Petra dearly wanted to smash the whiskey glass against one of his horns, but managed to restrain herself. Speaking tightly, she asked, “Do you want the job or not?”
He shrugged. “Y’can’t afford me.”
“You don’t know that.”
It was a smirk that played around the corners of his mouth then. “I do.”
“How?” she demanded. “You can’t just look at a person and know?—”
A claw hooked in the fabric of her shirt, just beneath the collar. Before she could think to fight him, he’d tugged until her ear was level with his lips and she could feel the stale air of the bar against the sweaty skin between her breasts. Her gold necklace, the one she’d been too stupid to take off, dangled between them. She could smell his breath, the tang of whiskey and something uniquely him. He didn’t wear cologne. His scent was subtle, raw. Oddly compelling.
His lips didn’t quite touch the shell of her ear, but she could feel them moving against flyaway strands of her hair when he whispered, “Not even San Francisco’s High Priestess makes enough to afford me.”
A wave of nausea nearly made her sway in her seat.How does he know?She’d fucked up somewhere, somehow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have an inheritance. A very, very large inheritance. I haven’t touched a dime. I swear I can pay you whatever you charge me.” Backed into a corner, she couldn’t help but let a bit of her real desperation into her voice when she added, “You can have all of it.”
He didn’t move. For a long time, his only reply was another deep breath and slow exhale.
“You’re scared.”
“Yes.”
There was no use in denying it. She’d been scared since the day she received the ashes in the mail: a neat little box with a plastic lining and a flimsy plastic plaque glued on the lid.
Maximilian Dooraker, High Priest of Glory’s Temple. Death in dutiful service. - 1856-2044
She wasn’t sure what tipped her off, but something in his demeanor changed. Shade eased back, but he didn’t give her space. Instead, he gripped her jaw with one large, clawed hand and turned her head to better peer into her face.
She jolted at the contact, her skin burning with a sudden defensive flush. The air shimmered again, more violently this time, as her magic screamed outward from the core of her being to press against the surface of skin — begging for release.
“There she is,” he whispered, apparently untroubled by the way the air between them had heated to an almost unbearable degree. She could see him a little better, lit as he was by her own burgeoning glow. Too bad it made himmoreintimidating, not less.
Shade rubbed his thumb against her jaw as if he wanted to test the texture of her skin, or perhaps in fascination with the way it cast its own weak light. “The goddess’s own flesh,” he said, lips curled in that mocking smile. “Isn’t that what they say in those press releases?The rising star of Glory’s Temple.San Francisco’s personal sunshine. And yet here she is, practically in the lap of ademon.How very scandalous of you, High Priestess. You shouldn’t be here. Don’t you know what kind of monsters play in the dark?”
Petra’s breath sawed in and out of her chest. Despair crashed into anger and then mortification. The urge to cry humiliated her almost as much as his mockery.
She didn’t care what Shade or anyone else thought of her. She didn’t even care about whatever bullshit fluff the Temple’s overzealous PR department put out about her.
All she came for, all she had existed for since the day she received those ashes in the mail was the truth.And she was wasting what little time she had left to get it on a man who had never intended to help her in the first place.
Cautiousness burned away. She slapped his wrist with the back of her hand, dislodging his grip on her jaw. “Let me go.”
“No.”
Petra kept her hands away from the wooden chair, afraid she might accidentally ignite it, but she felt no such compunction in regards to Shade’s suit.
He let her grab his lapel, playful interest glittering in his lambent eyes. It smoldered under her palm. When thin tendrils of smoke began to mix with the clouds of cigarette smoke in the air, she bit out, “Let mego.”
“Are you going to burn me alive, little goddess?”
“Yes. If I have to.” Petra tugged him close to whisper in a clipped, flat voice, “It’s not like I haven’t done it before.”
It had been a long time, but she knew how to defend herself. Pushed to it, Petra could be a monster all on her own.
She was quickly learning that Shade didn’t disguise his thoughts behind a mask. His expressions were mercurial, the variations of his smile endless. When he looked at her then, it was with a grin that was positivelywolfish.“It won’t look very good to your adoring worshippers to see their favorite priestess running away from the scene of a crime, would it?”
“They wouldn’t know it was me.”
“They wouldn’t?” He lifted his glass to his lips again and took a long sip. “You’re awfully recognizable.”
