“Basil says that we need to distract them.” Cade lifted his arm and came close. He held the snake out to me, and with some hesitation, I took it into my hands. It wound its way up my arm, then up to my throat, curling twice around the fabric before settling its head in the crook of my neck.
Cade nodded, his eyes narrowed. “Yes. That will work.”
He reached out, taking the snake back from me. His hands brushed over the fabric of my shirt as he unwound Basil, and I could feel all of my attention where he touched me. When he had the snake back in his arms, he said, “Take off your shirt.”
Blinking, I pulled it off, letting it fall to the floor. Cade came closer, the fabric of his shirt sliding against my shoulder as he placed Basil back around my neck. I could feel the ghost touch of his fingers, although I knew they weren’t making contact; I could feel where they would if he only moved a millimeter.
The snake wound its way around my throat twice. I swallowed thickly, feeling the heavy muscles of Basil’s body. This wasn’t any better than a collar, I reminded myself. I needed to resist. I needed to get angry.
Yet somehow, it felt different, like a promise between the two of us. I wanted it to be the same, but Basil was the only thing in the whole house other than his clothes that Cade seemed to care about, and he was giving him tome.
“We’re going to pretend that I have a snake for a collar?” The word stuck in my mouth, and I couldn’t help the shiver and the urge to throw the snake as far as I could. “I don’t like that any more than a leather one.”
“No. Not a collar.” Cade shook his head, and then he reached forward. I fought the urge to lean back, but he placed a gentle hand on the snake’s muscled flesh. Then, suddenly, Cade’s fingers were on my throat, the warm stroke of his fingertips across my larynx. He pulled back right away, and I reached up, trying to feel where the snake had gone.
Silently, Cade pointed at a full-length mirror on the far side of the closet. I strode over, but I could already see what had happened. Snake scales were tattooed around my neck, a thick band of them. Basil’s head hung just over my clavicle, as though inked there.
For a half second, I wondered what it would be like if this was real, if this was Cade’s promise to me.
“What happened? How did you do that?” I could still feel the weight of him, the heft of the muscled snake. When I reached up, though, my fingers only encountered flesh. The tattoo shifted, as though Basil was trying to get more comfortable.
“Basil is… complicated.” Cade stopped.
“Listen, either you break this down for me, or I start genuinely freaking out. Is the snake real, or was he an illusion like the car? Explain.” My skin felt hot and flushed. I couldfeelthe snake, even though I looked at my throat and saw nothing but ink.
Cade frowned. “Think of Basil like magic that has gained sentience. All they’re going to think is that whatever spell I gave you when we bonded was so secret I wanted to make sure no one could see it even if you weren’t wearing a collar by having Basil cover that initial spellwork.” He stopped again, as though there were paragraphs more of what he wanted to say written, but he was unable to voice them.
“Okay.” I drew out the word. “So… Basil is sentient magic. Is it going to hurt me? Because this is the part in the horror movie where you promise it’s perfectly harmless, and then we start finding dead coeds all over the house, and it turns out that the sentient magical snake possessed me.”
Cade immediately shook his head. “It’s just like wearing a real snake. Basil is a part of me. I couldn’t give him to you except as this.”
“As a collar.” I frowned, reaching up, but I couldn’t find the edges of the snake. There was nothing for me to pry off.
“As anillusion. If he’s there, Rhys won’t think to ask why you aren’t wearing a collar. This is the only option I can think of to keep you…” Cade trailed off, but there were a few ways to finish that sentence, and I was curious which one he intended. Keep you safe? Keep you alive? Keep you with me?
I swallowed, watching my neck work underneath the lines of tattooed snake. Basil moved again, and I could feel the drag of his cool scales against my skin.
It wasn’t a collar. It was, strangely, the most intimate gift anyone had ever given me. Basil was something dear to Cade—even I could tell that. And he had given it to me to save my life.
I immediately shook off that thought. No. Cade had given it to me to save both of us. If I went down, he went down with me.
There was a muffled knock on the door.
Cade checked his watch. “We don’t have much time. Let’s hope that Rhys can work fast.”
* * *
“Well, this isn’t thetightestdeadline I’ve ever worked under,” Rhys said.
They circled around me, observing my naked form. Somehow, it felt different from the last time, although I couldn’t say why.
In a tall-backed chair by the window, Cade sat, his arms resting along the arms of the chair. He was wearing a high-necked cream shirt and black pants. His boots clung to his calves. He crossed his legs, and I turned back to Rhys.
The snake at my throat shifted.
“—I don’t know, what do you think?” Rhys narrowed their eyes, scraping them over me again.
I could feel them staring at my neck, but each time I tried to catch them at it, they looked away quickly. Nia hadn’t looked up from her phone since I came back into the room naked.
