There was a shower in the white-tiled room I’d often cut Perry up in, and my skin crawled at using it. But the water was hot, the towels were fluffy, and I kept an eye on my coat and my weapons the whole time. I probably didn’t have to, because the hellbreed was playing house with a vengeance, humming to himself while he brought the towels in, arranging them just so. He brought me a stack of black silk T-shirts—medium, V-neck, three-quarter sleeve, just what I liked to wear in cotton. And leather pants, too, and I had to shudder when they crawled up my hips. They fit like they’d been made for me, and wasn’t that thought-provoking?
He even watched me get dressed, but that wasn’t a huge deal. Dating a Were will give you a whole new definition of nakedness, and I’ve been tied down naked to an altar and almost-sacrificed. Skin doesn’t bother me.
But the way he licked his lips with that rough cherry-red tongue was disconcerting. And even more disconcerting was shrugging into my coat and finding it clean. It also reeked of candyspiced wickedness, just like the whole Monde. My hands roamed, finding the pockets full of ammo, everything as it should be, my whip at my side and my guns heavy at my hips and everything right with the world.
When I turned around again, blinking under the sallow glare of fluorescents, Perry was holding something. A flat case, rosewood, balanced on his palms. “For you.”
Another present? My stomach turned over, hard. The case was just the right size for one of those shiny knives, the kind that weren’t silver because they didn’t react to him. Light and razor sharp, with hatching on the handles for a better grip.
They were so cold.
I froze. The iron rack was set off to one side against the wall, but if he sauntered over to it and ordered me to strap him in…
He actually rolled his eyes. Back in the linen, immaculate, but even his tie was raw pale silk now. Those shoes of bleached suede were creamy against the white tile. “It’s not going to bite you, darling. That’s past.”
Oh, is it? It would be idiotic to relax now. So I just stood and looked at him until he made a small amused sound and passed one hard, narrow hand over the top of the box. There was a click, and the lid opened like a flower.
There, on rich red velvet, were the charms. Honest silver, each one running with blue light in the choked atmosphere, and a spool of red silk thread to tie them with. Nine of them, twisted shapes, fluid and somehow-wrong, creatures that walked under no earthly sun, clawed and furred and winged, vibrating against the velvet.
The silence from downstairs was deafening. Was it the middle of the day? My internal clock was all wonky, and I hadn’t slept. Or had I? I’d drifted in and out, rocked in Perry’s arms. The familiarity bothered me.
Well, I had so much else bothering me at this point, it was pretty academic, wasn’t it?
“A hellbreed giving me silver.” I addressed the air over his head. “Now I have seen everything.”
“Not quite.” Did the bland smile falter slightly? It came back as soon as it slipped. “Do you like them?”
On the one hand, all the silver I could get my hands on was a good idea. On the other, I wouldn’t put it past Perry to make them start crawling over my scalp, digging in with their sharp little pinprick feet.
“They’re gorgeous.” And they were, in the twisted way the damned are beautiful. I swallowed. “Thank you.”
Did he actually look pleased? “Well.” A slight cough. “I thought, perhaps…”
I braced myself, hands loose and ready.
“Will you relax?” he snapped, before taking back that honey-and-butter tone he liked so much. “My dearest one, you are here of your own will. As my guest, and my own darling, lovely, oh-so-unbending Kiss. Furthermore, you are a very particular piece of a very particular plan, and I will be very vexed should you come to any harm.”
“You wanted to kill me the other night.” I probably shouldn’t have reminded him.
The snarl drifted its way across his face like a thunderstorm coming down from the mountains. “I don’t like it when you consort with beasts.”
I’ve heard that before. I watched, fascinated, while his skin rippled a little. As if tiny little insects were running underneath the poreless, elastic stoniness.
It drained away, the indigo threads vanishing from his whites. “After all, jealousy is a besetting sin, isn’t it. Such a lovely sin, either soft or hard, such an instructive tool.” Quiet, reflective, he tilted the case. “If you don’t like them…”
“I do.” I even sounded like I did. “Perry—”
I don’t know what I was going to say. But he interrupted me.
“Good.” He offered the case. “I would tie them in your lovely hair, my dearest, but, well. Silver. Soon that will cease to matter.”
I avoided touching him, but I took the flat length of wood. It was surprisingly heavy. His hands dropped to his sides, and I studied the charms. Bile rose briefly in my throat, Why would silver not matter? Because you’re going to do what no hellbreed ever has, and if you pull it off, well, you’re right, it won’t matter. “And why is that?”
“It’s a surprise.” He pressed his hands together, a parody of praying—but then he bowed slightly, and his lips pursed in that bland face. Like he wanted to say more, like he held a secret too delightful to contain.
Cold sweat broke out all over me. The box tipped, I righted it, and he backed up two silent steps.
“Tie your shinies on, my darling, and come downstairs. We have guests, and it doesn’t do to keep guests waiting.”
“Soul of politeness,” I muttered, and the hellbreed laughed. A deep, rich chuckle, like he was having a fantastic time. He headed for the door, while I stood there like an idiot. The blue glow running under the surface of the silver submerged, thin threads of it remaining like healing sorcery, reacting to etheric contamination.
Halfway there, he stopped. He did not quite glance over his shoulder, but he did turn his head, and the three-quarters profile was chillingly beautiful, some trick of fluorescent light and passing shade.
“You recall Belisa, of course.” Level and dead serious. “Always treacherous. Which is a woman’s own sort of constancy, isn’t it? And it earned her a bullet to the head. After she’d been so useful, too.”
The sweat turned to ice. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out, and the hum of the fluorescents dug at my skull.
Perry’s profile turned to a grinning satyr’s mask. His shoulders moved briefly as he settled himself further inside his human shell. “And cover up that thing on your wrist, darling. It’s distracting.”
He swept the door shut, still grinning, and I found out I was shaking again. The charms rolled on the velvet and chimed together, sweetly musical. The red thread fell and hit like a blood clot on the white, white floor.