Chapter 30

Chapter Thirty

He’d never understood why people said fear felt like ice in one’s veins, mostly because he’d never really felt fear. The desire to live? Certainly. The fury that came with defending what belonged to him? Absolutely.

But fear wasn’t something he really felt until he saw that gun pointed at Petra’s head, and even that was a paltry thing to what he experienced when he skimmed his palm down her waist to find her ruined side.

He stared at the scorched flesh, barely comprehending a wound he’d seen a thousand times. Plasma bolts didn’t just tear through the body like a bullet, but burnt it from the inside out, cauterizing a wound instantly even as it left a gaping hole.

Petra’s wound was like someone had taken a small scoop of her side with white hot spoon. Intellectually, he knew that it wasn’t the worst he’d seen by a long shot. It was a glancing blow, perhaps an accidental discharge of the weapon as Vanderpoel flailed his burning arms, but something about seeing her flesh torn, cauterized, the muscle around it seizing as the nerves began to register the damage?—

The wards on her necklace hadn’t protected her. His shadows hadn’t, either.

For the first time in his life, Silas’s hands shook. “You’re fine,” he muttered. “You’ll be fine. You’re fine.”

Petra began to tremble in earnest. Her breathing grew ragged, each inhale coming faster than the last. Shock was setting in just in time for the pain to catch up to her. “Silas, it hurts. It hurts.”

For the second time that night, Silas went a little crazy. “I know, baby. I know. We’re gonna— I’m going to take you to a healer. You need to just— Don’t move. Let me fix it. I’ll fix it.”

She grabbed his arm. Her big blue eyes, navy in the darkness, shone with tears when she whispered, “I thought it was okay, but I don’t want to die this way. I don’t want to. I just wanted a nice little life, Silas, I really did.” A sob stole her breath and chopped the words into pitiful little pieces. “I’m so sick of being scared all the time. I don’t want to die like my parents. I want to be old someday. I want to have babies. I want to kiss you again. I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me.”

Silas discovered another new emotion: devastation.

Sliding one arm under her back and the other under her knees, Silas climbed to his feet and snarled, “Shut up! You’re not going to fuckin’ die on me, Petra, so don’t even try.”

Her head lolled into the space between his neck and shoulder. Hot tears splashed his skin. “I really like you,” she whimpered. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“You’re not getting rid of me whether you like me or not,” he snapped, aware that he was being unreasonable with her and yet fully unable to control the part of him that had gone senseless with fear.

Si. Tal’s voice rang in his mind. It was unusually strained. Silas turned to find his brother’s shadows crawling out of the stairwell, a huge writhing mass of blackness that seemed somehow less corporeal than normal. I’m blocking the door, but you won’t be able to get out without being seen. Her assistant is desperate to get through. I think he might have heard the shots.

“Fuck!” Silas clutched Petra tighter, like that would help anything at all. If he could have, he would have absorbed her into his chest and kept her there, locked away from the world that had tried so hard to steal her away. “Can’t you do something? Kill him if you have to. I need to get Petra to a healer.”

“Silas, who are you talking to?”

“No one, baby,” he muttered, unwilling to explain Tal’s existence now of all times. “I’m just trying to figure out the best way to get rid of your assistant. He’s outside the door and I need to get you to a healer right fuckin’ now.”

Blunt nails curled into his chest. “Margot. Take me to Margot. Don’t kill Robert, please. He’s a good man.” Her voice grew fainter, thinner, and the hands on his chest gradually lost their tension until they slid away.

“I’m not taking you into the damn elvish stronghold to be— Hey!” Wild-eyed, he gave her a tiny shake, not caring if he caused her a little extra pain if it kept her with him. Petra let out an animal sound against his neck. “Damn it, Petra, stay awake or I’ll kill your assistant!”

Her shoulders hunched, turning her into his chest like she, too, wanted to find refuge there. “Don’t. Please.”

And then she went limp.

“Fuck!” Silas rounded on Tal. His mind fractured into a thousand sharp pieces. “I don’t know what happened. The necklace should have— It failed. My wards failed.”

She took a bolt shot from less than ten feet away, Si. Your wards worked. If they didn’t, she’d be dead.

“Then my shadows failed!” he cried, stumbling back a step as his knees weakened. “She’s my mate. My shadows should have protected her. How could they have failed, too?”

Si—

“Everyone was right. I never should have been a mate. I don’t know how to do this. I fucked it up already.”

Silas! Tal’s shadows rippled with agitation. His normally soft voice was hard when he ordered, Get your shit together. That’s your mate. She needs you to focus. Do you want her to live or not?

Desperation made his voice little more than a raw scraping sound when he asked, “What do I do?”

I think you should get Robert’s help, Tal answered, once again calm in the face of Silas’s complete lack of composure, and then you need to get her stable so you can take her home to your dad. That wound isn’t fatal, but only if we act fast.

Tension rippled down his spine. “What if Robert’s part of this?”

Now that he understood the true extent of what Petra was up against, every single member of Glory’s Temple was on notice. No one would be free of his scrutiny, not until he personally uprooted any and all of her enemies with his bare hands.

I’ve watched him for days. I don’t think he is, but I also think this is a risk you have to take. Either way, you have to deal with him.

