His jaw tensed, lips curling in answer. “You want to know if I drink the blood of the townspeople. Honestly, I thought we passed this, Little Dove. I had hoped you were not like them.”
“Are you?” I winced at my own words.
I wanted to challenge him. To give me the answers I desperately needed. Silas sat his drink down, eyebrows furrowed. Lips parted and then closed, golden orbs hardening from across the room. Muscles in his arm flexed, his neck straining, jaw clenched with every click of his tongue.
He shook his head. “Does it make a difference?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“I’ll ask again.” He rubbed his thumb along his index, his face twisting. As if contemplating, constructing possibly. “Does it make a difference to you?”
I wished it didn’t. I imagined myself on several occasions pinned against the red backsplash of the wall, my own blood adding to its various hues, mixing with the sky-blue splotches. I’d imagine his fangsbearing down upon my neck, taking with it my life with little effort ebbing from my frail body and flowing into his. The nightmares of dying by his hand, hard to ignore—and even more so when he stumbled into the castle covered in bright crimson.
“Yes,” I whispered meekly. I shook my head, straightening in my seat. “You come in covered in blood and still say you are not killing the villagers. As you said, we are married, and as your wife, I want to know what you do out so late that you come back covered in blood.”
Silas sighed. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m your wife, or so you call me,” I scolded, not fully understanding the weight of a single word. The red jeweled ring with its black briar band weighed heavily upon my finger. “At least try to make me understand. I want to understand.”
In a flash, his seat was empty. I searched the room, time turning into precious moments. My pulse quickened, blood roared with fury. Trembling, I shuffled closer to the door.
“Where do you think you are going?”
I was slammed against the wall, the wind knocked out of my lungs, meeting Silas’s wild gaze hovering over my neck as nails dug into my shoulder. The metallic taste coated my tongue, and my breathing hitched. Silas’s face twisted, teeth protruding from his upper lip.
“It’s not the villagers’ blood. It’s mine.”
Silas pressed his head against my neck, body shaking as icy warmth shivered down my spine. Silverysnow strands tickled my nose as the ache in my chest bloomed, wanting for the touch and conflict.
“Your blood? Silas, why do you say that it is your blood?”
Silas looked up from thick lashes with round eyes as if he were a child who got caught. They fluttered shut as he kissed up the length of my neck before stopping at a sweet and tender spot. “I can hear how your pulse quickens at my slightest touch. I can hear it jump when you are afraid. Your blood sings to me, and I often want to heed that call, but I can’t. I can’t, Valeria.” Silas ran a finger across my neck, listening to the drumming of my heart.
“Silas,” I croaked.
His body was warm. The heavy set of his hands rested at the crest of my hips. Lips wandered to the bone of my collar as Silas pressed light kisses to my skin. I kept my palms against the wall, afraid but not of him. No, not of him but of the consequences at play.
“To not hurt you, I have to hurt myself. Hunting down shadows to take the urge out and protect the innocent as much as I can. But it’s becoming harder and harder to ignore. I don’t want to hurt you, Valeria.” Silas shuddered a breath against my neck. “I care for you, and for the first time in a long while, I am afraid of the thirst.”
“The blood in the wine glass you drink night after night.”
“A poor excuse for a blood substitute that never leaves me fully sated,” Silas whispered. “I’d been socareful for so long, and now, there is something valuable to me that I don’t want to lose. Not again.”
With his breath hot against my skin, I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around him. Evergreen and spice enveloped us in the tight embrace. Silas trembled. I needed to be sure—to know if he was capable of hurting me. To confirm the confusion tearing me apart between desire and duty.
“It’s okay. You won’t hurt me, and I—I trust you. If you need to sate your thirst, then do so. I trust you and know you won’t bring me any harm. You won’t harm me.”
I opened my eyes. Silas’s muscles strained, quivering as he bared his teeth, grazing my neck. He shuddered, ticking my ear. “I can’t. I won’t.”
That’s all he said before he left the hall.
17 MayXXXX
All I want to do is die—is that so much to ask? All I want is to be with her, and life is already hard enough. There is to be a ball after my coronation, and I know there is a plan to remove me from the throne. I’d like to see them try.
If I go down, then I will burn Amaris alongside me in the pits of hell for what they did to her.
I will make them pay with their lives.
