Chapter 45

Chapter Forty-Five

Silas’s face was pale, his knuckles bleached white with the force of his grip on the steering wheel. His eyelids were narrowed as he glared through the tinted windshield of his car and out into the tiny, deserted parking lot attached to the roadside diner.

All around them, sloping fields of verdant grass stretched into a sea of green. They were only about forty minutes from Silas’s home, but the change of scenery was stark.

Petra understood that this was costing him. Guilt crawled under her skin whenever she spied the sheen of sweat on the back of his neck or caught the cagey way he scanned his surroundings, like he expected someone to jump out from the drainage ditch on the side of the road and snatch her from the car.

She didn’t want to ask him to do this, but whenever she thought of that journal, it felt like a thousand tiny pins pricked her all at once.

Just about everyone knew the story of how weres came to be, but that was history. Normal people had been used as experiments in the darkest days of the Great War. They were intentionally infected with a previously deadly virus by an amoral scientist and, at least at first, sent to the battlefield to act as tireless, brutal soldiers. But weres couldn’t be controlled, and when the war eventually ended, they had nowhere to go in a world that ostracized them. Infections soared. Most of the weres she’d known, like Rasmus, ended up in the criminal underbelly of the UTA when there was nothing else for them.

While she’d known weres her whole life, it wasn’t a story she’d ever dreamed of having a connection to, let alone holding a critical piece of it in her hand.

And never in her wildest imaginings did she think that Rasmus might be one of those original experiments. Her stomach curdled at the thought.

Petra hadn’t known what she held at first. Her reaction to seeing his name on that yellowed page was visceral and immediate. Instinct screamed that it was wrong, and when she and Silas sat down to really figure out what they had, that feeling had only gotten worse.

There were conspiracy theories galore about who funded the infamous Dr. Wyeth’s research. Dozens of inquiries had been done over the years, some more politically motivated than others, but no one had ever been able to definitively say who’d done it. The name she’d heard from most weres was Queen Sigrid Seagrim, though evidence on that was, as far as Petra knew, scarce.

While she couldn’t say she was particularly well versed in were history, Petra knew for a fact that she’d never, ever heard anyone even suggest that the Temple might be involved.

That horrible pins and needles feeling rushed back, making her skin pebble. It was before her time, and she couldn’t say she was particularly good friends with Rasmus, and yet a sickly swell of guilt rose ever-higher in her stomach.

Was that what you found, Max? she couldn’t help but wonder. Did you know?

Petra felt unclean just holding the thing in her hands. Within its smoky, aged pages were records of unspeakable abuse — not only to “patients” like Rasmus, but to Dr. Wyeth’s own daughter, Josephine. There were so many horrifying secrets in those trunks, but this existed in a class all its own. It wasn’t just blackmail or personal secrets stowed away for another time. It was a record of a world-changing crime, and it was up to her to figure out what to do with it.

Yes, it had been long before her time, but she was a High Priestess of Glory’s Temple. It was her responsibility to bring the truth to light.

Giving it to Rasmus was the only thing that felt right. Silas didn’t get it, but she didn’t expect him to. Her gut told her that it had to go to him. It was his name she saw first, and it was his story.

And despite his displeasure, his instincts, and his general disregard for things like guilt or morality or “doing the right thing,” Silas was helping her put the truth into Rasmus’s hands.

She touched Silas’s thigh. The thick muscle beneath her palm was rigid with tension.

“Thank you, demon,” she murmured, stroking him like she would a big cat threatening to pounce. A little bit of the guilt released when she touched him, and knowing that soon they’d make things right in some small way brought even more relief.

Silas grunted. The bridge of his nose wrinkled when he flashed his fangs at a distant passing truck. “This is a fuckin’ terrible idea.”

And yet you did it anyway, she thought, chest tightening with a great swell of warmth. Petra was beginning to suspect that Silas would do just about anything she asked of him, which was… heady. Never, not once in all her long, miserable life, had someone been so completely on her side.

It wasn’t the time, but she couldn’t stop herself from leaning over the center console to press a tender kiss to the base of one curled horn. “I adore you, demon,” she whispered there.

“Why?” He sounded suspicious, but that didn’t stop him from tangling his claws in a lock of her hair. He stroked it between his thumb and forefinger almost absentmindedly, like he needed to soothe himself.

Petra’s lips traced a path from his brow to the corner of his tightly compressed mouth. “Because you have my back no matter how stupid my plan is, and even though you don’t care about this at all, you respect that it’s important to me.”

“A good mate would’ve told you no,” he gritted out.

“A good mate wouldn’t have asked you to do this right now, either,” she countered. “See? We’re equal.”

