Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

Unfortunately, Petra still had a part to play. She couldn’t sit in her room all day with Silas even if she wanted to — something she was very much undecided on — because there were more cameras than the one in her suite to perform for.

If she never emerged from her bedroom, it would arouse far more suspicion than if her routine was slightly irregular, because Petra never hid away. There was simply too much to do. Besides, discovering the truth about Max’s murder wouldn’t happen in her bedroom.

So Petra did her best to ignore the demon who watched her every movement, his powerful body stretched out across her rumpled bed sheets. He looked perfectly at home as he sipped from her half-finished coffee and absently petted her pillow.

Not for the first time, she felt as though she were drifting through some bizarre dream. That was the only logical explanation for why she was the one caught in a web of intrigue and murder, and it only barely explained how a demon known across the continent as both ruthless and mad watched her with glittering eyes as she emerged from the bathroom.

She expected him to say something. Perhaps a remark about her thin, everyday robe of office, or the way she’d put her hair up, or how she’d gotten dressed in the bathroom rather than endure his scrutiny as she pulled her linen skirt over her thighs.

But he remained silent, his lips a wicked curve over the lip of her coffee cup.

Unsettled and more than a little flustered, she shoved her feet into her low, serviceable pumps and reflexively checked to make sure her necklace was in place. She was startled to feel the new one there, smoother and heavier than her old, simple pendant. The gold hummed with a dark, wild power beneath her fingers.

Why does he need me?

The thought came unbidden as she smoothed her fingers over the symbol of the sun. He has so much power, so much skill. What could he possibly need my bond for?

It was unusual for a demon to have such fine control over magic. That was the purview of witches — the one advantage they had over the rest of the beings in the world. Humans were weak in all ways except for the lucky few who were born with open m-paths, the channels that mirrored the nervous system and allowed the use of magic.

But with that came the unfortunate side-effect of burn out, when the m-paths began to deteriorate and magic leaked out into the nervous system, essentially frying a witch from the inside out. Any witch was susceptible, but for the most powerful, like herself, it was an inevitability.

Petra had only just begun to consider her options on that front when her life fell apart. Now she had no need to.

She would never bond with Silas, but she still wondered why a man as powerful as him would need an energy boost the likes of which her bond would provide. If he could pack as much power as he had into the necklace, if he’d done even a small sliver of the things she’d heard whispers of…

The possibilities made her shudder.

Silas set the plain ceramic mug down on the tray and stood up from the bed with an enormous stretch. Her old necklace gleamed against his creamy skin. It should have looked innocent enough, but somehow it seemed blasphemous. And thrilling, some dark part of her whispered. Because it feels like I’ve left my mark on him, too.

“S’pose it’s time for me to get ready,” he announced, padding toward the bathroom.

Passing her, he raked his claws through the fall of her ponytail, making her scalp tingle with the memory of how he’d pulled her hair and demanded she come. Going by the dark gleam in his eyes, she rather suspected he was recalling the same thing.

Petra took a hasty step back and smoothed her suddenly clammy palms down the front of her crisp blouse. “What are you getting ready for? You might as well stay in your pajamas all day, since you’ll be stuck in here.”

Silas crossed the threshold into the bathroom. “Sounds like you forgot what I told you yesterday.”

Frowning, she trailed after him to peer into the bathroom, where he was reaching into the shower to turn on the water. She had only a moment to admire how comically small it looked compared to him before the meaning of his words sunk in.

Her hiss cut through the sound of water spraying against old, pastel green tiles when she objected, “You are not following me around the cathedral all day, Silas!”

Not only was it too risky, but she was looking forward to getting away from him. Being around Silas for more than a few moments at a time was like locking herself in a cage with a tiger. Every moment that ticked by made her feel a little less secure, a little more certain that she’d get her head bitten off.

“I am,” he replied, casual as you please, as he hooked his thumbs under the waistband of his sleep pants. She didn’t even get a chance to avert her eyes before he dropped them.

Standing in all his nude, definitely not flaccid glory, Silas continued, “I told you I’m not letting you out of my sight. What part of that wasn’t clear?”

It took her brain an embarrassingly long time to move past the ripple of his muscles beneath smooth, alabaster skin as he pushed the shower curtain aside and stepped beneath the spray. The showerhead was laughably short compared to him, so it mostly drenched his chest, magnificently solid abdomen, and the heavy, erect cock hanging between his legs.

