Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

It was a dim sum restaurant.

Petra wasn’t entirely sure what she’d expected when she snuck out of the secret passageway in her suite, but a cheerfully lit, hole-in -the-wall restaurant with a cartoon dumpling dancing across vid screens in its windows wasn’t it. That should have been her first tip-off that something was wrong.

The second, she realized too late, was the low purr of a well-tuned engine.

It happened too fast for her to scream, and even if it hadn’t, she couldn’t have risked it. One moment she stood on the curb, trying to peer past the glare of over-bright screens showing tempting dishes she would have liked to try on any other night, the cartoon dumpling bouncing between each one like a cheerful little rubber ball, and the next an arm banded around her middle and darkness shrouded her eyes.

Within a handful of seconds she was thrown in a car, her wrists and ankles locked together by something insubstantial and yet unbreakable.

“If you were hungry, you should have met me earlier.” The deep, southern drawl of Shade’s voice was too loud in the dark cocoon he’d wrapped around her. Petra thrashed, magic bubbling beneath her skin, as he pulled away from the curb.

Willfully misinterpreting her struggles, he added, “I did text you asking you what you wanted, but you didn’t reply, so I just got you some tea. I’ll let you have it if you promise not to throw it in my face. I don’t want to have to get this car detailed again.”

A heavy hand, hot and familiar, settled on her thigh. “Will you be good, little goddess?”

I’m going to kill you, she silently promised, nodding. I’m going to burn your cock off like a hot dog left on a fucking grill.

“Good girl,” he praised. It didn’t sound like he really believed her, but rather that he found the situation funny. Giving her thigh a little squeeze, he cajoled, “Remember, girls who keep their promises get rewards.”

She couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of reward it would require for her to ever, in a million years, willingly follow the sociopath’s directions, but Petra didn’t say that. She couldn’t, not with his shadows sealed over her eyes and mouth like ethereal duct tape.

The shadows lifted. Petra reacted on pure instinct and fury.

Without thinking, she twisted to throw a punch directly at the side of his smug head.

Shade caught it, of course. He held her fist in his much bigger hand and shot her a disapproving look. “Really? When I’m driving? If we get in a car crash, it’s not me who’ll die. You’re the fragile one, baby.”

Baby? Petra showed him her teeth. “You kidnapped me!”

“Only a little.” He pried her rigid fist apart with his thumb — just his thumb — and brought her palm to his mouth for a searing kiss.

That simple, shocking contact of lips and scraping teeth, was more terrifying than being shoved, blind and gagged, into a car. Petra gasped and jerked her arm. Her magic, already hot and roiling, surged toward that small point of connection until it seared her palm, desperate to be free.

Shade let out a hiss as his face was suddenly bathed in a yellow-orange glow. “Like trying to kiss the fuckin’ sun,” he muttered, going in for another like it was some mad challenge.

“Do that again and I’ll burn your lips off,” she snapped.

Those amber-on-black eyes cast her a heavy-lidded look even as he lowered her hand to rest on his thigh, dangerously close to bits she was certain he didn’t want scorched. “I like that you’ve got claws, little goddess.”

It would have been wonderful to react, to have some quick retort to wipe the smug, lustful look off of his handsome face, but she didn’t. For a moment, she could only sit there and gape at him.

She didn’t even have the presence of mind to take her hand off of his tense thigh when she noted, “Something is seriously wrong with you, Shade.”

And there was clearly something, perhaps many somethings, seriously wrong with her, too, because, gods help her, she was almost certain her panties were wet.

The way his grin widened in that slow, unspooling way as his nostrils flared all but confirmed it long before he drawled, “I think you like that about me about as much as I like it about you, little goddess.”

She knew that her childhood, the way her parents had raised her and the people they associated with — Max excluded — had probably predisposed her to finding certain less-than-societally-acceptable traits attractive, but it was a humbling thing, actually experiencing it.

“Any attraction I might have to you is strictly involuntary and immediately canceled out by how much I’m learning to hate you.”

“Nah, it’s not. Your body knows I’ll be a good fuck. She’s just gotta wait your head out.” Shade lifted the hand that had been loosely covering her own on his thigh to reach behind him. His eyes never left the road as he pulled a small paper bag out from the back seat and dropped it unceremoniously into her lap. “Drink your tea and buckle up.”

Petra finally had the presence of mind to pull her hand away from his thigh, but the fact that she experienced a moment of hesitation at all was galling.

“What is going on?” she demanded, ignoring both of his instructions on principle. “Seriously, Shade, what the fuck is happening?”

