Chapter 42

Chapter Forty-Two

“Eat.”

Petra looked up from the trunk in time to see Silas place a loaded plate beside her thigh. A can of soda, icy cold and dripping with condensation, landed beside it. Her stomach lurched in that pleasant-awful way it did whenever Silas did something sweet. He was so gruff about. So uncertain. It was like he was trying on a new outfit and trying to cover up how self-conscious he was by being stand-offish and hoping no one noticed.

Adorable.

“Did you make me a sandwich?”

“You need to eat.” Silas dropped onto his ass next to her, carelessly shoving trunks out of his way to make room. He’d been in and out of the living room all day, his energy a living, restless thing, but he came back to check on her every half hour or so.

Of course, he didn’t say it was to check on her, but she knew. She felt his need and his concern, clumsy though it was, in every possessive touch of her hair and quick, harsh kiss.

“I can’t eat that whole thing,” she protested, eyeing the comically overstuffed sandwich dubiously. He’d paired it with a mound of her preferred chips, too. Her stomach lurched again. The demon can be sweet, and I might be the only person in the world who knows that. Talk about privileged information.

“How about we share?”

Silas gave her another one of his scorching looks, but Petra had to glance away. She was still getting used to that sensation of acute exposure she got whenever he looked at her like he knew.

He knew it all. He wanted it all. It was heady and more than a little terrifying.

“I’ll take half, but you eat the chips.” He accepted the plate when she passed it to him, then settled it on the thick muscle of his thigh.

Worried she’d lose her nerve, Petra leaned over quickly to press a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you for taking care of me,” she whispered.

He skimmed his hand over the cage of her ribs before settling it on her hip. Giving it a possessive squeeze, he replied, “Demons are supposed to be good mates. I don’t know what I’m doing, though, so you’re going to have to tell me when I do it right or fuck it up.”

He hadn’t said it in any sort of bashful, soft way. There was no vulnerability in his tone. If anything, he said it harshly, like he was annoyed he was expected to care about silly stuff like looking after a mate. But Petra saw him as clearly as he saw her.

“You’re doing good so far.” She pulled back with a smile. Gods, this man is a mess. Good thing I am, too, or we’d really be screwed.

“Tal normally tells me if I’m being a shithead or not,” he muttered, nudging the food in her direction. “But he’s not allowed near the house, so you gotta do it.”

Plucking a chip off the plate, she asked, “Who’s Tal?”

Silas had given her the basic, bare-bones rundown of his massive clan, but so far he’d only given her a handful of names. That was likely because he knew she’d never be able to remember more than that, especially when she had no faces to connect them to. She knew his matriarch, his parents, his uncle, and a smattering of cousins. The only reason she knew that much was because he’d explained to her that his family kept their town locked down tight with regular security checks and perimeter patrols.

His uncle ran the successful whiskey business that employed almost the entire family, but historically they hadn’t always been on the right side of the law — and they protected what was theirs. So, in Silas’s words, she didn’t need to lose a wink of sleep over whether the Ardeo would track her there, because the Cuttcombe clan took their “shoot first” policy as more of a family motto.

Petra assumed Tal was another member of the clan, and though she was interested in learning about Silas’s family, she didn’t think too much of her question. Reaching for another chip with one hand while simultaneously digging around in the trunk with another, she pulled out an old, hand-sewn leather book.

As she opened it up to a random, yellowed page covered in columns of numbers — measurements? — Silas answered, “Tal is my brother. He’s a wraith.”

Petra nearly choked on her chip. Attention snapping to the demon lounging beside her, she wheezed, “You have a brother?” Then, half a second later, “What do you mean he’s a wraith?”

“Tal isn’t technically my brother,” Silas amended. “He’s my only friend.”

“And he’s… a wraith.” Her mind worked hard to make sense of that even as she connected the dots to what he’d shown her the previous day. “You’re building him a body?”

Silas picked up his half of the monstrous sandwich and took an obscenely large bite. He nodded as he chewed, looking completely at ease.

