“You aren’t paying for it,” he replied, annoyed that she’d turn down a gift. The animal in him didn’t like that at all. “Consider it an insurance policy to keep my investment safe.”
“I…” Her words died on her tongue. Rather than the angry silences she’d fallen into before, this one seemed genuinely baffled.
Silas clicked his tongue and, knelt there in the gravel driveway, helped her remove the original necklace. She was docile as he looped the long chain over her neck and only watched, wide-eyed, as he transferred it to himself.
Once it was in place against his chest, deliciously warmed by her body heat, he plucked the replica from her limp hand and did the same process for her.
“There,” he announced, exceedingly pleased now that everything was sorted. “C’mon.”
She was quiet as he helped her climb out of the car. With one hand tucked behind her back, he guided her toward the shack. The necklace bumped his breastbone with every step. He imagined it was an echo of her heartbeat, thumbing away in time with his own.
Beside him, looking lost in the dark, Petra whispered, “Thank you, Silas.”
Chapter Thirteen
Walking into the tiny,darkened cottage was maybe the single stupidest thing Petra had ever done.
Once upon a time, she’d taken pride in her self-preservation instincts. She’d survived circumstances that would have landed most people face down in a gutter solely because she kept her eyes open at all times and trusted no one. She didn’t take risks. She didn’t believe kind words unless they were backed up by cold, hard facts.
But that was before Max’s murder.
The Petra that had survived, the one content with a safe life obscured in the hierarchy of the Temple, died the day she received his ashes in the secret post office box they’d set up so many years prior.
Every day since, a little bit more of her caution had been rubbed away by the grit of grief and anger. By the time she stood in the doorway of Shade’s —Silas’s —cottage, she’d been worn down into a new shape, a different sort of woman.
Thatwoman took risks because she had nothing left to lose.
Petra watched Silas stride into the dark entryway of the cottage, his movements almost feline in their grace, and felt the weight of the necklace he’d given her. It rested beneath her shirt,heavier than the one she’d received upon accession from initiate to priestess, and imbued with enough raw, wild power to hum against her flesh.
Silas. His name is Silas.The thought carried more weight than the necklace. More power. More everything.
It was an odd thing, to realize one stood on the precipice of the end of their life. No matter what she chose in that moment, her life as she knew it would end, and she felt the weight of it in the necklace, pulling her down until her spine strained under the force.
The old Petra would have balked at following Silas. She would have rejected the burning coal of attraction smoldering in her stomach. She would have walked away.
But that woman had the luxury of a long, independent life. The new Petra did not.
Her time to make choices had narrowed into days, not months or years or the centuries she should have had. To some degree it hadn’t truly feltrealuntil that moment.
If she didn’t die by the Protector’s hand, then she would become his creature, bound to him by magic and blood. Either way, her world would end.
She’d accepted that weeks ago, but now, here, she realized she’d been given a gift — not a reprieve, not a savior, but a chance to make a choice before all else was stolen from her.
Fuck it,she thought, forcing her feet across the threshold.
She didn’t trust Silas, but it didn’t really matter because something had shifted between them, a great leveling that she felt more than she could truly articulate. Silas hadn’t just given her his name — real or fake, she couldn’t say — but the knowledge that she held power over him.
In a moment when she knew her agency would be snatched from her, it was a heady thing.
So she followed him, risks be damned, and watched him with new eyes as he flicked a light switch on, revealing a quaint little sitting room and corner kitchen. A short hallway led to what she could only presume was a bedroom and bathroom.
“Sit,” he ordered, gesturing to a small couch situated across from an old fashioned iron stove.
It was a habit to argue, as she’d never been one to take direction well, but she was so overwhelmed by the turns things had taken that she shrugged it off. Petra sank onto the couch’s cushions and watched in a daze as the demon knelt to open the stove’s grate. He expertly piled kindling from a basket in the belly of the stove and reached for a box of matches.
“I can do that.”
Petra wasn’t entirely sure why she offered. The season rested on the cusp of summer and though the night had a coastal coolness to it, she wasn’t cold. Even if she was, he had matches to light the thing. It was pure habit, she realized, to help him light a fire.
