Chapter 19 Silas
Iknow she’s dangerous the second she says my name without realizing the impact she has on us.
Eris asks the type of questions you only ask someone you already feel tied to. Someone you’ve allowed access. Someone you’re checking for structural integrity before you lean any further. Trust any deeper.
And now she’s sitting in our kitchen, Kieran’s shirt draping over her like a short dress.
The creamy skin of her bare legs is on display, and her posture is relaxed.
But her fingers tighten around the fork in her right hand like she’s wielding a weapon.
Her left hand holds my equilibrium, and she doesn’t hesitate to flip my world upside down.
She doesn’t pretend she’s overwhelmed to put us at ease.
Nor does she brace for disaster…
“I like the way you orbit me.”
It lands harder than any threat I’ve ever received. Cleaner than panic. Louder than fear.
She likes it.
She likes us.
I’ve built systems with less data than that. Burned entire contingencies to the ground with weaker confirmation. And now my body refuses to do anything except catalog.
Her posture is open. Not defensive. Her tone isn’t fishing; it’s measuring.
The deliberate way she applies curiosity to the vital points of a conversation, as if it’s a blade she knows how to use.
She isn’t asking because she’s confused…
Eris is asking because she wants to know how far this goes. She wants clarification.
And I am one misstep away from handing her the map to everything she’s ever wanted.
I stand before I can stop myself.
Jace glances up, alert but not surprised. Kieran doesn’t look away from her mouth, like he’s already memorizing how it forms words meant to undo us all.
I cross the kitchen, grab a clean glass, and fill it with water I don’t drink.
The window across the room becomes a placeholder for restraint, a reminder that I’m supposed to be the one who doesn’t move first. I lose myself in the gray-scale of the warehouse district, but my mental wandering doesn’t last long.
Behind me, Eris laughs lightly at something Jace says.
It’s not performative or flirtatious. But it’s significant, the type of laugh that slips under my ribs and stays there like a new organ I can’t remove. The kind that rewrites rooms and worlds and complete anatomies.
Kieran answers her quietly. His voice always changes with her, dropping into something careful, almost worshipping. He’s always known how fragile obsession can become when it’s given oxygen, but he’s the biggest daredevil of us all, playing with gasoline and matches in a closed space.
My grip tightens on the glass as I count the grooves on the exterior of the building across the street. Anything to drown out the room for just a minute so I can think.
Was she scared last night?
I’d seen her standing in the middle of her bathroom, gun steady in her hands, Daniel breathing on the other side of the door as he crawled away.
But this?
This calm.
This composure.
The willingness to hold danger in her bare hands and taste it, like the blood coating our visit was a familiar flavor…
It contradicts everything.
She likes it.
Wants it.
Fuck.
Eris wants us.
And I don’t know how long I can keep pretending this wasn’t our trajectory the moment her name lit up on the system and we became addicted to her responses.
Am I pretending?
Do I want to?
I don’t need to face her to know she’s watching me now. She shifts in her seat at the table, glancing from me to the window and back.
Studying me.
I feel those piercing gray eyes leaving a chill across my skin.
“Silas.”
I turn, giving her my undivided attention.
Her gaze doesn’t soften when it finds mine. It solidifies, like she’s pleased I’m finally looking at her the way she requested.
“Did you mean what you said?” she asks. “That I made it real?”
“Yes.”
The word costs me nothing that hasn’t already been spent.
“And what if I change my mind?”
I cross the distance before Jace or Kieran can intervene.
Eris doesn’t lean back when I enter her space or tense when I take the mug from her. I set it on the table beside her, out of reach. This is a conversation that requires empty hands and clean surfaces.
No distractions.
I’ve got nearly a foot of height on her, so I don’t want to hover. Instead, I squat in front of her, not looming or crowding, as I rest my right hand on the back of her chair. I’m close enough that the silence between us becomes more intentional. Heavy under our mutually challenging stare-off.
“Then we’d let you go,” I acknowledge quietly. “But not all of us would survive it.”
She licks her bottom lip, and I let my gaze dip to watch the subtle movement before pulling my attention back to her molten silver eyes.
“I won’t pretend I’m capable of some grand neutrality, Eris. You made me real. And real things don’t power down cleanly.”
Her breath catches, the steady rise and fall of her chest stopping for several seconds. Someone moves behind me, but I don’t look. Neither does she.
This moment doesn’t belong to the room.
“I would burn the world for you,” I murmur, tipping my head toward the guys. “We all would.”
Her pupils flare with a nameless emotion she doesn’t show on the rest of her face. She doesn’t retreat, though… So, I keep going.
“But I’ll start with anyone who made you question whether you deserve that devotion.”
The silence stretches.
Three seconds.
Four.
Then she smiles…
It’s not soft.
Or grateful.
No.
This is something keen and savage.
Appraising.
Menacing in a way I’m not quite expecting.
“I think…” she says slowly, her attention bouncing between the three of us. “I think I understand what you mean.”
The sweetness in her voice is such a juxtaposition to her expression and the hardness in her eyes that I have to fight the tilt of my head. I feel a little like a confused dog, ears flopping as I lean back to take in what’s happening with our goddess of discord.
And discord does she sow.
I can clock the exact second I realize this was never about whether she’d stay…
It was always about whether we were strong enough to deserve her choice.
It’s a surreal moment.
But it leaves me wondering…
What game is she playing?
And why do I like it so much?