Very aware of Silas’s vulnerabilities, even if he wasn’t, Petra took a deep breath and turned her upper body to face him. She couldn’t just demand answers or call him crazy. There had to be something more going on, and she could at least let him explain himself before she started worrying about him seeing boogeymen.

“Demon,” she began, very gently, “I’d appreciate it if you explained exactly what all of that means, because up until yesterday, I thought the consensus was that wraiths were about as real as ghosts.”

“People believe in ghosts,” he challenged, lips curling in a shadow of his mocking grin, “and people believe in gods. Wraiths are more real than either of those.”

“Maybe,” she begrudgingly allowed, “but I don’t claim to be best friends with Glory.”

“Wraiths are real. The reason there are stories about them is because everyone has probably seen one. They just can’t make themselves known to most people. As far as I know, only a few demons in a generation can communicate with them. My family history says I’m the first.”

The shadows around her throat shifted, swirling and caressing until they draped over her shoulders and chest. All around the room, dark corners moved ever-so-slightly, responding to Silas's call as he leaned in close to whisper, “Demon lore says that wraiths are the severed shadows of the dead.”

Petra tried very hard not to let her skepticism show. “So… ghosts?”

Does Silas talk to ghosts, or does he just have a very persistent imaginary friend? I’m not sure which possibility worries me more.

“Not quite.” Apparently fed up with her disregard for his ridiculously sized sandwich, he picked it up off the plate and forced her to take it. Raising his eyebrows, he made it clear that he wouldn’t be explaining more until she took a bite.

Petra rolled her eyes, mostly so he wouldn’t pay too much attention to the warm flush that overtook her when he took care of her like that. She was pretty sure it didn’t work, though. The smug look on his face only got more pronounced when she nibbled on the sandwich, then came back for a much bigger bite.

Grinning, Silas continued, “Obviously, there hasn’t been a lot of study into this. One reason is that demons don’t like to talk about it with outsiders, and another is that the scientific establishment lacks imagination.” His upper lip curled. Petra could only guess what kind of science he would do with an unlimited budget and resources.

“I’ll remind you that the establishment didn’t even accept how elementals are made until relatively recently, despite eyewitness reports that go back thousands of years. The same is true with wraiths. Almost everyone I’ve ever met has a story about seeing something move in the shadows.”

“Brains see things that aren’t there all the time.” The gods knew she’d conjured her fair share of boogeymen when she slept in alleys. Darkness, exhaustion, paranoia — all of it played a part in seeing things. She still felt it sometimes when she was alone. There was something about the darkness that could so easily make one feel watched.

“Or maybe that’s an easy explanation,” Silas countered. “I’m not saying every shape in the dark is a wraith, but I’m also not saying none of them are. Most places I go, I find at least one.”

A cold feeling swept down her spine and turned the delicious sandwich to ash on her tongue. It wasn’t fear exactly, but the disconcerting, full-body realization that maybe her world wasn’t what she thought it was.

“What are you talking about? There are— There’s an entire population of people just out of sight at any given time? You can’t be serious.”

“Yes and no.” Silas reached over her to snag the soda. Popping the tab with a claw, he took a long draw before passing it to her. “Most wraiths are sorta… unformed. Tal says it takes thousands of years for one to mature into real sentience. When I was a kid, he compared a demon’s shadows to a seed. When a demon dies, the seed is planted in the darkness and grows slowly over time until it’s something new.” He shrugged. “And some don’t grow at all.”

When Petra continued to stare at him, her limp hands barely holding onto her sandwich and the soda, Silas continued, “My working theory is that they have a lot in common with elementals and likely spawn at around the same rate. They start out as sparks of sentience in the atmosphere that come together, pooling magic, until there’s enough to make an m-storm. That blast of energy creates their bodies. Unlike elementals, though, wraiths never get that final explosive push. They’re conscious, they have wills, identities, desires, but no physical form. They’re stuck.”

She didn’t think Silas was lying to her, and she didn’t believe he was off his rocker — in this instance, at least — but that didn’t mean it was any easier to accept what he was saying. Because if that was true, then…

An entire population has been left to languish in the dark. Alone.

