Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

It was really starting to annoy him that no one except Petra seemed to believe he wouldn’t hurt his mate.

It didn’t usually bother him that his clan danced around him, always expecting a bomb to go off whenever he walked into a room. He knew he’d earned it. No matter how hard his parents tried, they never could get him to see people the way they did, or feel compassion like everyone else. Eventually, after a few visits with deeply concerned therapists and countless trips to Papaw’s house for stern scoldings, they learned there was no fixing whatever was broken.

Silas understood that he was lucky. His family could have treated him like an outcast or been outright scared of him. Instead, they went out of their way to include him in things, to remind him that he was a part of the clan without expecting him to be one of them. Whenever he was home, someone wrangled him into babysitting. His matriarch asked for help in her garden. His cousins expected him at cookouts, naming parties, mating celebrations.

If they were more cautious with him, a little more watchful than they were with other clanmates, he couldn’t say he blamed them. He would be, too. After all, it wasn’t normal to talk to wraiths, let alone have them talk back.

Historically, the Cuttcombe clan never stood with both feet on the side of the law, but Silas took it to extremes even his most wily ancestors hadn’t — and the family knew it. But clan loyalty went deeper than tree roots. So while he made the clan nervous, his place amongst them was fixed, unshakable.

But this was different.

This was Petra.

Something about the suggestion that he didn’t know how to be a good mate, that he wouldn’t take care of her, made him want to start ripping at the walls. Probably because they were right.

Silas had to consciously unlock the muscles of his jaw before he could reply to Petra with a question of his own. “Are you afraid of me?”

She gave him a narrow-eyed look. “No. Not anymore.”

Her answer settled in him, slow and steady, until its weight sank into the pit of his stomach.

Feeling marginally calmer — a relative thing, considering he’d felt like he was coming out of his skin — he shoved aside the visceral offense he’d taken to his father’s concern.

“You’re mine,” he reminded her, just to make sure that fact was burned into her brain. “You’re safe. Don’t ever think you’re not safe with me, because you are. If anyone tries to hurt you again, I’ll shove a knife into their spinal cord and twist until they dance for you. Clear?”

Petra’s lips popped open with surprise. “That… is a bit much.”

It didn’t feel like a bit much. It felt perfectly proportional to the roar of terror that still filled his ears. It didn’t matter that they’d sat down and had a nice supper together. It didn’t matter that he’d watched his own father stitch her side back together, cell by cell, as the sun rose slowly over the ridge. It didn’t matter that the warmth of her nape was under his palm.

He was afraid.

I almost lost her.

A swell of nausea tried to force its way up his throat, but Silas swallowed it back down. I won’t lose her. Ever.

Petra’s expression softened with wonder. “You’re upset. You’re really upset.”

“I don’t like that people think I’m going to hurt you,” he snapped. “I won’t. Why would I? That’d make as much sense as me chopping off my right hand.”

“Because of the bond?” She gave him a searching look. “That’s what all this is about. Right?”

It was a novel thing for him to experience a series of contrasting impulses. Normally, he did whatever came to mind first, consequences be damned, but now he felt torn in several different directions.

On one hand, he wanted to say it had nothing to do with her bond and everything to do with how much he needed her. On the other, that brought up the memory of the damn marriage certificate, and his suspicions about what Vanderpoel wanted from her, so he did very much want her bond.

But it was no longer about his promise to Tal. Sometime between seeing her in that community garden and being fileted by the sound of her sobbing as she thanked him for coming for her in that damn belltower, everything came into sharper focus.

Petra was not just a means to an end. She was his — now and always.

He knew he needed to explain that, but his mind was scattered, his body ruled by a combination of exhaustion and surging hormones. He teetered on the edge of his rut. A new mating right before the season began would have been bad enough, but the danger to her life had ratcheted up the pressure.

It bore down on him like a screaming m-lev, threatening to flatten them both — and he was the only one who could see it coming.

“Silas?” Petra stood up from her chair and laid a cool hand against his brow. “You look like you’re going to be sick. Are you okay?”

She let out a squeak when he snatched her to him. He buried his face in her hair, smelled himself and his shampoo and her. His heart rate slowed. “I don’t want to talk right now,” he mumbled.

He’d never really needed comforting before, so it was an exquisite surprise when Petra’s arms curled around his neck in a warm embrace.

“How long has it been since you rested?”

“Dunno.”

“Did you actually sleep at all yesterday?”

He shook his head. Even after he came down from the adrenaline and Petra was safely tucked into his bed, her side once more all smooth, tanned skin, he’d been a wreck. He lay wrapped around her for hours as he listened to her breathe and his parents coming in and out with supplies.

