Chapter 20 #2
I hugged tighter, reassuring us both in the hurricane of confusion. “Then, I die. Simple as that. Isn’t that what marriage is, forged trust from a series of blind risks? If you truly care for me, as you said, then you will restrain yourself and drink only what you need to heal.”
“Understood.” Silas shivered, and I braced for the pain as his teeth plunged deep into my neck.
It burned through my veins, tearing me in two. My life force flooded into him.
I gripped his blouse, nails biting into his back.
It was not long before the pain was replaced by the sweet flood of warming electric fire coursing through my veins.
Detached from my body, my limbs fell to the floor, limp as Silas clutched me close, showing no signs of stopping.
Cloves and spice invaded my nostrils, and I succumbed to the darkness, the efforts of staying conscious straining the deeper I fell.
I wanted to live. I didn’t want to die. But in the cloudy haze of the carnal act, I didn’t mind so much the possibility of being loved by death.
I moaned, Silas stiffened in response, licking up traces of my blood. The room spun, shattering and fracturing piece by piece, slipping into the space of the past in a time of the present.
The man with raven hair sunned himself out in a field by a lush rose garden. The vision changed to him twirling about a ballroom in a stunning gold mask. The strange familiarity at the tip of my finger, and if I reached far enough, I’d know. I’d know the truth beyond the veil to aid the present.
I barely registered Silas withdrawing from me, burying his head in my chest, and watched it slowly rise and fall with each waning breath. I’m softly carried, body floating listlessly and deposited upon something soft caressing my back. The vision faded, and I found myself in the realm of reality.
For a while, I remained there, floating weightless in ecstasy as Silas stroked my cheek.
It comes back to me in pieces, slow at first. The room and the darkness glared beyond the shadows of the bed, my head in Silas’s warm lap, his hand resting against my cheek with a gaze of serene light—lacking the hunger that had stained his golden eyes red.
When they returned to their iridescence, gold freckles around the irises, and without his mask, his scar was prominent across the left side, gouged deep into the pale flesh in fading white lines.
I found myself staring at the scar more than I’d like to admit. I turned away, blushing.
“Are you alright, Little Dove?”
I forced my head to move, nodding as I adjusted. “I think so,” I managed to say, failing to sit up by myself. I flopped back, and dark spots danced in my vision.
Silas wrapped his arm around my waist, hoisting my body up.
The fiber of my body was frayed, strung together with sinew that did not move on my own accord.
I blinked, once, twice and thrice—the room spun, the light encompassed my head and the rest of my limbs.
My hand traced up my neck, finding two little pin prick marks from his mouth.
They were deep, but not deep enough to inflict damage, almost as if his fangs were that of a needle rather than teeth.
I winced at the memory.
In my early diagnosis, Mama had all kinds of doctors try all numerous treatments to make the sickness go away.
She lost Father just a few months before when I had started exhibiting symptoms. The first part of those treatments included a needle pressed into my chest to drain the fluid clotting in my lungs.
I never knew how effective it was. Mama, after seeing the mess that it took to hold me down long enough to endure the remedy, forbade the doctor from doing it again.
At the time, I thought it was because she did not like to see one of her own in pain. But as my illness progressed, I found that was not the case.
She just hated the screaming.
I pulled my hand back, finding faint blood glistening on my fingertips. The weightlessness of my body found this to be amusing while the grounding aspect, the one that was still wrapped up in Silas, shuddered.
I came to kill him after, and I, once more, yielded my power to him. I failed the little girl, failed the townsfolk who are dependent on me to do something. Yet, here I was, wrapped in the arms of the enemy.
Tears pricked my eyes. I was a despicable human being, and I did not deserve to live. Not while so many are dying. I was no way closer to freeing anyone and instead gave myself up to the beast.
Silas brushed my tears away. “Valeria, talk to me.”
“I can’t.” I trembled. “I should be punished for what I did.”
I hated that I was trembling, hated the shame that stained my cheeks as much as I hated the fact that I allowed myself to be fed on, to be vulnerable. My hands had evidence riddled in the faint lines.
“Punished? Little Dove, what for?” Silas softly stroked my cheek, whispering sweetly, “If it’s because you almost put a knife through me, I forgive you for that. I’d hardly think less of you, especially due to circumstances.”
His voice was light, carefree, as if we did not just share a terrible secret with one another in his own bedchamber.
“It’s not that.” I leaned back against his chest, finding warm comfort in him.
I held his hands, tracing the faint lines of his palm—the calluses of centuries marked upon flesh.
There was a man in which these marks were attached to, one who yearned to be understood in the same manner humanity were to be. “I don’t understand you at all.”
“What is there to understand?”
“I have tried to kill you over the last few months, and still, you regard me without worry. I am by far the last person who should be here. You trust me so willingly, and I hate that.”
I traced his heart line. “I promised to kill you, and I became a wimpy assassin in hopes of saving the townsfolk since I knew I was doomed. Now, I can’t even be earnestly certain killing you would solve the problems in which they are facing.
I promised so much, and yet I am nothing more than a confused woman who is selfish. ”
The tears began in earnest. I huddled my knees to my chest, hiding my face into the fabric of the thin gown.
