He looked at her likeshewas the crazy one. Maybe she was. Sure, she’d put herself in some bad spots since her uncle died, but letting herself fall in love withShade,the monster under the bed of the UTA’s criminal underground, was probably the most outrageous thing she could have done.
Can a man like him even love someone?The thought was a shot of ice water in her veins.
She knew he could care. She felt it. But could helove?What would her life be like if he simply wasn’t capable of it?
“No guns, no bombs,” he repeated, eyeing her like she was the unpredictable one. “Are you really okay? Because I’ve got other shit to tell you, but if you’re gonna cry again I’ll…” Hisbrows drew together as he apparently struggled to find the right words. “I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll make you stop.”
Petra’s chest went all achingly, pleasantly tight. “Tears are natural, Silas. I’ve been through a lot recently. That means I might just start crying sometimes, especially if you use that tone with me. You’re going to have to get used to it.”
“No, I won’t.” Every line of his expression went razor-sharp. “I don’t like it when you cry. I don’t want it. How do I stop it? Do you need me to say sorry for my tone? I’m sorry. I won’t do that again. Did that work?”
“Typically, the answer to not making someone cry is… make the person happy? Be nice, maybe?” Even as she said it, Petra thought it sounded trite — especially in light of her own feelings. Falling in love with a man who didn’t even understand that tears were normal didn’t exactly bode well for her future happiness.
Silas didn’t mock her, though. Instead, he seemed deadly serious when he replied, “I can make you happy.”
Petra’s tongue tied itself into a knot. All she could manage was a strange, noncommittal sound.
Something dark lurked in Silas’s eyes. In an instant, Petra was back in The Broken Tooth what felt like a lifetime ago, squaring off with a predator who looked like he was weighing the benefits of eating her now or later.
“You don’t think I can.” He sounded very calm. It was an unsettling contrast to the look in his eyes.
“I think that… this thing between us is very new and volatile,” she managed to say.
“New and volatile.” Silas said it so silkily, so softly, that it actually alarmed her.
It turned out she was right to be worried, because not a moment later he picked her up, swung her around, and deposited her on the edge of his desk.
Wedging himself between her legs, he planted both palms on either side of her hips and leaned in until their noses bumped. Petra nearly went cross-eyed in an attempt to maintain eye contact.
“Listen up,” he growled, silky drawl ground down into pure grit. “You and me— we’ve got some shit to get straight, right here and right now.”
“Silas, I didn’t mean?—”
“No, you said your bit earlier and now I’m gonna say mine.” Petra’s mouth shut with an audibleclack.“You say you want us to be a team, but for that to work, you need to understand something: you’remine.You’ve been mine. You’ll always be mine. I’m obsessed with you. If you don’t like that, if you’re not happy, then I’ll fix it. I can fix anything. I cangiveyou anything and I can be the monster you need me to be.”
He nearly vibrated with tension when he continued, “I’m showing all this to you, telling you everything, because this is it for me. You’re mine. I’m yours.”
No way.A nervous, fluttering sort of certainty began to rise in her, but Petra couldn’t stop herself from whispering, “What are you saying, Silas?”
“I’m saying you’ve got to come to grips with this,” he answered, each word a dark, dangerous thing, “because we’ve got about a week before my rut hits, there are a lot of people who need killin’, and you’re my fuckin’ mate. I’mneverletting you go.”
Even with her gnawing suspicions about his erratic, possessive behavior, the weirdness with his parents, and the shadow, she supposed it should have been a shock. It should have thrown her into another fit. It should have made the walls close in around her as yet another thing outside her control sent the world into an even faster spin.
But it didn’t.
For the first time in years, everything went still.
“...I’m your mate?”
“Yes.”
Silas showed her his teeth. One hand circled her throat. The shadows that clung there came alive in a way she couldn’t really understand. It was almost as if they were responding to that proprietary touch, reinforcing the claim. Petra recalled the shadows around Scott’s wrist and the way both of Silas’s parents hadn’t been able to stop looking at her throat.
Oh.
Her life had become so complicated and dangerous that it was an immense relief to be given the answers to a puzzle without pain, sweat, or tears. Every other problem was too big to be handled, butthis…This she could make sense of.
It might’ve horrified a normal witch to discover she was mated to an unstable half-demon who liked to make money by murder, but compared to her other issues, it seemed delightfully mundane. Normal, even.
