Chapter 53

Chapter Fifty-Three

Petra threw her bag at his feet and declared, “You are not leaving without me!”

“We’re not having this conversation,” Silas replied, completely unbothered, as he slipped a sheathed knife into his boot.

“You’re right. We aren’t. Because I’m coming.”

“It’s cute that you think you’re gonna get your way, little goddess, but it isn’t fuckin’ happening.” Silas rose from his crouched position to pat his pockets. “Knives, fake ID, explosives… I’m missing something. Oh, right.” He reached for the old, yellowed file he’d taken from one of the red trunks, but Petra snatched it first.

Holding it tight to her chest, she announced, “Silas, you’re not leaving without me. Those are my people. That’s my friend. I need to help.”

“And you’re my mate,” he argued, brows arching. “What makes you think I would ever let you walk into a situation where you’re actively being hunted by two separate groups and we strongly suspect someone will at least attempt a regicide?”

“What makes you think I’ll let you?” she demanded. “You’re my mate, too! We’re a team, remember? You are not going into that by yourself. I have every reason to be there. I can help.”

Silas’s lips turned down in an expression that, on anyone else, might have been a sympathetic frown. On him it was a lot more likely that he was simply trying to figure out the most efficient way to appease her and still get what he wanted.

Before he could argue his side, she charged ahead. “Listen, I’m friends with Margot. I don’t care that Kaz is looking for me. She’ll hear me out. I know you said it’s not safe to contact her secretary, but I can go to her directly if we show up at the Tower. And what if something has happened to my staff, Silas? I’ve been cozying up with you for weeks thinking that they’ve just been getting on without me, but what if they’re being held hostage or tortured or?—”

“Baby,” he drawled, stepping around her bag to gently grip her shoulders, “we are a team, but you need to understand something: you are irreplaceable. I’ll never, ever risk you.” Those familiar hands, so big and warm, glided up her neck to cup her cheeks. He pressed a featherlight kiss to her lips before murmuring, “You are powerful and capable, little goddess, but I’d rather let this coup happen than put you in harm’s way. I’d watch the whole world burn if it meant keeping you safe. I’d even strike the match myself.”

Still holding the file with one hand, she gave him a solid thump in the center of his chest with her other. “Don’t try to sweet talk me, asshole. You said you wouldn’t lock me away again. You tried it once and it didn’t work, remember?”

“I didn’t promise anything,” he replied, unfazed. “All I recall is you saying you’d poison me if I tried it. I’m willing to take the risk if it means I never have to see you hurt again.”

The shadows in a dark corner of the living room shivered. Goosebumps rose on Petra’s arms as a niggling awareness drew her gaze to the puddle of shadow untouched by the soft glow of the floor lamp.

She still couldn’t quite see what Silas did and she couldn’t hear what Tal said, but she thought she could sense him there, like someone standing just off to the side, waiting to be acknowledged. The feeling was a visceral one, very different from the indistinct sensation she’d experienced before. Petra had the niggling suspicion that bonding had strengthened her connection to Silas and tied her to his brother, too.

Whatever was said, it clearly didn’t go over well with Silas. He dropped his hands to her arms and swung his head around to glare at the dark corner. “You really want to take her side when I already owe you an ass-whooping for the last time?” He paused, apparently listening to the wraith’s response, before he demanded, “If it were you, what would you do? I don’t care how useful she might be. I’m not taking the fucking’ risk.”

“How’s this for a risk?” Petra pinched Silas’s chin. Turning his head back around to face her, she warned, “If you leave without me, Silas Augustus Cuttcombe, so help me Glory, I’m going to find my own way back to San Francisco. I’ll hitchhike if I have to.”

A thunderous expression darkened his features. His shadows roiled, the threads of darkness writhing across the floor and around her throat like a pissed off rattlesnake. But Petra wasn’t scared of him, nor his temper. Giving his jaw a tiny shake, she warned, “You can’t keep me here. You can’t lock me up. You can’t do anything, demon, because you know that if you did, it’d hurt me. And I don’t care what you believe you’re capable of — you love me too fucking much for that. So either I go with you and Tal or I find my own ride. You choose.”

Silas abruptly tipped his head to one side to nip the meat of her thumb with his sharp fangs. Yelping more out of surprise than any real pain, Petra withdrew her hand.

“I’m sincerely regretting not having that dungeon,” he growled, snatching the file from her.

Her heart leapt. “Are you taking me with you or not?”

Somewhere down the long, tree-shrouded driveway — nowhere close to the house, since Silas said he only allowed clan near his den — a massive burst of magic tore through the air. Every shelf in the house rattled and all the bottles in the drink cart clinked together before the air settled once more.

Their ride had arrived.

She held her breath as she waited for his response. Petra didn’t want to fight him, and she seriously didn’t want to have to find her own way across the continent, but she would. For her staff, for her friend, for the Protectorate as a whole, she’d do it. She’d walk if she had to.

