Page 79 of Shai

I twisted around so that I was facing him, my gaze fixed on his face. “I need you to know that I won’t change, Elijah. It’s important that you understand that. There will be times where I’ll take great pleasure in messing with you, maybe even hurting you. There will be times where I’ll be demanding. And also, where I will be distracted and not pay you the attention you think you deserve. It’s just the way I am.”

Elijah’s tongue darted out to moisten his lips. “I know all that. I’ve

accepted it as being part and parcel of you. You have a darkness inside you that you need to feed.”

A darkness! How melodramatic. I was tempted to laugh, but reined it in.

“The offer I’m about to give you is not one I expected to give to anyone.”

Elijah let out a huff of frustration. “What offer? You still haven’t said

what you’re actually offering. Is this going to be one of those days where you talk in riddles and I’m somehow meant to read between the lines?”

“Patience.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but eventually chose to stay silent. “I’m offering you a place at my side.”

“At your side?” Elijah’s eyebrows squished together. “What does that

mean?”

“It means…” I thought about my answer carefully. “It means, you

would outrank any man in my organization except for me, of course. It means that the only interests you would serve would be my interests, whatever that might entail. It means I would be putting a great deal of trust in you, but at the same time I would have great expectations.”

Elijah’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You sound like you’re offering some

sort of partnership?”

“Of sorts.”

Elijah sat back, crossing his arms over his chest and subjecting me to an

intense scrutiny. “What’s the catch? This is you, so I know there has to be one. You don’t give anything away for free.”

“That’s harsh, Elijah, when I have been nothing but generous with you.” His argument with that statement was in the slight raise of an eyebrow. I

continued on, regardless. “You would need to be more like me.”

He shook his head. “Another riddle. Just tell me what you expect from

me.”

“A number of things, some of which I have no wish to disclose at this

exact moment. I can tell you what the first thing required of you will be, though.” A wave of Elijah’s hand said to get on with it. That was him all over, so impatient, so bristling with indignation and the need to make sense of everything. “You will need to build up an immunity to snake venom.”

His head rocked back so far that I may as well have physically struck

him. “Why?”

I smiled. “Because that’s the price of admission for a better life. Is it so high a price to pay to stand at my side? To open up all the possibilities that Elijah Page must surely have dreamed of when he barely had a penny to his name.”

A fine sheen of sweat had appeared on Elijah’s forehead, fear trickling through his body like an invasive presence and turning his limbs to stone. I’d missed that look on him. It made me want to lean forward and breathe it in.

“Which snake?”

I laughed at the question. “Does it matter? We will work our way through both eventually, so what does it matter which is first.”