Silas had a powerful body, but it wasn’t the finely sculpted, glamorous form of a man who spent his days in a gym. It was rangy, strong, but layered with enough flesh for him to feel real, solid. The crisp line of chestnut hair that drew her eye down his stomach to his cock was a tantalizing addition to an already perfect form — as were the shadowed hollows on either side of his ass.

Petra had to mentally recite a hymn and shift her eyes to the ceiling before she could remember what in the world they’d been talking about.

“You’ll be caught.”

“No, I won’t, because no one’s around except you today. We both know that, baby.”

Baby. She couldn’t rightly tell if she liked that better or worse than little goddess. Both were certainly mocking, meant to make her feel every inch the hypocrite she was, so why did she like them at all?

“The cameras,” she gritted out, unable to keep herself from glancing toward the shower. Silas had put one hand on the wall, hunching his shoulders to dip his head and horns beneath the spray, while the other?—

All the moisture evaporated from her mouth when he curled his fingers around the base of his cock for a slow, firm stroke.

“I’ve got my signal jammer.” He spoke so calmly, so casually, like he wasn’t masturbating right in front of her. Like he wasn’t watching her through narrowed eyes, water catching the light in his long lashes.

For some reason she couldn’t even begin to decipher, Petra stood there, rooted to the spot, and continued the argument. She could barely hear herself speak over the sound of her own pulse and the splash of water against the tile. “T-That is a terrible idea. If you… if you follow me around, then it’ll block me, too, which will raise?—”

At last, a little bit of breathlessness entered Silas’s steady voice when he cut her off. “Petra, I know what I’m doing.”

Hard to argue with that, she thought, a little dazed, as he began to stroke himself in earnest. Not once had his gaze strayed from her. It raked over her from head to toe, leaving a blazing path of heat in its wake.

Silas pinched the tip of his tongue between his teeth, his brows furrowing with a look almost like rage, and she had the insane urge to step into the shower, grab him by the horns, and suck the pink flesh of his tongue into her mouth.

“It’s not worth the risk,” she forced herself to say. “I’m going to do what I always do. Stay here or don’t, but you aren’t following me.”

A deep, hair-raising growl echoed off the tile. Silas’s restless hand stilled, squeezing the ruddy tip of his cock with what looked like an alarming amount of force. “Little goddess, get over here.”

Why she continued to bait him, she couldn’t say. But she did it anyway. “I already took my shower, thanks.”

“So why are you looking at me like you wish you were already on your knees, sucking my cock?” He tilted his head in that predatory way of his. It was almost like he could see the way her core pulsed, the ache so sharp it was almost painful. “If you’re good, I’ll let you do it however you want. If you’re bad, you do it how I want.”

Power. He loved the idea of making her bend. Silas got off on the fact that she was a priestess and what it meant for her to give him free rein to use her. Not only was it taboo for her, a high-ranking member of the Temple, to have sex with a notorious criminal she’d hired, but it held an echo of a grudge carried on through millennia.

After all, it was Glory who enticed the god Blight to her bed, and it was Glory who spurned him in the end.

Petra wouldn’t lie to herself and try to pretend she didn’t want to take him up on his offer, but that didn’t mean she’d do it.

Because this was about power, and if Silas wanted to exert his over hers… Well, he’d have to fucking work for it.

Her heart raced at the thought. She knew that if she played this game, really played it, then there was no backing out. The previous night had been an impulsive choice. A taste of what grew bigger, darker between them with every passing moment and one she’d been unable — unwilling — to resist. But this… If she challenged him here, now, then it would be open season for however long she had left.

It was that fact that solidified her resolve.

Petra drew her shoulders back and boldly, coolly dragged her gaze over his body. She took in every dark constellation of moles, the faint scars barely visible against his pale skin, and the livid flesh of his wet cock when she answered, “Enjoy your shower, Silas.”

When she met his eyes again, her breath stuck in her throat. A hungry, disturbingly primal thing lurked in his molten gaze when he softly warned her, “If you make me chase you, there’s no going back.”

I know. But what does it matter when this will be over tomorrow anyway?

Petra didn’t say that. She didn’t say anything at all. Instead, she held his gaze as she took a step back, over the threshold of the bathroom.

All at once, Silas’s expression went taut, the skin around his eyes and mouth pulling sharply until he looked ready to snap. “Petra.”

Even in the brightly lit bathroom, she became aware of all the shadowed nooks and crannies as those tiny pockets of darkness began to roil, stretching boldly across the floor to reach for her.

She slammed the door shut just in time to feel it shake under the force of his roar.