Chapter 17 – Silas
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SILAS
I keep the phone to my ear even after she’s disconnected the call, my jaw clenched so tight I’m surprised it doesn’t crack.
“He took her to Velmora,” I seethe.
“That will take us at least a day’s ride,” Viktor states. “Not to mention, Morbius will be expecting us, so fuck knows what will be waiting.”
“Why didn’t you tell her to fucking run?” Cain snaps. My darkened gaze slams into his ferocious red eyes.
“Because she would have fought me, refused, or hung up. Then we’d have no way of knowing if she’s okay.
Do you really think I want to leave her there, with him?
I know he’s using her for something; I just don’t fucking know what.
The only hope I have is that he told her it should take a couple of weeks,” I rant, the unbearable feeling of helplessness clawing at my skin.
“I mean, he could have just told her that as a lie. For all we know, he could be killing her right now.” Clutch shrugs.
All of our heads turn to Clutch, the promise of death pouring from my gaze.
He holds his hands up in surrender. “I hope she isn’t.
Jeez. I like her. She’s my friend too. I’m merely stating a fact, that's all.”
“Clutch, in future, use your brain before speaking. Or, in case your brain doesn’t fucking work. Shut. The. Fuck. Up!” Lucian barks at him.
“We have to leave tonight. We can’t leave her. As much as what Clutch said is fucking stupid, he’s not wrong. We can’t trust anything that comes out of Morbius’s mouth,” I point out.
“We also can’t just go in there without a plan. We’re signing away our own fucking deaths if we do,” Hex adds.
“I mean, technically, we’re already dead,” Clutch shrugs.
“I swear to god, if another dumbass word comes from your fucking mouth, I will end you myself,” I threaten, getting to my feet.
“What I’m saying isn’t dumb if it’s the truth,” Clutch counters.
“Seriously, shut up, Clutch,” Cain sighs. The brothers start arguing amongst themselves, yelling at each other.
“What’s all the noise about?!” Evelynn yells as she enters the doorway. The brothers cease arguing and turn their attention to her.
“Club business,” Shade mutters dismissively.
She crosses her arms over her chest, glaring down at Shade.
“I don’t care if it’s club business,” she says in a deep, mocking voice.
“When I can hear you all yelling like a bunch of dumb animals,” she snaps.
Lucian moves toward her in slow, purposeful strides, pride and desire pouring from his gaze.
“And it stops being club business when it’s Lilith involved,” she adds.
Lucian takes her chin with his thumb and forefinger, tilting her head back to look at him. “You come into my court, throwing your demands to the covenant; the club?” he says in a low, threatening growl. A slow smile spreads across Evelynn’s lips, as if Lucian has just offered a challenge.
“What’s yours is mine, dear.” She winks before catching Lucian off guard and moving swiftly to the head of the table, standing behind Lucian’s seat.
Her eyes spark with amusement at Lucian’s disbelief at the trick she’s just pulled on him.
“As none of you can come up with a plan…” Her gaze snaps to me.
“A plan that isn’t fuelled by emotion,” she adds, before looking to the rest of the club.
“A plan that isn’t so overcautious that it gets Lilith killed.
Lay down the facts, who has been to Velmora before? ” She pauses. “What awaits us?”
“Us?” Lucian repeats.
Evelynn places her hands on her hips. “Yes, Luci, us.”
“Fucking Luci.” Clutch coughs a laugh.
Lucian’s eyes glare with fury. Evelynn doesn’t so much as blanch; she merely blows him a kiss before her attention returns to me.
“And truths need to come out now. If we’re going to go get her, Silas, I need to know why my friend would choose to go with an ex, but not just any ex, one that had her family killed,” she demands.
“You sure heard a lot,” Viktor mutters, a smirk playing on his lips.
“Vampire hearing,” she says, tugging at her lobe. “And I was standing outside the door,” she adds with a devilish grin.
“While I may agree with you on most of what you have said. You are not coming with us,” Lucian seethes, his amber eyes flaring in warning.
“I have the daggers that beat Anathema, remember? I’m not sure what that means, but I’m sure I and my daggers could be of some use,” Evelynn argues.
My impatience builds, becoming too much to contain. “I don’t care who comes and who doesn’t. I’m leaving tonight. You’re either with me, or you’re not. I won’t risk another day,” I seethe, my temper rising.
“We are with you, Silas,” Evelynn states with firm conviction, ignoring Lucian’s growl. “But I need to know everything. And I mean everything,” she demands. My eyes flicker to Lucian. He gives me a sharp nod.
“Enough now. Secrets get people killed,” Lucian warns.
I inhale, sitting back down. However, most of the brothers know most of the truth. There is still a lot they don’t. Only Lucian knows and kept his word.
27 YEARS AGO. NEW YEAR’S EVE
I stand there, rooted to the spot, watching her walk away with Morbius as if something inside me has already begun to die.
Every instinct screams at me to go after her, to grab her wrist, to force her to see, to understand what he is, what I’ve seen lurking beneath that smile.
But I don’t move. I just stand there like a coward, replaying the taste of her lips against mine, the way she hesitated, like she almost chose me.
Almost. Instead, she chose him. Believed him.
And that… that fractures something deep in my chest. I turn back toward the festival, but it feels wrong now; too loud, too bright, too alive for the hollow thing I’ve become.
“Let her go,” Lucian warns. The music pounds, people laugh, glasses clink, but it all feels distant, muffled, like I’m underwater.
“He’s going to hurt her,” I grit out. I can still feel her.
Still taste her. Still hear the way her voice broke.
As midnight creeps in, I can’t escape it.
I can’t shut it off. Every second stretches, suffocating me under the weight of what just happened.
“I have to go,” I mutter, shoving my drink into Lucian’s hand before he can ask.
“I can’t let this lie.” He studies me for half a second, just long enough to see the storm behind my eyes, then nods. That’s all I need. I take off.
The world becomes a blur as I move, faster than thought, faster than regret.
The ground barely registers beneath my feet.
My only focus is on her. Finding her. Fixing this and begging if I have to.
Anything but losing her like this. I reach the bar in seconds, but it’s wrong.
The air feels off. Thick. Charged. And then I see him.
Morbius. Walking out like nothing’s happened.
Alone. No, not alone. With someone else.
But not Lilith. Something inside me snaps so violently that it feels like my bones splinter.
I’m on him before he can even turn. My hand slams around his throat, driving him into the ground hard enough to fracture the tarmac beneath us.
The impact cracks like thunder, but it doesn’t come close to the roar tearing out of my chest. “I know what you’re doing,” I snarl, my grip tightening, shaking with barely restrained fury.
“I know what you did.” His grin, that grin, spreads slowly, grotesquely, like he’s been waiting for this.
“I did it for us, brother,” he rasps, completely unbothered.
“You’ve always been too soft. Too… human.
” My fingers tighten, desperate to crush the life out of him, to erase that smile forever, but then he laughs.
A wet, choking sound that only fuels my rage.
“What are you going to do?” he taunts. “Strangle me? We don’t need oxygen.
” My grip falters. “But she does.” Everything stops.
His eyes flick lazily toward the bar. And that’s when I see it.
Fire. Bright. Violent and hungry. Flames clawing at the windows from the inside.
My hand drops from his throat like he’s already dead to me.