Are you? Because I don’t understand anything anymore.
She let out a soft sigh and settled her head back on her pillow. Closing her eyes, she drew the tips of her fingers up and down his back in a soothing, ticklish caress. An uncontrollable rumble erupted from his chest.
Her lips quivered with a satisfied smile.
He was almost too hungry for the sight of her face to close his eyes, but eventually the rhythmic touches, her body heat, and the perfect scent of her in his bed made his lids too heavy to keep open.
In the hazy place between much needed slumber and wakefulness, he thought he heard her whisper, “You’re safe with me, too, you know.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The next daycame both too soon and too late.
Silas lifted his lip in a snarl at the sunlight that slipped through the cracks of his curtains. The rest of the house was more or less sun-proofed for Tal, but his bedroom wasn’t a space his brother needed to go, so he regrettably hadn’t installed blackout curtains.
He bitterly regretted it as the late-morning sun of a hot June day threatened to bake the side of his face.
Silas curled tight around the bundle of fragrant warmth in his arms, his head ducking to get out of the path of the light. But it wasn’t the only thing that disturbed his peace.
The bundle was talking.
Soft fingers stroked his arms, nails scratching lightly against the hair there, as a lulling voice murmured,“…light is the path that guides, the warmth that holds, the magic that binds. Glory’s light can pierce every darkness, within and without, for all days begin again with a sunrise.”
“You’re in a demon’s den,” he muttered. “If you’re going to wake me up with a prayer, at least make it one for the right god.”
The rhythm of her strokes didn’t falter. Her voice was soft when she argued, “You’re half demon, half witch. That means you belong to Glory, too.”
A deep, gravelly growl shook his chest. Something about the way she phrased that made the animal in him buck and snarl. He belonged to one woman and one woman only, not some sanctimonious, flighty goddess who didn’t have the decency to respect matehood.
Silas had her flipped onto her back and beneath him in a heartbeat. Her hair sprayed across the pillows, sparking gold wherever the sun was lucky enough to touch it, and her cheeks were pink with sleep. There were still dark smudges under her eyes and something about her seemed a touch too gaunt, but even so, she looked remarkably healthy for a woman who’d been on the brink of death a day ago.
In fact, she looked remarkably relaxed as she lay beneath him. Suspiciously so.
Silas braced his weight on his palms and leaned in close, examining her with narrowed eyes. “What is this?”
“What?” she asked, brow arching.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like…” He searched for a word to describe the faint curl of her lips and the softness in her normally guarded eyes. The woman he’d come to know was all sass and layers of protective masks. This new creature was disarming and strange. He sounded nonplussed to his own ears when he said, “You look like you’re happy to see me.”
“That can happen when youarehappy to see someone in the morning, yeah.” Petra’s tone was dry, but not unkind. “Why wouldn’t I be, Silas?”
“No one’s ever been before.”
Her sharp inhalation was loud in the lull between bird calls. “That can’t be true. Your parents?—”
“Are usually too relieved to see I still have a head on my shoulders and I’m not locked up in a sigil-lined cell to be reallyhappy.”He crowded her until their noses nearly touched. “No one ishappyto see me. So what are you hiding?”
Petra went quiet. A peculiar expression pinched her features. Slowly, she said, “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Are you going to tell me or not?”
He knew that he was being hard on her. Even after a good night’s sleep, he was high-strung and temperamental. All he wanted to do was gorge himself on her, to eat her up in tiny bites until she screamed that she was his and she’d never, ever leave him.
It sparked a deep fear in him when he didn’t immediately understand her motives. Surely that canny mind was working, planning, hiding something from him. There were still so many unknowns about his mate, huge gaps in his understanding of her. Those gaps became wide spaces where anxiety could flourish.
