He couldn’t seem to relax, nor even work up the normal titillation he experienced the night before a job.
He couldn’t control his impulses, which were going haywire at the lack of security in her den and the knowledge that she made even less sense to him now than she did a few daysprior. Everything became even more unstable after discovering another man wanted her.
Petra had been awfully cagey about why the Protector was visiting, but he didn’t need her to say it aloud. No man who installed video cameras in a woman’s bedroom did it simply for information. It was for blackmail or pleasure. Always.
Her admission to being the daughter of a crime family — something he’d be looking into when he had a damnsecond— made the blackmail option slightly more likely, but only just.
Silas had exactly zero doubts that Vanderpoel had taken one look at the mysterious, shining facade of Petra’s masks and wanted what he did:more.
If he hadn’t already planned to kill the man, that would have clinched it.
Silas couldn’t stop himself from glancing over his shoulder as he knelt on the floor by the bed. He was still looking at her, unable to tear his eyes away from her slumbering form, even as he rooted around in his backpack for his invisible ink marker.
It was large, with a thick chisel nib, and dried quickly enough to be useful for swift sigilwork. Exactly what he needed if he wanted even the smallest chance of his instincts allowing him to leave her side for a moment.
Teeth grinding, Silas forced his attention to the task at hand.
A few minutes passed as he worked. The astringent, chemical scent of the marker sliced through the rich haze of Petra’s fragrance, wrinkling his nose as he drew a protective ring of unique sigils around her bed.
He’d only be gone for a few minutes, but anything could happen in that time. Silas aimed to make sure that anything wasnothing.
His hair still stood on end after he finished, but it settled something in him to know that nothing could cross that invisible boundary without their insides liquefying.
Silas’s lips quirked at the thought. He wondered if, like the story of Blight and Glory, the nastier sigilwork was another thing Petra hadn’t been taught in school.
Where did she go to school?
His smile fell. Another question, another gap in his knowledge. Normally he didn’t care to learn anything about a woman besides what her cunt tasted like, but the blank slate of Petra’s formative years gnawed at him.
In fact, the sweet, musky taste of her cunt only made him want to know more.
Damn.
Shaking his head, Silas shoved his feet into his boots and strained to keep his eyes forward as he crept towards the closet and its hidden door.
His skin felt a little tighter with every step. His jaw tensed. His shadows were a furious, roiling mass just beneath his skin, desperate to get back to the treasure they’d left vulnerable in the bed.
But he kept moving. He turned the knob on the closet door. He slipped inside.
The short, dank hallway — barely big enough to fit the width of his shoulders — seemed much longer than it had before. Every step took more effort and the walls, unsealed, rough concrete, seemed to loom around him like a tunnel of brambles.
His heart, normally steady even under the most dire circumstances, throbbed in his chest. By the time he squeezed out of the concealed door into the gap between two buildings, he was covered head to toe in a layer of cold sweat.
Silas braced a palm on the filthy wall and tried in vain to catch his breath.What the fuck is wrong with me?
Are you wearing Glory’s symbol?He didn’t think he’d ever heard Tal sound so incredulous, which was saying something.
Silas smoothed his palm over the cheap gold necklace. It was warmed with his body heat, but he thought he could still feel a bit of Petra in it. “Yes.”
Why are you?—
“Worried I’m becoming religious?”
Fuck no,Tal replied.It just seems a little blasphemous, even for you.
Silas scoffed. Of all the things to be pulled out of bed for… “What do you care? The gods aren’t real.”
People don’t think wraiths are real, either, but here I am.