She didn’t want to believe that, but why would Silas lie about this of all things? Her stomach turned. “So, Tal was… a person? Before he became a wraith, I mean.”

“He was. His memory of his life is better than most, apparently, but it’s spotty. There are key facts and things, some impressions, but that’s it. Most of what he knows is from lurking in corners for thousands of years. He likes to watch people.”

Petra finally gave up and put what remained of her sandwich back on the plate. She really tried to remain calm, to not show how unsettled she was, but it was impossible when her voice came out so high. “And how did you two meet?”

“I liked to hide in dark spaces a lot as a kid,” Silas explained. “When I was three, I found out that one of those spaces was already occupied.”

“And this millennia old wraith became your friend?”

“At first I think he thought of himself as more of a babysitter, actually. I was a crybaby with no friends. He said he felt bad, so he stuck around.”

Crybaby? Petra could only imagine what childhood must have been like for a boy like him, someone so different from his peers. His family loved and supported him, but it had to have been hard, even for someone as emotionally stunted as Silas.

Heart aching for the little boy who liked to hide, she prompted, “Then…”

Silas tilted his head one way, then the other. “Then I think we both realized it was nice having someone around to talk to. My parents didn’t know what to make of him at first, but my matriarch said that we must be shadow-siblings. So everyone calls him my brother now.”

Oh, my poor demon.

He said it so simply, without bitterness or sorrow, but Petra knew what he wasn’t saying. She couldn’t imagine it was easy for Silas to grow up in a big, bustling clan full of normal people, no matter how much they loved him. Tal, whoever and whatever he was, became Silas’s friend because he had no one else.

Taking a deep breath, Petra tried to let go of whatever skepticism lingered inside. Whatever was going on, she felt in her bones that Silas was telling the truth. Maybe that truth wasn’t real. Maybe he was wrong. It didn’t matter.

What mattered was the fact that Silas believed it, and that belief was strong enough that he’d been willing to do just about anything to fulfill a promise he’d made to his only friend — including binding himself to a woman he didn’t even know.

“So…” She summoned a small smile. “When do I get to meet him?”

Silas’s dark brows arched. “Technically speaking, you already have.”

“What? When?”

“He kept an eye on you when I went up to Seattle.” A dark look descended on his features. It was all storm clouds and narrowed eyes when he growled, “And he was in charge of keeping you safe while I took care of Vanderpoel.”

Comprehension dawned. So did outrage. “The closet!”

Muttering to himself, Silas said, “Gonna kick his ass the second he has one.” Then, speaking to her, he begrudgingly added, “Wraiths are sensitive to light. It’s basically the one thing that can hurt them. Neither of us thought of that when we made the plan to restrain you. I figured since I’d held you with shadows, it wouldn’t be an issue. I should have known better. Still fuckin’ pissed at him, though.”

Petra covered her eyes with one hand. I cannot believe this.

Hadn’t she felt like she was going crazy while Silas was away? She thought it was the stress, but now she wondered if there really had been shadows moving out of the corner of her eye. Watching her. Reporting back to Silas.

Locking me in a fucking closet.

Shooting back a bracing sip of ice cold cola, Petra hissed as the bubbles seared a path down her esophagus. “I want to meet him,” she announced, coughing a little. “I need to know that this is all?—”

“I haven’t lied to you,” Silas protested, holding out his hand for the soda.

She passed him the can. “I didn’t say you did. But I need to meet him anyway. My brain can’t just accept all this in theory. And if he’s your brother, then I really, really need to meet him. I can’t meet your parents and not your only brother, Silas. It’s just not done.”

Swallowing, he muttered, “Well, he’s not allowed near the house, so we’ll have to go outside. And you won’t be able to hear anything he says. You might not even be able to see him. So really, it’s pointless and you should just stay in the den.”

“Why isn’t he allowed near the house?”

He set the can on the floor with a little more force than was really necessary. “Because I just found my mate, rut’s breathing down my neck, and I don’t want another man within ten feet of you until you’re fucked so good, you can’t remember what it’s like to walk straight.”

I can’t say Silas minces words with me.

“Right, well.” She cleared her throat. “Outside it is.”