Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-Five
“You’re looking a little stressed. It’s far too early for that, Little Dove.” Silas stood in the doorway, his lean body pressing against the mahogany frame.
He was dressed in dark trousers and a red silk blouse eerily the color of blood with his black mask affixed to his face in accents of gold.
Silas’s lips quirked up into a smile before he shifted off the frame and sauntered forward. “I assumed you’d be in town and not here, of all places.”
“You did say I could come here whenever I wanted,” I said.
My fingers felt worn from shifting through stacks of books. They itched to play the piano and get lost in the music—to forget the impending doom on the horizon and the accursed riddle.
After we were sure the mass behind the door was no longer a threat, Ebony and I had begun shifting through the stacks for a clue to the riddle the damn thing spouted.
All we managed to find was nothing, and the book that once held the key was nothing more than a simple nursery tale about a princess trapped in a tower.
Silas picked up the book I had set aside.
“Where did you find this?” He placed a hand over the rough cover, his face unreadable between the mix of emotions rolling deep under his skin.
The world halted at that moment. The planets ceased spinning as Silas uttered out, “Valeria, where did you find this?”
I dropped my hand from the shelf. Ebony and I shared a glance. “I’m not sure, but I guess it would have been somewhere about the tower.”
Silas stared at the ascending tower of books with a look of a man who wished to not remember the darkest part of their souls. Ones in which they drowned to forget.
Silas sauntered languidly as if in a trance and placed the journal onto the shelf nestled between history and dust. Silas took my hand, lightning caressing skin, a lifetime shared between us as lovers born of different centuries never to taste the other.
The same visions crammed themselves into my skull, yet his touch ground me into the present.
Silas ran a thumb over the ring, squeezing my hand tightly in his. In moments like these, I am struck by the strong deep feeling in my bones, the aggressive electric sting leaving me breathless.
I craved him as I do air as if my own existence depended on it, a fact I tried to deny for so long.
“Valeria.” Silas’s husky voice tickled my ear, pulling me in tight until I could taste those lips.
“Promise me to never go in there again. Whatever they promised you, it’s not worth freeing them or your life.
I cannot lose you, not for my sake, not again.
” He kissed my hand softly, gaze lifting, and his mask shifted with mournful shadows, courtesy of candlelight and the dying day.
There was a newness, one I had not seen since coming to know the man, a fathomless depth of golden hues straining against the darkest parts.
Struggling between the past, the gold locket tucked into his pants pocket, out of sight to the world kept close like a boundless chain, and the future, hand enraptured in mine.
There was a long-begotten crossroad he must travel, waiting as one of his ghosts haunting him just as Cecilia had.
I squeezed his hand. “There is nothing you have to worry about. They offered me nothing of value. For now, let’s focus on finding your true name.” His palm caressed my cheeks, and I leaned into his touch.
Silas tipped my chin back. “I’d give you the stars and the moon. I’d give you my life, just, please, never go near that door.”
My mind raced at his warning, but before I could refute, soft lips brushed against mine, tentative at first.
I fluttered my lids closed as fingers stroked my buttoned, lace back.
Desire pulsed through my body, fluttering in fiery heat.
I wove my palms through his hair as he pushed me up against the shelf.
Books fell from their hold and scattered below us as we breathed life into dusty books.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, and hands cupped me as he whisked us onto the sprawling cushions of the recamier.
Silas broke the kiss, eyes wild with untamed need reaching a hand to stroke my cheek, twirling a black strand.
Fangs protruded from his lips as his fingers swept across mine.
Silas descended once more, pressing kiss after kiss lower down my body where flesh gave way to fabric.
I strained against the restrictiveness of the dress.
The lace stretching with every shuddering breath.
The long-sleeve and sweeping neckline meant to keep me warm seared my flesh with each press of his kiss.
Silas untangled himself, breathless and hungry. “Turn around.”
I stood, brushing my long hair out of the way of his working, agonizingly slow fingers unbuttoning. Each slip, he pressed a kiss to the bare skin underneath. Goose bumps raised as burning fury pumped through my veins.
