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. Handsgripped 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 asblood 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?
Twenty-Six
“Iwant to visit my sister for the Winter Solstice.”
The glass dropped to the floor, and shards of brilliant purple and blue shattered as blood pooled between us. Resignation reigned on Silas’s gaze as if he had come to expect the question from my lips for quite some time now.
“I am not sure if I can grant such a request, Valeria. Not that I do not wish for you to see your family, but I am unsure if I can even make that possible.”
His voice wavered, snapping at the ghosts who swept the glass away.
Dinner was a feast of roasted turkey covered in cranberry sauce, delicious but brought forth an ache. Seeing the food reminded me of the season that was upon us, a turning of the tides. Days had turned intomonths, and the guilt I carried expanded as I imagined Miriam grieving my death.
