Petra sputtered. “Nervous? Silas, Ikilled a manyesterday. You expect me to waltz downstairs, smile on my face, and make a good impression on your parentsnow?”
For a moment, Silas’s expression was the very picture of incredulity, but that only lasted for as long as it took for the amusement to really settle in. “Petra, baby,” he crooned, some of his old patronizing delight coming back. “You think this is the first time I’ve come home for supper after a murder? Please. You’re fine. Mama wants to meet you and Dad needs to make sure you healed right, so we’re going downstairs and enjoying a nice bowl of chili with cornbread together.”
Petra could only stare. A tiny flare of hope sputtered to life in her chest when she asked, “Are… are your parents as insane as you?”
“Nah. They’re normal, just used to my bullshit.” He cupped the other side of her head and gently tilted it back, allowing him to press a skimming kiss to her lips. “Don’t be nervous, baby. They already love you.”
“Do they know?—”
He shrugged. “Not everything, but the broad strokes.”
So they’re insane. Got it.Maybe her assumption that they were normal had been a bit premature.
Shoulders rounding, Petra admitted, “I don’t want to meet them when I feel like roadkill, Silas.”
She could barely comprehend the fact that she might actually, truly bond with this man, but if she was going to, then she didn’t want to meet the people who would essentially be her in-laws when she looked like someone who’d had most of their right side blown off by plasma twenty-four hours prior. It was a little vain, but compared to all the other more serious reasons she didn’t want to meet them, it was the one that she could articulate the best.
And really, it was easier than explaining the fact that she was insecure, uncertain about her ability to function in or around a family unit of any kind. She was suddenly painfully conscious of her background. Would she do or say something that would tip them off to the fact that she was a criminal’s orphan, that she’d been institutionalized? It wouldn’t be the first time.
Silas pulled back enough to give her a dark look from beneath his slashing brows. “Petra, are you fuckin’ kidding me?”
“What?” she asked, her spine straightening with defensiveness.
Letting out a gusty sigh, Silas guided her toward what she assumed was a closet door. Pulling it open revealed a mirror on the inside. Placing himself behind her, he settled his hands on her shoulders and asked, “What do you see?”
Petra’s sweeping gaze took in her mussed hair and comfortable, baggy clothing she never wore outside of her suite in the cathedral. Her face looked pale and strained, but not as sickly as she thought. What really drew her attention, however, was not any of that.
It was the slowly swirling band of shadow around her throat.
Reaching up to touch it, she felt nothing more than the suggestion of something there — easily missed if she wasn’t paying attention. As she watched, the swirls curled around the tips of her fingers, almost as if the shadows sought to stick to her skin. The band itself was no thicker than her index finger and could have been mistaken for a choker if not for the unnatural movement.
Her throat bobbed. The shadow was his, and something about seeing it cling to her flesh made her feel... claimed.
He gave her a look of such profound satisfaction, it actually took her breath away. “You know what I see when I look at you — what my parents will see?”
She swallowed hard. “What?”
Baritone dropping even lower, he announced, “A powerful witch who belongs tome.”
Petra could hardly speak around the lump in her throat. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”
“That’s not true. You’re a survivor, Petra. My survivor.”
She shook her head, more out of a lack of response than a true wish to deny it.
Smoothing his palms over her shoulders and down to band his fingers around her arms, he met her gaze in the mirror. Standing together like this, he looked every inch the malicious force of nature he could be. That didn’t bother her as much as the fact she looked…rightthere, too, standing in the circle of his arms.
“When I look at you,” he murmured, “I see a powerful, beautiful witch with a cunt that tastes like honey and magic that can burn a man alive in seconds. I see what I almost lost. I seeyou,Petra.”
A shiver ran down her spine when he leaned over just enough to whisper in her ear, “Now let’s have supper, baby.”
It was another shock, one of many to come, for Petra to discover that Silas’s parents weren’t both demons.
She felt foolish the moment she stepped into the kitchen, where a slim, graying man in a plain button down was setting a tray of perfectly square slices of cornbread on the table. He wore slightly over-sized wire-rimmed glasses and had a dense mat of freckles across his forehead, the tops of his cheeks, and the bridge of his nose. Beneath the freckles, his skin was deeply tanned.
There were no horns, no amber-on-black eyes. In fact, his eyes were a warm brown that crinkled at the corners when he looked up from his task to offer them a smile.
“Look who’s up on her feet already,” he praised, straightening to put his hands on his hips. His accent was faint, giving the impression that he’d acquired it late in life, but still very present. He turned his head a bit to address the woman who stood a little ways behind him at the stove, ladling chili into shallow earthenware bowls.