“Petra—”

Oh, she knew she was really in trouble when he said her real name. Hoping to distract him as well as ease some of the tension that radiated from him like an electrical storm, her fingers crept up his thigh, following the inner seam of his well-worn jeans.

He stiffened. A low rumble vibrated the air in the car.

“Little goddess,” he growled, snaring her wrist just as she reached the button, “what do you think you’re doing?”

Petra rubbed her lips back and forth against the corner of his mouth as her free hand snaked around the back of his neck to tease the curls at his nape. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Angling for a punishment.”

She smiled. Despite every grim reality weighing the air down, desire thrummed between her thighs. It was impossible not to feel it when he spoke to her in that dangerous, raspy drawl, and when her magic lurched toward him, burning just beneath her skin, she was utterly helpless against the tide of need that swept away her good sense.

“Let me help you relax a little, demon,” she whispered, her voice husky with want. His grip was like steel around her wrist, but he hadn’t pulled her away. She could still brush the rigid outline of his cock where it was probably being squeezed to death against his thigh.

“Look at that — it’s another terrible idea.” His fingers flexed on her wrist, but he still didn’t pull her away. “You know how dangerous it is to send me into rut when we’re away from the den and you’re asking me to expose you to another man?”

“I promised to stay in the car,” she pointed out. “And did it occur to you that maybe you might feel better if we took the edge off a little?”

He snorted. “I don’t think that’s how my hormones work.”

“You said that if you touch me, it’ll send you into rut,” she pressed. “But you won’t be touching me. I’ll be touching you to show you how much I appreciate you, and it’ll be a little stress relief before Rasmus gets here.”

Silas turned his head just enough to pin her with a narrow-eyed look. “And if it triggers my rut?”

Her toes curled within the confines of her shoes. “Then you give the journal to Rasmus as quickly as possible and we haul ass back to the house.”

She could see the war happening in his eyes. Her chest tightened just a little bit more. For all that Silas thought he was incapable of caring for her as he should, he unknowingly proved himself wrong at every turn. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have said yes to this meeting, and he certainly wouldn’t have bothered to keep his hands off of her while she healed.

She couldn’t say how much she appreciated that, but Petra was acutely aware of the fact that she hadn’t done a whole lot of caring for him. Before Antonin’s grisly death, she hadn’t allowed herself to become invested in him. Now, despite all the uncertainty they faced, she could.

She wanted to.

And that started with seeing to his needs.

“I’m healed, Silas,” she assured him, stroking the back of his neck. Even those muscles were tense. “It’s okay. Stop torturing yourself. Once this is done, let’s go home and stop fighting it.”

“We’ll be going at it for weeks,” he warned her, all the smoothness scraped from his drawl. “What about the trunks? All of Vanderpoel’s shit? Don’t you want more time to?—”

“Antonin’s dead. He can wait.”

Silas’s expression remained tight, but his grip on her wrist slackened. Petra’s lips curled into a soft smile as she began to work on popping the button through the loop. She knew she had to be fast, since they were rapidly approaching the meeting time, but she relished the way he watched her, how he let her take control for just a moment.

His eyes went heavy-lidded when she eased his zipper down. “I love touching you,” she whispered against his lips. Her fingers slipped beneath the waistband of his briefs. A hiss escaped from between his teeth when she closed her fingers around the hot bar of his cock.

“I love this perfect cock.” She dipped her tongue past the seam of his lips, tasting him, before she playfully retreated. The bridge of his nose wrinkled again when he bared his fangs and lunged for her.

Before he could make contact, she tightened her fingers in the soft chestnut curls that draped over the nape of his neck, forcing him to stop short. Silas’s expression contorted with disbelief.

“Are you trying to dominate me?” he demanded, baffled.

Petra glided her palm up his shaft, barely touching it, until she found the slick, ruddy head. It was already wet, and when she gave it a small squeeze, another trickle of lubrication pooled in the juncture between her thumb and pointer finger. Demons, she thought, intensely appreciative, are definitely built a little different.

“No,” she answered him. “I’m just making sure we don’t get carried away. I’m taking care of you, demon.”

Silas scowled. If it weren’t for the way his hips tilted into her hand, she would have thought he barely noticed how she’d begun to stroke his cock, slow and steady. “I want to kiss you.”

“You can always kiss me.” Petra was a little surprised to realize she meant it. She’d never been particularly physically affectionate — no doubt a result of her dysfunctional childhood — but when it came to Silas, she couldn’t get enough. She was always chasing that warm, fuzzy feeling of relief his touch brought.

Leaning in close again, she pressed soft, hungry kisses to his waiting mouth. He made rough growly noises at her whenever she stopped him from going deeper, but he didn’t force the issue, either. They both knew he could’ve and she wouldn’t have complained. Not really.