“I’m taking you for a drive,” he answered. His tone was infuriatingly glib. Nothing in the relaxed way he steered the car — a small, sporty thing that zipped along the streets at speed that definitely wasn’t built into the m-grid — indicated that their situation was in any way unusual.

Petra wanted to claw his spooky demon eyes out. “Where?”

“Good girls get answers,” he sing-songed, “and good girls buckle their fuckin’ seatbelts.”

It cost her greatly, but Petra did, in fact, put her seatbelt on. Not because her stomach did unwelcome little flips when he praised her, but because she worried she really would attack him again if she didn’t occupy her hands.

She opened her mouth to demand answers again, but he beat her to it. “Tea, little goddess. And maybe a bite of the snack I brought you.”

Petra’s fingers clenched in the paper bag. Her throat went oddly tight when she asked, “You did buy me food?”

Shade didn’t look at her. He simply shrugged, his wide shoulders moving under his tight black t-shirt, as he guided the car onto the Golden Gate Bridge. “You haven’t been eating much.”

And just like that, any uncomfortable feelings she might have felt tickling at the back of her mind vanished.

“You’re watching me.”

“Of course I am.” Shade rested his right arm on the console between them. His long fingers dangled over the edge, just enough to tickle her knee with the very tips of his claws. “You think I’d let you run around unsupervised when I still don’t have my half of the deal?”

“It’s not like I have mine either,” she argued. “All I’ve gotten is a demon invading every aspect of my life! And now kidnapping.”

“Don’t forget a drink you’ll love and egg rolls for naughty priestesses who don’t finish their dinners.”

It was absolutely shameless, the way he talked about watching her, the way he mocked her. He didn’t try to hide it or even make it overtly threatening. It just was. The fact that he knew she hadn’t eaten much at dinner was as much a simple fact as it was a power play.

“Did you tap into the cameras? Do you have an informant? Tell me, Shade,” she demanded.

“None of the above.”

“Then how ? —”

“Easy, Petra,” he drawled, giving her knee a little tap with his fingertips. “I’m just protecting what’s mine. Now that I’m back from my little trip, no more surveillance.” He paused, jaw working from side to side, before he added in a darker tone, “No one and nothing has been in your room. That’s a promise.”

“Why on Burden’s Earth would I ever believe you?”

“Because,” he replied, finally losing patience and reaching over to open the bag himself, “starting tonight, you aren’t leaving my sight.”

Petra recoiled so fast, the back of her head hit the window. “Excuse me?”

Shade rooted around in the bag for a moment before he extracted a bottled drink. Pale green liquid sloshed against the sides and what looked like cubes of dark pink jelly tumbled around the bottom. Still somehow watching the road, he stuffed it into her limp hand. “You heard me. We’re going to go for a little drive, have a nice chat—” he cut her a disconcertingly hard look “—without glamours, and then we’ll go back to the cathedral. I have my bag packed and everything.”

Petra’s fingers closed weakly around the chilled bottle. “You can’t do that.”

“I can do whatever I want.”

So much for showing him who’s boss. Petra felt a bit like she was drowning. Her breath fought to come faster, but she ruthlessly clamped down on her panic, trying to will it out of existence. “No, you can’t. I’m the one who hired you, remember?”

Shade released a long, slow breath and tipped his head toward her. “Petra,” he drawled, “if you think you’re the one in control here, then you aren’t nearly as smart as I thought you were.”

It was ludicrous to argue when she had been kidnapped not fifteen minutes prior, but still, Petra had to try.

“This is my deal, Shade,” she rasped, “and if you aren’t going to listen to me, then I don’t have to honor it.”

The truth was that she had no intention of making him her bondmate, but he didn’t know that. Shade had proven to be far more volatile than she could have ever guessed. It was well within her rights to call off their deal now, since neither of them had fulfilled their end of the bargain yet.

I should have called this off days ago.

She should have done it the moment she discovered him in her room, his shoulders draped in her nightgown. Maybe even as soon as she met him.

She couldn’t control this man. No one could. And now that he’d been unleashed on her life, she worried that he was becoming an even bigger problem than the one she’d sought to solve.

Shade was quiet for a moment as they joined the flow of traffic toward the Marin side of the bay. She held her breath, waiting for an explosion, or a threat, or even violence as he processed her ultimatum.

But he surprised her.

His drawl was calm, almost patient, when he ordered, “Drink, little goddess. You’re gonna need the caffeine.”