Page 53 of Bitten By the Basilisk

He let the setup coordinator know he was leaving and made sure they had his and Nic’s phone numbers. Then he joined his father in the back of his town car, the partition between them and the driver already raised.

“I have a personal guest coming to tonight’s banquet,” he announced once the vehicle had returned to the main road, keeping his tone casual.

His father spoke while looking out the window, his lips turned down. “Would this be the young woman you took home last night?”

Silas’s jaw hardened. His father was spying on him now? “Her name is Alice. Her mother runs Renart Salon and Spa.”

Gabriel lowered his gaze in a pensive pause, then returned to looking at the scenery. “I have no problem with you satisfying your physical needs with whomever you choose, but you know very well that bringing her tonight would be inappropriate.”

“In what way?” he demanded.

Gabriel met Silas’s glare with one of his own. “Don’t play dumb with me. She cannot be the one you mate. Your future heir should benefit from a mate whose bloodline and connections will strengthen ours. Not some plebeian outsider you met yesterday.”

Silas’s response was tight with anger. “She may not be serpent-folk, but our nest has known her family for nearly a century. She’s intelligent, hardworking, and kind, not to mention beautiful.”

“None of that makes her equal to this year’s candidates,” Gabriel grumbled, swiping his hand dismissively.

“Only she doesn’t feign her interest in me. Didn’t even know who I am until we’d already spent hours together.”

“And you’re certain of that? It wouldn’t be the first time you misjudged a lover.”

Silas hardened his jaw. Father wasn’t wrong, but if Alice were only interested in him because he was the Basilisk of Indigo Cove, he wouldn’t have had to persuade her to see him again. “Yes, I’m sure.”

His father grunted with disbelief. “I might allow it if you weren’t my son, but you are the Basilisk. You must choose a mate who will bear the strongest offspring and safeguard the future of the nest.”

“You won’t allow it?” Silas asked, his voice deceptively calm. In truth, his head spun with rage. “You acknowledge that I am Basilisk, yet you seem to have forgotten that you no longer command me.”

“I am still your father,” Gabriel snapped. “I protected this nest for over a decade before you were even born!”

“Challenge me, then,” he seethed, holding his father’s livid gaze. “Take back the title…if you can.”

His father clenched his hands, his face reddening with anger. “You ungrateful⁠—”

“What exactly should I be grateful for? Parents who can’t be in the same room without berating each other? A childhood with little joy and constant pressure? Having my career chosen for me? My mate?”

Father jutted his jaw, so angry he swelled in size, his clothing pulling tight across his shoulders and chest.

Before Gabriel could respond, the car door next to him opened. They had arrived back at the Nest. A few paces away, Nic stood ready to return to Castle Seacliff in Silas’s stead and oversee the rest of the banquet preparations.

Gabriel glared a moment longer, only turning to disembark once the driver had come around to open Silas’s door for him.

Once Silas got out, he discovered his limbs were shaking, his skin tingling. Over the roof of the car, he watched his father storm away, passing Nic without acknowledgment.

He hated the guilt roiling in his chest. He didn’t regret standing up for himself, but inviting his father to challenge him and taunting him over his likelihood of winning had been cruel. As closed-minded as Gabriel could be, he had nearly lost his life preventing a would-be tyrant from taking over the nest.

Silas went to meet Nic where he stood, sighing at his lieutenant’s concerned expression.

“You told him about Alice?” Nic presumed.

Silas nodded. “He ordered me to set her aside. I refused.”

“Let me guess. Her family is neither well connected nor rich enough for her to be your mate.”

Silas sighed, then firmed his jaw. “He’s decided everything else in my life. I won’t let him dictate whom I choose to court.”

“Does he know that she’s…ambivalent?”

He scowled at his lieutenant. “Not as much as you think.”