I knocked his head against the hardwood. “Silas, if you have any humanity left, then show me.”
Tears bleared the lack of my senses, falling against the pommel of the knife before silently kissing the monster’s cheek.
Silas blinked, the red in his gaze fading back to their golden hue. He rested a shaky hand upon my thigh, the weight of his action resting heavy. He flickered to the blade and then up to me. “It’s best if you leave while you can. Who knows how long I have left before I am consumed whole.”
I took a few stilling breaths, poised in my duty only I couldn’t.
This man tried to kill me, and I couldn’t.
I dropped the knife, letting it clatter beside me, the shame burning upon my cheeks. Silas reached forward, pinning me in his place and buried his head into the crevice between my neck and my wounded shoulder.
He shuddered. “The thirst is growing, and today, in the woods—I wasn’t strong enough. You were hurt by those things, and all I saw was blood—so much blood.”
Silas shifted his head, teeth brushing against my neck. “I was so terribly afraid.” Unconsciously, I brushed a hand to his cheek with his hand meeting mine. “I want these gentle hands, these kind eyes, and this...” He kissed my hand solemnly as a prayer. “I should not want such a thing, but I do, and a monsterlike me should not want such things.” Silas nuzzled my neck as he rasped, “I’m running out of time.”
I wrapped my arms around him, defeated, as he was in the turmoil of my own emotions flaring and fluttering. “If you need to drink to heal those wounds, do so. I won’t hold it against you. Show me that you won’t hurt me.”
“And if I can’t restrain myself?” He softly kissed my neck and tenderly brushed aside my hair.
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 youwillrestrain 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.
