The last flame flickered, and I edged for the door. “Why should I promise you anything? You have not said a single thing that was useful.”
There will come a time where you need us. When the time comes and all you have learned becomes pain shall be the time you release us. A time when the agony of my brethren wreaks upon this plane—then you shall free us. Free us as repayment for your troubles.
The mass stalked toward me and kissed my ear with its icy breath. Cold tendrils wrapped around exposed flesh as my chilled hand closed around the wrought-iron banister. It slicked back, the dark trapped behind the threshold, unable to cross over the light.
“Shut it!” I screamed at Ebony.
Her ghostly hands slammed the door shut in the mass’s face.
The door bucked a few times, its hinges shaking, tossing the key aside as the shadows hissed in delight.
I scrambled for the key and slammed it into the lock, forcing the darkness out. Ebony’s form shiveredas we stepped back from the door, watching—waiting for the screams to begin, but they never came.
Then, just as before, it all went quiet.
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 lostin 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 bythe 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.