Silas perked up, his fingers twirling loose strands.
“I do not think you are selfish—confused, possibly, but selfish, no. It is not a sin to know what you want, Valeria. To take a bite out of life in its full glory. Human life is short. Why regret what you desire?” Silas said with such ease it struck my chest, splitting my fraught heart.
I laughed, a pounding headache forming. “This is coming from the immortal who has nothing but time. Tell me the truth, the shadows . . . If they are not yours, then who is controlling them?”
“I do not know,” he replied. “It’s been an item I have been investigating for some time now since they first snuck their way through the wards.
” Silas shifted off the bed, pulling me to the head of the bed coming face to face with him.
He propped himself up on his elbow, the other brushing my hair as his fingers lingered softly over my skin.
Silas relinquished with a sigh, snuggling in close. “Someone from long ago, I fear.”
In this moment, there was such serene peace I have never known nor have thought I’d have. My gaze landed on his soft lips, which smirked slightly as if he was taunting me.
“You are not truly responsible for the deaths and the shadows?”
“Correct.”
“Then who is, if not you then who?” I contemplated. “Why do they think that you are the one to blame? Don’t you care?”
“Of course I care. I am quickly running out of time, and I am nowhere close to breaking the curse over the castle and the town below.” Silas paused for a heartbeat or two, returning with a witty grin. “Perhaps it is better that they despise me.”
“I am serious, Silas.”
“So am I.”
“What happens if you never break the curse? What then?”
The more time passed, the more I realized Silas was not much different from me. A man trapped by the fabric of others woven centuries ago.
In the twenty-one years I have lived under the McCallister roof, I never had a chance to think for myself. To allow myself the opportunity to think about my own desires outside of those of my family. Outside of the want—the need to survive and without that constant dread, I did not know who I was.
Silas lightly kissed my hand. “I suppose I’d cease to exist. The town more than likely will disappear alongside me or, if they are lucky, will be free to join the rest of the world. My unwilling hostages’ fates remain unknown, simple ghosts of the living in the same way I care for the dead.”
I curled beside him, warmth spreading under the thin fabric of the chemise despite the cool stone and the overhead draft.
My heart drummed loud enough to be heard within the quiet space. The soft down pillow comfortable against my head, my eyelids drooped slightly as my vision began to fade. The rhythmic graze of his fingertips was hypnotic, guiding me into what my body wanted—rest.
I wasn’t ready to drift, not yet. Another issue pressed against my skull that I had to know before sleep took me, and I was left, yet again, vulnerable.
“Silas, I need you to tell me something. It’s about the reason why you want me to guess your name.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Yes, Little Dove?”
The vision of the boy came to mind, and the strong connection to Silas was impossible to ignore.
Fighting against sleep, I cupped his face, pressing my lips against his sweet, warm lips.
I reveled in the taste of him, the enveloping scent of cloves and spice, the delicate urge to want more.
My body craved more despite the fatigue.
He moved against me, his hand wrapping around my waist, pulling me up onto him.
I straddled his hips, his hands weaving through my dark hair.
I needed to see those visions, to see if they contained a clue to this madness.
To stave off my own madness.
This man, for better or worse, was the reason I was here and not six feet under. To an extent, I owed him my life, but he never asked for it. The prospect of loving a beast was less frightening in these moments without judgment. Perhaps he was right. It was not a sin to desire.
I pulled back, taking a moment to take in his beautiful features before it would disappear. Before the world told me it was wrong. Before I lost all sense of self, plunging into the abyss with him.
“The woman and the man I keep seeing, they have something to do with you, don’t they? Your name—your true name is what is keeping you all trapped here in this sublimed space.”
His eyes clouded, his hand covering mine. “I have given you everything you need to find the truth. It’s up to you to piece them together.” Silas pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“Piece together,” I breathed before launching into my own worries as a distraction. “You could have killed me tonight, Silas. If you hadn’t stopped—if I hadn’t.” I hesitated to finish, the words twisting in my mouth. “I may have been merely a corpse on your floor.”
A smirk crossed his face, nuzzling deeper to rest among my dark waves. “I should have said the same of you, Little Dove. Tell me that, honestly, it was the best you could do, an ambush and a knife.” He clicked his tongue. “Honestly, I expected more creativity.”
Each press of his kisses along the bare skin of my neck set flames up my flesh, my own breathing hitched, expectant of the sweet kiss and more. To be set aflame until I combust into nothing more than cinder and ash.
Against my neck, he whispered, “Did you not enjoy yourself? To do what I did takes restraint but the effects, as you are aware, are pleasurable.”
My toes curled, snagging against the smoothness of the stain fabric. Heat burned my cheeks as the memory of that particular kiss flooded. The intense ecstasy vibrated, and I became delirious with the need of such heady high.
I promptly scolded myself. It was bad enough I had allowed him to taste my blood.
It was enough that I was in bed with Silas and another to revel in his illicit touch.
One of a monster. Yet I wanted nothing more than to revel in such delight, to let him ruin me with such deliciousness of wandering hands.
I no longer fought against it.