I dropped my head back, a soft moan escaping, palms pressed to the falling dress as the final button released from its prison.
Silas spun me around, his lips crashed onto mine, and I forgot all about the garment pooling at my feet, leaving me in undergarments and at the mercy of Silas’s relentless attack.
Hands gripped my thighs, and our kiss turned into teeth and tongue colliding with one another.
Silas’s mouth caressed against my neck, kissing gently, his hand exploring the rest of my body.
I arched into him, delicate strands of moonlight spooled between fingertips.
The study fell away as the heat mounted in my belly.
Hands brushed my chemise aside, fingers grazing bare flesh.
Fire thrummed through my veins, scorching my flesh in the wake of Silas.
I gasped.
Silas dragged his fangs against my skin, hot and heavy breaths kissing my neck.
I closed my eyes, anticipation drumming so loud I swore the gods heard the beating of my heart and how fast my blood chased at it.
The pressure built upon my neck until his fangs sank deeply.
My breath hitched, blood shrilling in my ear.
Pain bloomed into blissful pleasure, enveloping and complete. My own body separated from me, weightless against him, and I fell into an endless escape cast me into the great beyond and into the veil.
Don’t you wish that we could be different?
The boy from my vision floated beyond reach, an infectious grin on his lips as the sunshine kissed his skin.
Summer grass lazily danced between us, tickling my nose as we lay among the soft green fields.
A hand stretched between us, and sparks flew across as the boy’s own mouth moved, saying words that fell upon deaf ears.
The warmth of the sight started dying as blood drummed, beating in its own accordance, staining crimson in its wake.
I opened my mouth, words spilling out as the scene shifted and formed, colliding in vivid colors. Words, unfamiliar, raked claws against my brain, begging for me to hear them, to carry them back with me.
The separation between the vision and my own body was thin. I was here and not. Forever in the golden sunlight of the field mingling with the dreary darkness of the castle’s library. It called to me—dreams dancing sweetly on waves of euphoria.
“Valeria.”
Silas’s voice snapped me out of the vision. Worried eyes tethered me into my body once more, head pounding as the room tilted and shifted.
I focused in on his face, blood smeared across his lips, coating his tongue as he murmured softly to himself, “I went too deep. I should have stopped. Your heart slowed, so slow, and you were speaking softly. Whispering to me, unscrupulously in a language I hadn’t heard in over five hundred years.
I’m sorry, the hunger . . . it’s getting worse. ”
He placed his head in his palms, turning away. Blood coated my tongue, and I realized all too late the consequences of the taste of metal and golden summer fields.
I shifted, the world tilting along with me and took his cheek. My mind struggled to form the words I desperately wished to say, as his blood circulated slowly within mine. The haze clouded my head as I scrunched my brows in effort.
“I’m—I’m alright.”
The room ceased spinning, then sharpened into focus so violently I had thought I’d become sick. Silas cradled me in his lap, a halo of silver draping over us and heavy arms wrapped tight against me. Blood dripped from his lips, staining the white blouse. I dared not look at my own state of dress.
“I saw him again. In another vision.”
The room fell away as green grass swayed in front of the black hair boy, lips moved with words so far out of touch—so out of reach that they were lost on me.
Important words they were yet it pained me to not know what they were.
There was a connection I felt in my bones as Silas reached for me, as a phantom weariness took hold.
Those simple words were out in the ether, awaiting to be heard.
Their very memories seared themselves into my brain.
“What did you see, Little Dove?”
“A dream,” I replied, my own voice sounding strange and distant. “A beautiful dream.”
There comes a time to wake up from the dream and endure the nightmare to follow.
We were living on borrowed time, where days ticked away by mere minutes.
Tucked under Silas’s arms, the shadows lurked beyond the reaches of their cavernous corners.
Watching. Waiting to devour the little happiness dared to exist in the dark.
I wondered if the dark-haired boy was swallowed up by the darkness. Cast in shadows far from the sun lit summer fields of happiness.
I nudged Silas, sinking deeper into cloves and spice and drifting into the golden light of the warm summer sun to the smiling boy under the willow tree.
Don’t you wish we could be different?