“In the bar.”
“Of course you are.”
“I’m fine,” I grumbled. “I found some friends.”
“What friends?” Noah spoke up for the first time, sounding apprehensive.
I sighed, rubbing my temple. “Please just tell me what to do.”
“Get the hell out of that bar before he sets his sights on someone,” Cabe said.
“What do you mean sets his sights on someone?”
“He’s getting drunk so that his senses are dulled and his reflexes are hampered,” Quillan answered.
“Why would he do that?”
“So that fighting will be more of a challenge.”
“So he’s going to wait until he’s drunk enough that he won’t kill someone and then he’ll get into a fight?”
“Most likely he’ll pick a group of friends and then try to piss them all off. It won’t matter how drunk he is if the guy he picks doesn’t have any backup. They’ll still end up dead.”
“Okay, well, great. This is fantastic. I’m going to go do something stupid now.”
They all started speaking at the same time, but I ignored them. I hung up the phone and climbed back over the boy. I started to move off, and then paused, quickly pulling off the button-up I wore over my camisole. It wasn’t exactly Hunter-level, but it was… well, it was still just me. I tossed the shirt onto the table and walked to the stool that Hunter had ungraciously vacated. Silas’s shoulders slumped the second I sat down. He didn’t turn his head.
“Angel…” he murmured, dropping his head to the bar. “I thought I was going crazy. I’ve been smelling your damned shampoo for the last five minutes.”
My shampoo?
I thought about touching his back, to soothe him, but the memory of Hunter’s pale hand gliding over the stiff muscles stopped me. I clutched my hands in my lap, squeezing them between my thighs.
“I’m here,” I said.
He straightened, moving for his glass. I shot out a hand and snatched it up first, tipping it to my lips and finishing all of it. The vodka burned down my throat and made my eyes water. I coughed once before setting it back down in front of him before the bartender saw me holding it. He regarded me with the same animalistic expression in his eyes, the usual darkness deepening into something that twitched with restless premeditation.
“I need you to leave,” he said levelly.
“No,” I replied, slipping off the stool and standing before him, my hands landing hesitantly on his out-turned knee.
I was simply using his body to hide from the bartender, just in case somebody decided to ask for my ID. I was old enough to work in a bar, but not old enough to simply be in one. Silas turned, slowly, and stood from his stool. He glared down at me, and for a moment I wondered if he was going to push me as he had Hunter, but instead he just stood there, so close that we were almost touching.
“How are you not freaking out?” he asked, shaded eyes dropping from my face to my camisole, one winged black brow arching. “I can feel you. You’re controlling every single emotion, tamping it all down and filing it away to stand here completely clear-headed. How?”
“Everything has a time and place, even emotions.”
I captured his hand, and when he didn’t pull away, I brought it to my face. His palm slid over my jaw, the feeling rough against my skin, and before I could second-guess my own intention, my lips were pressing to the inside of his wrist. Desire surged through me in a collision of awareness, and I stilled, because it hadn’t been mine. It had been his.
“Now is not the time for me to lose it,” I said. “So I… I won’t. I just won’t.”
I glanced up at him as his touch shifted to cup my jaw, pulling until I was standing on my toes.
“I’ll try things your way.” His tone was still flat, and his eyes were jittery pools of agitation, but it was better than the rage of earlier. “Help me.”
I grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the bar. I stopped at the table where the family sat and then paused. I dug into Silas’s pocket and extracted his wallet. I didn’t have any money on me, and I hated taking money from them, but Quillan had promised a job when I got back, so I would be able to pay them back, at least. I pulled out a bill and dropped it onto the table.
“Drinks are on this guy for the night,” I said, jerking a thumb at Silas, who said nothing.
Wisely, the family said nothing in return, but the younger boy smiled at me. I began to move toward the door again and the oldest, the father, cleared his throat.
“Will you be alright, Miss?”
Silas’s hand twitched in mine.
“Yes,” I said quickly, pushing Silas toward the door. “I’m fine, I promise. He would never hurt me.”
Silas turned his terrifying eyes on me now, and I felt the rage creeping back into him, so I made a dash for the doorway and pulled him through. I found his car across the road and had to dig through his pockets for the keys, because he simply stood there, his eyes trained on the bar like he was holding himself back from storming in there. I pushed him into the passenger seat and drove back to the hotel, stopping at a store along the way and escorting Silas inside for supplies. I couldn’t buy the alcohol myself and he couldn’t be trusted around other human beings.
