Tal’s voice took on the tone that drove Silas up a wall — an infuriating combination of patience and condescension.I’m not saying I didn’t want it. I’m just trying to explain that maybe this is more complicated than you’re ready to deal with. I want you to help Petra, Silas, but I don’t think you’re ready for her bond, or what being tied to her would do to you. Look at you! You look like you’re barely keeping it together.
“You think I should let her go.”
The words were a tiny, insignificant pebble dropped down a dark well inside him. At first there was nothing, no reaction, as it sailed into the depths of him. Then, all at once there was a splash — a great, echoing cataclysm that rippled through the very core of his being.
Petra wasn’t just a mystery. She washismystery. Her magic washismagic. Her body washisbody. All her little secrets, all her lies, all her curious soft spots — they all belonged to him. They had since the moment she dared to walk into that bar and lie to his face.
Silas’s fingers curled into a fist, one by one, when he announced, “No.”
No?
“I’m not letting her go. I’mneverletting her go.”
Silas, listen to yourself.Tal lost the patience and exchanged it for outright concern.You’re obsessed with her now, but what if this is just the rut? I don’t want you to tangle yourself up in this poor woman’s life, only to break her heart when you don’t want anything to do with her come fall. Say it’s not the rut— What are you going to do if you actually want to keep her? I’m just asking you to think this through.
Dissatisfaction wasn’t a heavy feeling then, but a sharp sting inside him. “You think I’m going to hurt her.”
It wasn’t the first time Tal had warned him away from hurting someone he felt didn’t deserve it, but something aboutthiswarning made the muscles of Silas’s throat tighten.
I think you’re stepping into something far more complicated and dangerous than you accounted for. And I’m not just talking about whatever is going on with the Temple and Vanderpoel.
That, at least, Silas could agree with. He didn’t care about whatever was rotting the Temple from the inside out, but he was beginning to understand that whatever it was that existed between himself and Petra had taken on a life of its own.
It was its own kind of predator, and he sensed that it was simply biding its time before it swallowed them both whole.
But he couldn’t articulate that feeling even if he wanted to, which he didn’t. Silas was intensely possessive of his relationship with Petra, and things he’d normally feel nothing about sharing with his only friend in the world were suddenly precious little jewels to be hoarded.
He didn’t want anyone else to see them when he took them out and held them to the light, inspecting every facet and color. He wanted to keep them close, locked where no one could touch them, and know they belonged to him and him alone.
Not even Tal would get the privilege of admiring the treasure he’d found.
Trying to end the conversation before he really did rake his claws through Tal’s barely-there form, he said, “I’m not leaving Petra to fend for herself. I’m going to handle this for her and then figure out the rest.”
That’s all I ask,Tal replied, sounding relieved.Just use your head, Silas. That’s all. I know you hate being told what to do, but I’m worried about you. I’m worried about her, too.
“Well, stop worrying about her. She isn’t fuckin’ yours.”
Silas’s teeth clicked together as his jaw snapped shut. A beat of silence passed. In the distance, a flurry of honking horns and a lone disgruntled voice interrupted the relatively quiet city night.
Then, in his whispery voice, Tal asked,Do you hear yourself? Tell me what you sound like, Silas.
He turned on his heel to pace again. Anger was a burning coal in his stomach, its heat fueled by the urgent need to get back to Petra’s den, where she lay vulnerable and soft beneath her sheets.
“I sound like a demon on the edge of rut,” he grunted. “It’s not that fuckin’ deep, Tal.”
You seem to forget that I’ve known you for decades, Silas. Long before you entered your first rut. And before that, I went through them myself. I know the fucking difference.
It was on the tip of Silas’s tongue to ask what Tal’s own experience had anything to do with this, since he could barely remember something that happened a lifetime and a millennia ago, but that was too cruel even for him.
“What do I sound like, then?” he snapped instead.
You sound like a mate.
Silas rolled his eyes in such a way that his matriarch would have warned him that they’d get lost in the back of his head. “I’m not anyone’s mate.”
Are you sure? Because you seem awfully tetchy for a man who just wants to get his cock wet in a pretty priestess.
Silas turned his head so fast something in his spine cracked. “Watch your fuckin’ mouth!”