Even knowing that his home was warded to the teeth, he hadn’t been able to rest. What if she stopped breathing? What if he slept so deeply that he missed her calling out for help? What if he failed her again?

What if what if what if ? —

It wasn’t the first time that he’d gone days without rest, but this time he felt ground down to a pulp. Exhaustion made his limbs heavy, but he tried hard not to put too much weight on her.

“None of this can’t wait until tomorrow morning,” Petra announced. “We’re both dead on our feet. Let’s just— let’s just go to bed.”

He scowled. “Don’t say dead.”

“Too tired to stand, then.”

His witch was right. He’d been beaten to within an inch of his life and felt less bruised.

Back in their bedroom, he stripped out of his clothes and collapsed on the bed, his head turning to watch Petra scuttle about on her little feet. First she folded her clothing, then placed the pile on top of his dresser. She didn’t have another nightgown with her — an oversight he didn’t regret — so she shamelessly dug around in his drawers until she found an old t-shirt to replace it.

He didn’t have the strength to argue with her about the benefits of sleeping nude. It was all he could do to watch her body move under his shirt as she extinguished the lights and padded back to what was now her side of the bed.

The lingering cloud of terror faded just a bit. She’s here, he thought, almost a snarl of defiance in the face of the universe. She’s here and she’s alive and she’s mine forever.

Shadows crept across the blankets as she slid beneath them, instinctively covering her so she wouldn’t be so vulnerable in her sleep. Petra didn’t complain. Instead, she let out a soft sigh as she settled on her side facing him. They were only a handful of inches apart, their breaths mingling, and it was her who threw an arm across the divide.

In a small, tired voice she said, “Life feels really overwhelming right now.”

“It does.”

“I bet this was way more than you bargained for when you offered me the deal, huh?”

A ragged laugh escaped him. “I knew you’d be entertaining, but no. I thought you just wanted to blackmail a rival or something. Easy-peasy.”

He looped his arm around her waist to drag her closer, until their bodies were pressed together from chest to knee. His cock was hard, pressed between them and flushed with his impending rut, but neither of them made a move to do more. The demand for sex was a cacophony in his mind, but his need for her was louder.

He wasn’t sure where the question came from or why it mattered, but he found himself asking, “Do you regret asking me for help?”

Petra was quiet for a beat. At length, she answered, “No, I don’t think I do. Not yet, anyway.”

Something about that stung him. “Giving me time to fuck it up?” His response came out far more bitter than he expected, and he instantly regretted it when Petra flinched.

“I don’t know what tomorrow looks like, Silas.”

Scrunching his nose, he muttered, “You’re right. I know.”

“Can I ask you something personal?”

Silas nearly quipped that she could ask him for his liver and he’d give it to her, but he’d already messed up once, so he simply nodded.

Petra’s eyes were big and nighttime blue in her face when she asked, “It matters to you what I think of you, doesn’t it?”

He stiffened. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean like what happened tonight with your dad, and just now. It hurts your feelings when I or someone you… value thinks the worst of you.”

“Since when do I have feelings?” He didn’t enjoy the conversation anymore. Silas opened his mouth to tell her he was done talking for the night when Petra stretched her neck to press a featherlight kiss to his lips. The muscles of his abdomen tensed and his mind blanked. He lay there, stiff but docile under her ministrations.

“I think you do,” she whispered, lips stroking his with a tenderness that was both gentle and explosive. “I think you want me to trust you, to think the best of you, to feel safe with you. I think it bothers you when someone whose opinion matters to you assumes the worst — because that hurts.”

Silas fisted his hand in her hair, not to hold her in place, but to anchor himself. He felt like he was being pushed out into some dark ocean. Their connection was the only thing keeping him from being swept out into the unknown.

“You’re mine,” was all he could think to say. Even those familiar words came out like gravel.

Petra nodded, but it seemed like it was more for herself than in response to him. “It’s okay, demon. I think I’m beginning to understand.”

Are you? Because I don’t understand anything anymore.

She let out a soft sigh and settled her head back on her pillow. Closing her eyes, she drew the tips of her fingers up and down his back in a soothing, ticklish caress. An uncontrollable rumble erupted from his chest.

Her lips quivered with a satisfied smile.

He was almost too hungry for the sight of her face to close his eyes, but eventually the rhythmic touches, her body heat, and the perfect scent of her in his bed made his lids too heavy to keep open.

In the hazy place between much needed slumber and wakefulness, he thought he heard her whisper, “You’re safe with me, too, you know.”