Chapter 26
Silas’s bedroom seems to empty of air as his revelation hangs between us.
Mercer.
The missing Fourth House.
My family.
“No. That doesn’t…” I shake my head, stumbling on my words. “That doesn’t make any sense. My family isn’t even from Salem’s Fall.”
“The Mercers deliberately kept their name out of the histories of Salem’s Fall and the Veil,” Silas says.
“They were the Veil’s conscience—the only House meant to stand apart from the others and hold them accountable.
Even within the Veil, their identity was closely guarded.
Over the centuries, their name disappeared from all but the oldest records.
” He pauses, his gaze settling on me. “Your father was Nathaniel Mercer—head of the Fourth House.”
The way he says it leaves no room for denial.
“Your parents attended Salem’s Fall University with my uncle,” he continues, drawing a slow breath. “They were close. Lucien thought of your father like a brother.”
“And my mother?”
“He loved her too. Not romantically, of course,” he adds when my expression changes to confusion. “They were both family to him.”
I think of Lucien’s face when he spoke of my parents. It’s obvious he cared for them.
“There was a faction within the Veil that didn’t like the way things were being run,” Silas explains.
“Van’s parents and a few others were part of it.
They plotted in secret. They believed the Fourth House had too much influence.
” Cold spreads through me at his words, creeping outward until every inch of my skin feels chilled.
“They targeted your family. Your father was murdered.”
“No.” I shake my head, my mind refusing to accept what he’s saying. “My father died in a car accident. They said the roads were icy.”
Silas holds my gaze.
“That’s the lie you were told to keep you safe,” he says. “The faction moved against the entire Fourth House. Mercer property, accounts—anything connected to the House—was seized. Your mother took you and Josh and disappeared before they could finish what they started.”
My stomach twists as the possibility begins to sink in. There was a whole other life Josh and I might have had but never knew existed.
“The same faction targeted my family too,” Silas continues, his fingers curling into his palm. “They tried to kill my mother. My father and Lucien retaliated. They spent years hunting down those responsible.”
“But my mom…” I stammer. “Why didn’t she ever tell us? About our dad? About who we are?”
“Lucien believes she buried it over time. That her mind just… couldn’t hold on to that kind of horror.
” His voice turns quieter. “And perhaps, in the beginning, she thought ignorance was safer. That faction was destroyed, but there will always be people in the Veil who prefer the Fourth House to stay gone.”
A memory surfaces, and suddenly another piece falls into place. Silas and Van on the bridge. The warning Silas gave him.
“On the bridge, when you told Van that Lucien sparing him might’ve been a mistake,” I say. “Is this what you were talking about?”
“Lucien executed Van’s parents and the others for their crimes against the Veil.” He falls silent for a moment. “Lucien never truly recovered. They murdered his best friend… and other people he loved.”
The revelation of my family hits me like a physical blow. Heat floods my chest, quickly hardening into anger. Silas had watched me stumble blindly through this town while he’d kept the truth to himself.
“All this time, you’ve known? About the Fourth House? About me?” I pin him with a furious look. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have been ready to hear it back then?” His gaze holds mine, the question almost a challenge.
I open my mouth to argue, then stop. Frustratingly, I realize he has a point.
When I first arrived in Salem’s Fall, I had no idea what the Veil was. If Silas had told me there was a secret, deadly cult and my family was one of its most powerful founding families, I would have laughed in his face and called him insane.
“I suppose not,” I admit reluctantly. Then another thought occurs to me. “But Josh found out. Didn’t he?”
“He began asking questions about your father,” he says, nodding. “About the Fourth House and the people involved in his murder. He went looking for answers alone on Veil Night.”
I think of Van then. How he’s hated me since the very first day he saw me and how he tried to kill me in the tunnels during the First Trial.
“So that’s why Van is after me. Lucien killed his parents because of my family.”
“Yes,” he says.
“And this is why you wanted to partner with me,” I say, anger rising again.
“You think the Fourth House will somehow help you win?” I laugh bitterly.
“Well, I don’t know anything. My father is dead.
My mother can barely get out of bed, and whatever she once knew, she drank away years ago.
I have no power, Silas. I’m no help to you. ”
Fury flashes across Silas’s face, sudden and fierce enough to steal my breath.