But he let her have her way, and that heady feeling of power returned with a vengeance. For all that Silas loved to dominate her, he was right. All the power was truly in her hands. If she wanted to use him, to lavish him with attention for a change, all she had to do was say so.

Whispering between luscious kisses, she said, “You’re mine.”

“Yes,” he hissed, rocking his hips in time with her steady strokes. Wet sounds filled the car with every rhythmic pull. She’d have to sanitize her hand — and probably other things — after this was done, but she couldn’t have cared less.

Silas’s deep chest expanded with every panting breath. One hand curled into her hair, but he didn’t use it to control her like he normally did. He simply held on as his eyes squeezed shut.

Petra watched him in awe, greedy for the flush that rose in his pale cheeks, the shine on his parted lips, and the furrow of his brow. She tightened her grip and watched as the sensation rippled through his expression, tensing it in a way that almost looked like pain.

“Let go, demon.” Aware that they were running out of time, she picked up her pace. Peppering his cheeks, eyes, and lips with soft kisses, she crooned, “You’re mine and I love taking care of you. I love doing this for you. Let me take a little bit of the ache for you.”

His head dropped to her shoulder with a low, pained groan. “Fuck,” he rasped into her neck. “Why does this feel like I’m the one being punished?”

“Because you like being in control? Letting that go must be hard.”

“It’s not about control. It’s about owning you.”

Petra twisted her wrist on the upstroke and paused, gripping the head of his cock in a tight, possessive hold. “You think I would do this for a man who didn’t own me?” Pressing her cheek into the curve of his horn, she admitted, “Nothing makes sense to me anymore, Silas. The world just keeps— it all seems so fucked up and surreal and like it keeps slipping out from under my feet. But not you. Not this. You’re the only thing in my life that feels like it’s exactly as it should be.”

Max was dead, she’d killed a man, wraiths were real, and now she had a horrifying piece of history sitting in her lap, waiting to rip open untold wounds.

But Silas was right. How she felt when they were together was right. How they fit like two fucked up puzzle pieces was right.

The parts of him that had scared her seemed so small and unimportant under the light of what she now knew — that Silas was a monster who would die for her, who accepted her for whoever she chose to be, and who belonged to her now.

He panted into the juncture of her neck and shoulder, dampening her skin with his breath. He blazed with heat under her slick palm. Her arm was beginning to cramp a little and the angle she had to contort herself into wasn’t ideal for her lower back, but she didn’t mind. Especially when he began to thrust his hips in earnest, like he just couldn’t help but seek more, to shuttle his cock through the mess coating her hand.

“Yes, yes, yes,” he chanted, barely audible.

Combing her fingers through his curls, she murmured, “Come for me, sweetheart.”

He sucked in a deep breath and appeared to hold it. His hips jerked. A moment before he came, Silas let loose a terrifying snarl and clamped his fangs onto the meat of her shoulder.

He bit down hard — not enough to break the skin but certainly enough to bruise — as his release coated her hand and wrist. She carefully angled her palm, trying to catch the worst of the mess and save his jeans, as she whispered soft things into his ear.

Has anyone ever been truly soft with you?

She struggled to imagine he would ever allow it from a sexual partner. He was too wild, too inexperienced with emotion. No doubt any display of true affection, were they ever offered, would have confused and annoyed him.

The fact that he let her do it was extraordinary.

Petra wanted to laugh at herself, at how ridiculous it was to feel the prickle of tears behind her eyelids while she gently cradled a half demon’s cock in her release-soaked hand.

It was just a handjob, but it wasn’t. Not really. In that moment, with his fangs digging into her skin and his big body hunched over hers, she felt closer to him than she had with anyone. Ever.

Silas released her shoulder with a grunt. Nuzzling the throbbing pulse just beneath her jaw, he muttered, “Sweetheart?”

A bubble of laughter escaped her. Gently putting him to rights, she pulled her sticky hand back to her side of the car. “Can’t you be my sweetheart?”

“I’ve never been sweet a day in my life.” He sounded deeply disgruntled, but also sated, which was a good sign. Petra didn’t know too much about ruts, but she suspected that if he’d been tipped into his like he feared, he wouldn’t have sounded so sleepy.

“Oh, I don’t know.” She played with one of his curls, admiring the glossy brown color and the way it sprang back when she released it. Memories of their time in the blanket fort made her stomach flutter. “I think you’re pretty sweet to me. In your own way.”

Silas turned his head to peer at her, assessing her as always. “In a way that makes you happy?”

I’ll make you happy, he’d said. Then you’ll never want to leave me.

Petra’s voice came out hoarse with emotion when she answered, “Yeah, sweetheart. In a way that makes me very happy.”