When we got to the hotel, he unlocked the door and I emptied the bags onto the queen bed in the middle of the room. I had been forced to improvise, and had ended up with a sort of Silas-rage-blackout-survival-kit. It held seven items: a bottle of tequila, a bag of limes, a pack of cards, a bag of take-out Chinese food, and three heavy glass paperweights that had been on display for visiting tourists. I hunted around the hotel room for glasses and then cut up the limes and grabbed a handful of little salt packets from the tea-and-coffee setup. It wasn’t a very fancy hotel, but it had that much.
Silas stood there like a statue the whole time, until I sat down on the floor and started to deal the cards into two piles, and then he moved to the floor and sat opposite me, his head tilted slightly to the right, like he was staring at some kind of puzzle, and the bigger picture was escaping him.
“Okay,” I said, once the cards were dealt. “We’re playing Spades. Do you know the rules?”
He just stared.
“I’ll take that as a no.” I rolled my eyes and shoved a pile of cards into his hand, explaining the rules of the game to him. “So whenever you lose, you need to drink. Are you following?”
He didn’t reply.
“You go first,” I offered.
Despite the fact that he hadn’t seemed to be listening to me explain the game, he won it in record time without once cracking his stoic mask. Wincing, I grabbed up a shot and ripped open one of the little salt packets, tipping some of it onto the back of my hand. I poured out half a shot of tequila into one of the hotel glasses and Silas made a sound, his eyes on the glass. I poured the full amount in, and then licked the salt, downed the shot, and tried not to cry as I bit down on a wedge of lime.
We played three more rounds and I had three more shots. On the last one I finally lost my composure and gasped aloud.
“Holy hell that burns,” I whined.
“Pick a different game,” Silas demanded. “You’re terrible at this one.”
“Fine.” I gathered the cards and threw them up into the air. They rained down over us and I saw a spark in Silas’s eyes, like the human that had been buried deep inside him somewhere had just been amused.
“We’ll play truth or dare,” I decided. “You first. Pick.”
“Dare,” Silas said without skipping a beat.
“I dare you to hand over your room key and your car key.”
If he thought my dare suspicious, he didn’t let on. He handed them over and I set them in my lap.
“Truth,” I said.
“Why did you give them money?”
I assumed he was talking about the family back at the bar. “They looked out for me and they had no reason to. Your turn.”
“Dare.”
>
“Close your eyes.”
He closed his eyes and I slid both sets of keys under the bed. It wasn’t a foolproof deterrent, but it was better than nothing.
“Truth,” I said.
He opened his eyes again. “Did you see?”
“See what?”
“Hunter.”
I couldn’t talk about that yet. I poured out another shot and tossed it back, my eyes watering. “Your turn.”
His eyes narrowed. “Truth.”
“Are you two… together?” Maybe I could talk about it after all.
He hesitated, and then reached out and poured himself a shot, electing to drink instead of answering.
“Truth.” I couldn’t help the bite to my tone.
“What are those for?” He jerked his head in the direction of the paperweights, lined up in front of the television.
“They’re for you to smash, when you get angry. We’re not leaving this room.”
“Dare,” he said.
“Go ahead,” I offered.
In a flash, his arm whipped out and one of the paperweights vanished, colliding with the brick wall on the other side of the room and cracking into shards. I supposed that it was a good thing this hotel wasn’t very fancy.
“Dare.” I tamed the quake that threatened to give me away by making my voice shake. Silas wouldn’t hurt me. I was almost sure of it.
“Show me your mark.”
I hadn’t been expecting that, but then again, Silas was the only one who hadn’t seen it. I caught the hem of my camisole and tugged it up, showing the two marks that sat right below my bra, in the middle of my ribcage. His eyes flickered down and warmed briefly. He reached out, brushing the distorted star-shape with his finger. The tiny bit of warmth was still there when he leaned back, a hint of his usual dark fire lining the edges of his gaze.
“Truth,” he said.
“Why did you call Hunter?”
“She knows what she’s getting into.”
I winced at that. “Truth.”
“Why did you follow me?”
“We’re connected. Part of a team. If you spiral into darkness, it’s my job to jump down the rabbit-hole after you.”
