It hadn’t bothered him a bit the previous night, but Tal’s questions had pricked something in him, a volatile vein of…feeling.Now the contentment he’d felt in her presence was gone, replaced by a foreign tension he struggled to grapple with.
Somehow those feelings transmuted into being angry at her when she blinked owlishly up at him, those painfully blue eyes soft with slumber.
“Are you going to hurt me?”
“Of course not,” he snapped. “Why does everyone think that? I’m not gonna fuckin’ hurt you, Petra. You’re mine.”
Petra’s brows drew together slowly. “Who’s everybody?”
Disgruntled anew, Silas commanded, “Go back to sleep.”
His skin felt too tight, his body too small to contain the thing that craved her. The familiar sensation of shadows bleeding through him, out of him, to drape over her body only relieved a small amount of that pressure.
A small, weak voice he didn’t recognize whispered in the back of his mind,Take. Please take to her. Make her mine.
His lip curled in disgust as he shook the thought loose.Since when do I beg?He was a motherfucking demon. He’d decided Petra was his and she would be — shadows be damned.
Her huff drifted over the skin of his throat, but she was apparently too tired to fight him. Instead, she wiggled beneath him, trying to get more comfortable. His first instinct was to scowl and press down, holding her in place until she settled, but he quickly realized what she was up to and forced himself to relax.
Petra turned on her side, one arm slung over his waist, her knees drawn up and her forehead cradled by the divot between his collar bones.
His pulse thundered there at the base of his throat as the scent of her hair tantalized him.She came to me,he realized, lips parting in confusion. It was the first time she’d initiated any sort of contact between them, though she’d certainly enjoyed his touch before then.
But this was… different.
Silas lay frozen for several seconds, half expecting her to immediately change her mind and seek out the other side of the bed, maybe lunge for his weapon, but when she didn’t, he threw his arm over her. Curling his fingers around the nape of herneck, he compulsively rubbed the underside of his jaw over the crown of her head.
“Tell me something about you,” he demanded, his voice a harsh rasp in the quiet.
“Silas, do you want me to sleep or not?”
“I don’t know. Both.”
He was amused to feel a small pinch. “You’re a lot needier than I ever could have imagined.”
“My clan could have warned you about that,” he replied, surprising himself almost as much as her. Petra went stiff in his arms, but the words were out.
Silas never discussed his clan with anyone but Tal, and he’d certainly never intended to allow Petra near them, but he couldn’t summon any regret now.
Savoring the warm silk of the skin of her nape, he doubled down. “They’d tell you I’ve always been a terror — especially when I don’t get my way.”
They’d love you.
Not because she was famous or beautiful, but because she was probably the only person in the world who didn’t fear him. Not really. Not in her heart. Not as much as she should.
She didn’t quite relax again, but she did press her lips against his throat when she murmured, “Well now, that I could have predicted.”
“Tell me about you.”
“It’s late, Silas.”
“I don’t care. I want to know something about you.” That was a partial truth. He wanted to knoweverything,but he could grant that it was too big of an ask for two AM.
Another drowsy sigh tickled his skin, making his toes curl. “Ask me a real question and I’ll answer.”
He fished for a second, trying to decide between the dozens and dozens of questions that only ever seemed to spawn more.Gaze darting around the dark bedroom, he finally settled on one that had nagged at him for days.
“Why do you keep caches of food?”