And Petra had asked Silas not to kill the man, so really there wasn’t much of a choice at all.

Swearing again, he told Tal to let Robert through. The priest burst out of the stairwell in a flurry of robes and strained breathing, his gaze swinging around to take in the table knocked on its side, the demon, and the wounded priestess.

Robert was a middle-aged man with a soft face, balding head, and an unfortunate predisposition to sweating. The look on his face when he saw Petra’s ruined side was one of honest horror — a feeling Silas knew better than almost any.

“W-What happened?”

Silas stalked across the tower to loom over the red-robed man. “Antonin Vanderpoel shot her. I need a way out of this place now.”

“Who are you? Is she dead?” Robert looked like he was going to be sick, which Silas really didn’t have time for. Words tumbled out of his mouth, one after another, a bit like vomit, as he gaped at the blood soaking Silas’s clothing. “You killed the guards outside, didn’t you? I saw the bodies. They… they were torn apart.”

Speaking through his teeth, he asked, “Motherfucker, does it look like Petra’s dead?”

“No, I—” Impossibly, the man went even paler. Spinning in a tight circle, he stammered, “Where’s the Protector?”

“On the roof.”

“Dead?”

Silas jerked his head impatiently.

“Oh, that’s…” Robert spun back around, one hand clutching the gold necklace that bounced against his stomach every time he moved. “Gods, you need to get her out of here! His guards are everywhere?—”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Silas started jogging the short distance to the stairs. Something in him cracked a little more every time the sway of his steps made Petra’s unconscious form jerk in his arms. “I need a way out of here where I won’t be spotted and immediately shot by the asshole’s guards. Are you going to help with that, or am I going to have to kill you, too?”

“I’d really rather not die,” he answered, throat bobbing. “My husband and I are expecting a baby. Or we will be soon. We just signed a?—”

“I don’t give a shit about you, your husband, or your baby. I only care that my witch doesn’t fuckin’ die!”

He expected some blubbering, maybe a frantic scramble to give him what he wanted, but what he got was a shaky nod. “Well, okay. I’m glad she finally has someone taking care of her. I really can’t take losing another boss I like. Come on, we can take the service stairs they use to work on the roof.”

Silas didn’t want to trust anyone. He wasn’t sure he could. But he had to trust Robert just enough to follow him down the first flight of stairs, into the dark heart of the tower, past the bodies he’d left strewn across the concrete floor.

He clutched his witch close to his heart, her body cloaked in such dense shadow that the eye could barely discern her shape. Following the priest’s flapping robes through a small metal door in the wall partially hidden by storage boxes, he warned, “If you’re lying to me, Robert, I’ll kill you and your husband. Understood?”

Silas, Tal rumbled, he’s helping.

He didn’t give a fuck what Tal thought. Not when it came to this. To her.

Exiting out into the world’s most narrow balcony, Silas took in the aerial view of the inside of the darkened cathedral for all of two seconds before he turned his gaze to Robert. Far below them, the dark shapes of the two-story tall windows looked tiny, and the flames from votive candles little more than specks.

Robert was breathing heavily, his face was ruddy, and his eyes were wild, but when he met Silas’s stare, he didn’t waver.

“Understood.” Shuffling sideways, he squeezed his way across the balcony to where a small opening led to a catwalk. Being quite brave, he ventured, “I didn’t know her grace had any friends besides the sovereign’s consort. Who are you?”

“I’m not her friend.”

“Then what?—”

Silas bared his teeth at the back of Robert’s shiny head. “I’m her mate.”

The priest stumbled. Clumsy fingers grasped at the metal railing on either side of the narrow catwalk. “You’re joking,” he choked.

“If you don’t start hustling your ass right now, I’ll show you just how serious I am, motherfucker.”

Robert must have heard the very real promise in Silas’s tone, because he released the railing like it’d burned him. Nearly tripping over himself, he hurried across the planks of the catwalk. They flew over the great expanse of the cathedral, toward the opposite tower that was closest to Petra’s office.

The shape of another low, no nonsense access door resolved itself in the darkness. Robert pried it open with a grunt. “Head through here and then go up one flight of stairs. On the right of the first landing, there’ll be another door. It leads to the roof. Cross the front of the roof. There’ll be another door. That will drop you down onto a staircase that’ll lead you to the path between staff quarters and the main complex. You can get to the street from there.”

Silas didn’t bother replying. Shouldering his way past Robert, he made to duck inside the tower but was stopped by a hand on his arm.

Before he could snap the man’s neck with his shadows, Robert rasped, “She can’t be your mate and be High Priestess, too. Not after this. The High Gloriae would never allow it.”

He didn’t have time for this shit, but he couldn’t stop himself from snarling, “Listen up, asshole: Petra can do whatever the fuck she wants. I don’t care what you or the Gloriae think. I’ll burn all you motherfuckers to the ground if you or anyone else tries to stand in her way.”

“You’d take on the High Gloriae for her?”

Shoving the priest aside with his elbow, Silas snapped, “How about you ask Antonin what I’d do for my mate. Or the guards in the tower. Or the poor asshole in the bathtub.”

Robert swallowed. “Who’s in the bathtub?”

“A man who got in her way.”