Petra guessed that Silas must have seen some small sliver of her determination in her expression, because he bit out a curse before he ducked to give her one of his signature punishing kisses.

“I’m absolutely investing in a crop,” he hissed against her lips. Her toes curled in her shoes. “You have no fuckin’ respect for rules.”

Petra patted his chest. “Whatever makes you feel better, sweetheart.”

“Shade.”

Silas tipped his head in a nod. “Witch.”

Adjusting the strap of her bag over his shoulder, Silas pushed her past the heavily glamoured man who waited for them at the end of the gravel driveway. Despite the thick, smoky glamour disguising his features, the witch hadn’t bothered trying to hide his tattoos, nor the way he’d dressed to the nines. Sporting a rower’s build and a general air of tightly restrained power, whoever it was Silas had wrangled into transporting them to San Francisco was no common gatekeeper for hire.

Wearing what looked like a luxury sweater with neat, slim-fitted slacks and a thin black leather belt, he looked entirely out of place against the wild backdrop of trees and underbrush that nearly consumed the narrow track of the driveway. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t place where she might know him from.

If anything about the situation bothered him, however, she couldn’t tell. His body language was relaxed and the line of his broad shoulders smooth. He’d tucked his hands in his pockets. She could make out a thick silver watch around his wrist — and more tattoos dotting the backs of his hands.

He was covered with them, and they weren’t the decorative kind. They were sigils. The closer she peered, the more she could make out.

A sort of recognition rippled through her mind. It was the same kind she felt when she sensed Tal, and perhaps any being related to the shadows that now coiled around her throat.

She knew without needing to look closely that at least some of those sigils were Silas’s work. It wasn’t just the jagged, distinctive scrawl of them, but a particular hum of energy she recognized instinctively.

Gatekeepers, those few witches powerful enough to tear holes in space, often used sigils to help stabilize their abilities, but she’d never seen so many before. This man’s tattoos peeked above the collar of his sweater and ran down the forearms he’d freed from his sleeves.

She couldn’t make out his expression or see where his gaze was aimed, but she felt the weight of his attention when he turned it on her. “Nice to see you again, High Priestess. And all in one piece, too.”

Petra blinked. “Have we met before?”

“I repaid one of my favors to Shade a few weeks ago,” he explained, unruffled by the way Silas bared his fangs at him. “You wouldn’t remember, since you were passed out at the time.”

Oh. She’d figured an m-gate had been involved in their quick trip across the continent, but Petra hadn’t thought too hard about who might have done it. Maybe she hadn’t thought to question it because it was Silas. He was capable of anything. If he’d revealed some hidden ability to teleport, she wouldn’t have been terribly surprised.

“And you’re repaying another one by taking us back to San Francisco,” Silas growled, “not by chatting up my mate.”

The gatekeeper shrugged. “Can you blame me?”

Petra gave him a quelling look. “If you like your head where it’s at, I wouldn’t antagonize him.”

“It’s more fun this way,” he replied mildly, like he didn’t have a single worry in the world. That was remarkable, considering he stood not three feet away from a demon who really wouldn’t think anything of killing him.

She was about to tell him how stupid that was, but when her gaze drifted down to the sigils on his neck, Petra stopped herself. A man whose power needed to be contained like that… Maybe he really didn’t have anything to fear from Silas.

Still not smart, though.

Petra wouldn’t put it past her mate to ruin his life in other, more creative ways.

“Open up the fuckin’ gate,” Silas ordered. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and dragged her close, until she fit snugly under his arm.

The gatekeeper slowly inclined his head before he pulled his hands from his pockets. “You’ve gotten a lot more direct since you took a mate, Shade. I like it.”

While he readied himself, Petra stretched onto her tiptoes to whisper in Silas’s ear, “What about Tal?”

“He travels in his own way,” he assured her. “He’s probably already there, actually.”

Petra figured as much, but it was nice to know. She couldn’t speak to Tal — yet — but she felt a deep kinship with him. Not only because he was a fellow lonely soul who fell through the cracks, but because he’d been there for Silas when she couldn’t.

Tal was Silas’s family just as much as his parents or the rest of his clan was. Maybe even moreso, because he’d made the choice to stick by Silas even when he didn’t have to. That meant he was her family now, too, and she intended to take care of him.

Magic began to gather around them. The finest strands of her hair stood up as an electrical charge hummed in her ears. It was like an approaching thunderstorm — all static and ozone and curiously heavy air in her lungs. The tang of metal came with it. The taste of blood dripped down the back of her throat with every breath.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the gatekeeper raise his tattooed hands. Light gathered before him, sparking into existence from nothing but the raw, blinding power he carried inside him. Heart lurching in her chest, she asked, “Do you think we can do this?”

Silas gazed at her for a beat. Tracing the line of her jaw with his thumb, he replied, “I think we can do anything, baby.”