“You seem to know an awful lot about the worst things in the world,” he replied, careful to keep his voice level. “I wonder why that is.”
She said nothing, but he didn’t expect her to. As he’d learned over the last few days, his little goddess wasn’t entirely what he thought she’d be. She remained a hypocrite, certainly, but everything else he thought he knew was smoke and mirrors.
Petra was a far better liar — a far moreexperiencedliar — than he ever would have given her credit for.
His words hung in the air as they drove for an hour in silence. Silas noticed that she’d finished every drop of tea and even licked the tiny crumbs of the eggroll off the tip of her finger, but he couldn’t tell if it was a task to keep herself occupied or some other compulsion.
Tal told me she hasn’t been eating much, but I didn’t think she was starving.
He’d tasked his reluctant brother with watching over her while he did his recon, but the update he’d received upon returning to the city had been more confusing than helpful, particularly in light of what he’d learned.
Every day, she woke up before dawn to perform her service. She ate breakfast afterward, usually in her office, where she took meetings with worshippers, planned weddings, and did administrative tasks. Lunch was eaten amongst the dead, hidden in a tower above the main cathedral, and the rest of the day was spent either running community programs or instructing the initiates under her care. Then dinner, bed, and it began again.
She’s good to her people,Tal had told him, sounding even more troubled than when Silas left.Doesn’t take shit, but is always patient. She works hard, plays with kids in the nursery, never gets angry when someone accidentally messes up. I don’t think she knows it, but most of the staff adore her. I didn’t see one suspicious thing, Silas. Not one. I don’t think she does anything other than live and breathe her work. I don’t even know if she actually sleeps.
Someone else might have wondered if they’d misjudged her, but not Silas. Because no one, no good,normalperson, sought him out. Ever. So he had to wonder who the real Petra was, hidden beneath so many masks. Who was the real woman? The one who performed so well under constant surveillance, or the one who felt comfortable seeking the help of a known killer?
He thought he might get some answers from his trip up north, but he’d only gotten more questions.
Because, as it turned out, Antonin Vanderpoel wasn’t the only ghost.
It was nearly midnight by the time he pulled into the gravel driveway of the tiny coastal shack he kept for emergencies. It was too dark to make out much of the squat wooden home or its red walls, tucked in amongst towering, spindly trees sloped by the wind, but he knew every inch of the land on which it sat.
Like all his properties, it was warded so tightly, no one but him and whoever he allowed could step foot on it. Even if they wanted to, it was almost impossible to see. He’d crafted funhouse mirrors of magic and power, distorting the image of the land, the road, the home, until what an outsider saw bore no resemblance to what was actually there.
Silas cut a glance at Petra, wondering what she’d make of it. He wasn’t disappointed.
She sat ram-rod straight in her seat, the empty bottle of tea in her white-knuckled grip, and stared out the windshield at the cottage with eyes that were wide enough to show white around the edges.
His home in the city was equally well warded. A bomb blast wouldn’t have made a dent in his defenses there, though that house was, by necessity, far more exposed to the public than the shack and therefore required more finesse in his work. Despite what he told her, she would have been safe and theirconversation private if he’d simply taken her to his home in San Francisco.
But she wouldn’t have been as unsettled there, and that part was essential. Shaking her secrets loose wouldn’t happen if he didn’t rattle her a little.
“What are you hiding in there?” she asked, voice pitched so low he almost missed it.
Silas unclipped his seatbelt and then, because she seemed to have turned to stone, reached over her to do hers, too. “Nothing but some furniture, a fireplace, and canned soup.”
He was bent over her, contorted to twist over the console, when she turned her head sharply to face him. Nose to nose, their breath mingling between them, he thought he couldjustsee between the shimmering layers of her glamour.
Petra nearly breathed the words against his mouth when she hissed, “Is this where you take people to kill them?”
Fuck.The urge to snake his tongue along her plush bottom lip, undisguised by her illusion, was a visceral thing. He’d never been one for kissing, really, but with Petra… Yes, he could understand why others enjoyed it so much. He wanted to suck the breath from her lungs until she came tohimfor air.
“No,” he answered, unlatching her seatbelt’s mechanism. His voice sounded like crushed gravel. Shadows stirred around the car, awakened by the deep, dark thing in him that reached for her. “Mostly I kill people in their own homes. You think I’d go through all this effort just to clean a bunch of brainmatter off my own walls?”
Hetsked.“Baby, I’m not gonna kill you. I’m gonnainterrogateyou. If you’re a good girl and answer all my questions, I might even fuck you after.” Silas fought the desire to kiss her, knowing he should save that for another time, and instead brushed his lips, so very gently, against the silky curve of her cheek. “Even little goddesses like to come, don’t they?”
He said it mostly to get a rise out of her — gods knew she needed to do so very little to get one out of him — but he was pleased as punch when it did something else.
The thread of scent in the air was unmistakable. He was pretty sure it was branded into his brain the first time he smelled it, butnow,up close and stronger than before, it was a siren’s song.
Petra’s desire was like ambrosia on his tongue.
Her expression was shuttered, her glamoured eyes almost hateful, but her scent couldn’t be controlled — and demons had damn good noses.
Silas couldn’t help it. He laughed.
My pretty hypocrite,he thought, pressing a quick kiss to the tip of her nose,you’re more fucked up than I thought.
