See?
“She’s not my mate,” he ground out, disturbed by the very idea. Not because he disliked the thought of Petra being bound to him for the rest of her life — that was a lovely benefit of her bond, after all — but becausehisinstincts were out of his control. Demons didn’t get to decide who their partners were, unlike witches, and he’d always gotten the feeling that he would be one of those pitied few who never discovered his other half.
Silas wasn’t ignorant to the fact that his clan whispered that though it was regrettable for any demon to never meet their mate, in his case it was probably for the best. After all, who could be that unlucky?
He didn’t take offense. His family meant well, as they always did, and he was certain they would be delighted if hedidfind his mate, but he had historically agreed that it was for the best that he didn’t. Silas had never felt the craving to find a mate like his cousins and couldn’t stomach the maintenance of one besides.
Until now.What had long been considered a blessing now felt… wrong.
Despite Silas’s combative tone and posture warning him to back off, Tal kept pushing.How do you know?
“Because my shadows haven’t— It hasn’thappened.”
When demons met their mates, a piece of their shadows lived within their partner and acted as a brand of ownership. No other demon would mistake them for being unmated when a piece of living shadow possessively curled around their arm, ankle, waist, or throat. Demons and their clans shared a unique fingerprint, a tenor to their shadows that could be perceived by any of their kind, giving even more depth to the claim. If Petra wore his shadow, it would be the equivalent of having his name and that of his clan tattooed across her forehead.
…Which, in hindsight, helped him understand the appeal of a marriage sigil a little bit more.
It doesn’t always happen right away, Si,Tal argued,and you’re a hybrid. Who knows what that means for mating?
The thought of Petra wearing a brand of his shadow, telling all the world who she belonged to, reminded him of how her lush cunt stretched around the very essence of Silas’s soul. A fresh wave of cold sweat broke out across the back of his neck. Want curled in his gut, syrupy and sweet like molasses.
But if shewashis mate, surely his shadows would have knownthen,when they were literally inside her.Right?
Unfortunately, that wasn’t a question he could ask without telling his brother things he should never,everknow about his witch.
Silas drove a knuckle into his eye, trying to thwart the beginnings of a headache. “Fuck this,” he muttered, striding toward the entrance of the alley. “I’m not having this conversation with you, Tal, so drop it. I’m going back to bed.”
Tal wasn’t happy, but he begrudgingly allowed,Fine. What about tomorrow? What’s the plan?
He paused, shrugging. “Tomorrow? We kill the motherfucker who put cameras in my witch’s bedroom.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
It wassweet relief to slide back under Petra’s sheets, but rest eluded him.
He didn’t usually sleep through the night. He preferred to work, either doing whatever job struck his fancy or tinkering with his machines in his lab while Tal drifted in and out. Silas tended to sleep about four hours a night, supplemented with sporadic naps during the day.
But it wasn’t his sleep schedule that kept him awake as he draped his limbs over Petra, pressing her into the mattress and shielding her from… nothing.
Silas bit the inside of his cheek.Damn.
He’d never been protective of another being in his life. Possessive? Certainly. His clan belonged to him, and therefore anything that threatened a member of his family fell under his protection, even if they technically outranked him in the loose hierarchy of the Cuttcombe clan.
Tal fell under that umbrella, too, but he didn’t need protecting. There was vanishingly little, as far as they knew, that could harm a wraith. Even if there was a threat, Tal was almost as ruthless as Silas. He could defend himself.
But a compulsive anxiety about the safety of another being? No, he’d never felt that before. Not with his family, not with Tal, not with his rut partners.
Just Petra.
A deep growl of discontent worked its way up his throat. Silas pulled her closer, annoyed that they were still in her den, annoyed at his instincts, annoyed at Tal, annoyed that she was so soft, annoyed that she trusted him enough to sleep so deeply in his arms, and annoyed that she wasn’t awake so he could talk to her.
As if sensing his growing restlessness, Petra stirred beneath him, her long blonde hair dragging across the pillow as she turned her head toward his. Eyes still closed, she murmured, “Demon?”
A soft hand touched his back. It settled in the dip of his spine, fingers pressing into firm muscle and ridged bone, before going lax.
A band tightened around Silas’s chest. For an unsettling moment, he found it hard to breathe — something that only got worse when she blindly turned her nose into his throat and let out a drowsy sigh.
Silas tightened his arms around her. Sounding unreasonable to his own ears, he demanded, “How can you sleep so well with me here? Do you have any idea what I could do while you’re knocked out?”
