“But you have suspicions.”
“Yes.”
“And it’s notyou,the woman who ostensiblyrunsthis place.”
Petra’s eyes didn’t change, but the skin around her mouth went tight. “Was that a question?”
“You’re awfully blasé about having your most private spaces violated,” he observed, surprising even himself with the level of venom in his voice. Everything about this situation botheredhim, and the more she spoke, the more certain he became that she was hiding something vital from him.
Nothing about her situation made a damn lick of sense, and that was completely intolerable.
A sweeping gesture drew his attention back to the mess of her caches spread across the floor by the bed. “Apparentlynot,”she dryly challenged. “But when you’ve lived with it for years, demon, you learn to adapt.”
“Were you gonna tell me about the surveillance before or after I attempted to rob Vanderpoel?”
Petra stood up from her bed. Without looking at him, she padded over to her plain dresser, its surface completely devoid of knick-knacks or keepsakes or accessories, and wrenched open the top drawer.
“You’re the best at what you do, aren’t you?” she mocked, shoulders shrugging beneath her blood-red robe. It slid down her arms, left bare by the simple pale blue blouse she’d changed into after the dawn service, until she could fold it and tuck it into the drawer. “I assumed you’d figure it out.”
It was impossible to resist the draw of her, he realized, and he didn’t want to even if he could.
Silas stalked across the room to press himself against her back. She stiffened, but didn’t turn when he grasped the edge of the dresser on either side of her, caging the witch in.
Speaking against her ear, he hissed, “Do you know why I’m the best, little goddess?”
Petra’s breathing slowed, as if she knew instinctively that any quick movement, any sign at all that she might bolt, would make the predator at her back pounce. “Because you don’t care who you hurt?”
“Because I always know when a client is lyin’ to me,” he answered. “And before you ask, yes, withholding the truth is thesame as lyin’ when both will get a plasma bolt stuck between my eyes.”
“And what do you think I’m hiding, Shade?”
The urge to bite her was a living thing in him, a roar from the animal who wanted nothing more than to conquer the inscrutable creature it had captured. “Whoever bugged your office, whoever bugged yourbedroom— they’re the one you’re afraid of.”
Petra remained stubbornly silent, so he continued. “Whoever it is needs to have more power thanyou,the highest ranking member of Glory’s Temple in the Protectorate. They need to have enough power to make you do nothin’ even after having your privacy invaded, day after day. Enough to make you afraid for your life. Enough to make you come tome.”
His mind raced with possibilities, filling the silence she refused to break with a thousand scenarios. Each one pissed him off more than the last.
Silas gradually drew his arms in closer to her sides, pulling the edges of her cage in. His right hand left the dresser to press flat against her stomach, drawing her back into his chest as he stooped over her, lips pressing against the shell of her ear.
“Is it the Protector, little goddess?”
Theoretically, there were at least a dozen, probably more, members of the Temple who had the power to keep the High Priestess of San Francisco on a short leash, but it was Antonin Vanderpoel, the ghost he couldn’t track, who sprang to mind.
He expected to feel her tremble, but he was quickly learning that he never really knew what Petra would do next. Instead of squirming to be free or shaking with adrenaline and fear, she relaxed her shoulders and the curve of her spine. For just a moment, she leaned her weight into him — trusting him, however unconsciously, not to let her fall.
“You’re wrong,” she answered, soft and flat.
Silas’s claws snagged in the fabric of her blouse. His voice went harsh, the syllables clipped, when he replied, “Then give me a fuckin’ name.”
Petra shook her head. “Not about that. About me being afraid of dying.”
“What are you talking about?”