“You are absolutely maddening. Do you really think I partnered with you because of the Fourth House?” He steps closer, each word clipped and controlled. “I don’t care who your father was or what power comes with your name. That isn’t why I want you beside me.”
“Silas—”
“No. I’m not fucking finished,” he says, his voice turning rough as he closes the remaining distance between us.
“You are strong. You are smart. You see things everyone else misses. You survive things that should break you. You run headfirst into danger others would run screaming from.” The anger in his eyes has become something else now, something far more exposed and raw.
“I don’t give a damn about the Fourth House or what it can do for me.
I chose you as my partner, Mercer. Not your House.
Not your family.” His voice drops. “You.”
Something inside me shifts forever, irrevocably.
I am not standing outside the world anymore, demanding to be let through a door everyone else can see. I am part of it. I’m no longer an outsider. I’m a Mercer. The Fourth House.
The feeling that I do not belong anywhere has been wrong from the beginning. Salem’s Fall has always been waiting for me to come home.
Suddenly, I’m tired of denying myself the things I want. Another trial could come tomorrow. I could die. Silas could die. Standing here with him looking at me like this, saying all the things he’s said, I can’t remember a single reason I’m supposed to stay away from him.
“Okay.”
Silas blinks, clearly thrown. “Okay?”
“Let’s keep going.”
His brow furrows. After all he’s said to me, he looks almost insulted by the simplicity of my answer. “With… the alliance?”
I step closer. “With all of it.”
Before I can second-guess myself, I push onto my toes and press my lips to his.
At first, his whole body goes stiff, like I’ve short-circuited some invisible force field he’s spent his whole life building.
But then my back meets the bedroom door with a loud thud, the old wood rattling in its frame as Silas lifts me with startling speed, like he’s been dying to do this for weeks.
My legs wrap around him on instinct, and he groans low in his throat, the sound vibrating straight through me. He gathers both my wrists in one hand and holds them above my head. Something about the possessiveness of it, of being held completely at his mercy, makes heat pool low in my stomach.
“Mercer…” he rasps against my lips. Almost a plea. “What are you doing?”
“I have no idea,” I say, rocking into him, wanting to feel every inch of him against me. “Do you want me to stop?”
His breathing shifts, ragged and uneven, and there’s a war happening behind his eyes. They’re darker than I’ve ever seen them.
“You have a lot to deal with. We both do,” he says, his hands lingering on me for another moment before he reluctantly lets go and steps away. “This would be a complication neither of us needs.”
My stomach drops.
Wait—
Did I somehow read this all wrong? Is he actually trying to talk himself out of this—out of me?
I search for some sign I’m misunderstanding, some flicker of the man who just had me pinned against a door like he couldn’t stand one more inch of space between us.
Instead, I find something careful. Restrained. Like he’s working very hard to make the responsible choice, and I have the horrifying realization that I’m about to be rejected by Silas Blackhollow, of all people.
Great. Humiliating. Exactly what I needed tonight.
“I don’t understand. Do you… not want this?”
“Fuck, Jacqueline,” he says hoarsely and guides my hand down until I can feel how hard he is, how much this is costing him to slow down. “Does it feel like I don’t want this? I’ve wanted this since the first day I saw you.”
His eyes meet mine and the wild, unguarded lust I see there almost undoes me on the spot.
“Then why?”
“Because you’re in shock. Confused,” he says.
“You just had everything you thought you knew about your family turned upside down.” He exhales sharply.
“And because I am trying, for once in my thoroughly selfish and fucked-up life, to be the good guy. You’re going through more than anyone should have to.
I’m not going to use that to get something I want. ”
“Fine. If you aren’t up for this, I’ll find someone who is.”
“Jack—”
I push harder, saying the one thing I hope might break through that damn restraint of his. “Maybe Rowan?” I ask. “You did say he still cared for me.”
Jealousy flares dark and immediate in his eyes before his hips pin mine to the door, his body pressed against me. “The hell you will,” he growls, low and rough as he grips my wrists again, resuming his hold on me. “My attempt to behave honorably did not include sending you into another man’s bed.”
“Finally.” I roll my hips against his, slow and deliberate, and feel the hitch in his breath. “We agree for once, Blackhollow.”