His lips twitched now. “Welcome to Wonderland,” he drawled sarcastically. “Dare.”
“Five shots.” I pushed the bottle of tequila at him. “I need you on my level. My skin is all tingly.”
“Get over here then.” He pushed the tray of lime aside and grabbed my knees, pulling me across the carpet until I was right in front of him, our knees brushing. He extended my right arm out and ripped open a few of the salt packets, making five little piles up my arm, from my wrist to my bicep. “Hold it steady,” he warned.
I looked at the little salt piles and laughed, the sight reminding me of when I had suspected that Silas was a crack-dealer.
He tipped the tequila into a glass and swiped his tongue over the first salt pile, causing my body to lock up in shock. For some reason, I hadn’t prepared for that. Some of the salt fell off due to the tremor in my limbs, and he knocked back the drink, pouring another and another until all five salt piles were gone.
I was a wreck; little sparks of valcrick were flittering about the room and I was trying to ignore them and dampen them at the same time. My eyes were wide and my breathing was stilted by the time he bit down onto a wedge of lime and raised his eyes to mine.
I leaned forward despite myself, caught by the familiar wildfire. Silas was back. It entranced me, drawing me to my knees so that I could plant my face closer to his. I stared at him, trying to commit the familliar look in his eyes to memory: it was partway wild, burning with a warmth that flirted with danger. I had never been so relieved before in my life. His hand slipped around my waist and he moved to lean back against the side of the bed, drawing me over his legs until my knees were planted either side of his thighs.
“Your turn, angel,” he reminded me.
“D-dare,” I stuttered.
“Good girl,” he growled, tipping forward.
I had successfully transformed Silas’s violent freak-out into something else. The only problem was… this new version of Silas might have been even more dangerous than the first one… or the second one. I had melted the walls of ice that surrounded him, but inside was an inferno, and I was sure that he would burn me alive. His lips were hovering, inches from mine, and my vision had gone blurry, but I could feel the indecision that pulled him up.
“I can’t kiss you,” he rasped.
“W-what?”
“Cabe told us that you asked for time. For distance. That’s what we’re doing. None of us are going to touch you until you decide what you want.”
What I want?
This wasn’t all me. I wasn’t the deciding factor—and yet they were all acting as though I was… as though Silas didn’t hate the idea of bonding to someone, as though Quillan didn’t seem to hate the idea of being bonded to me, specifically. As though Noah and Cabe hadn’t been attempting to date every eligible girl in Washington for the last year.
I wasn’t the only one who needed to decide.
“And that’s not the only reason,” he said, as though reading my mind. “I still don’t agree with all of this. I formed the bond, but it was to save you. I don’t agree with any of this. You have to know that.”
I glanced down, the movement bringing his lips to my cheek. His arms were wound tightly around me, the fingers of his opposite hands dipping into view as they spread to my stomach.
“You’re still touching me,” I said.
“I know.” When he spoke, his lips dragged over the skin of my cheek, and I trembled, turning my face until I could feel the heated brush of his breath on my lips. My mouth felt unusually sensitive, and even that slight hint of his breath was like a physical touch. I pressed my lips together, trying to ease the tingling, and my hands tangled in his shirt, drawing the material into my fists.
“Truth,” he whispered.
I made a sound of simultaneous relief and dismay, and I could feel the twitch in his fingers. “Truth,” he repeated, insistent.
“W-what are you doing?” I simply blurted the first thing that came to my stupefied mind.
He chuckled against my mouth. “Which part of it don’t you understand?”
“I-I didn’t mean that,” I lied. “I meant what are you d-doing for… Thanksgiving?”
“Thanksgiving?” He leaned back, a rare smile lighting his face. “Miro and I usually go to visit Yvonne. Our mother.”
I squirmed, feeling heat rush into my face. There was an absurd bubble of happiness in my chest, swelling at the sight of his smile. “Yvonne?” I barely ever heard them talk about their mother.
“You only get one question,” he muttered, nudging my face to the side and hovering his mouth over my neck. “Dare.”
“Smash. Paperweight.” Forming a proper sentence wasn’t possible with the imminent threat of his mouth on my skin.
He tipped me backwards as he reached behind me. He felt for one of the paperweights and then fell back again. I could feel the cold glass against my back as his mouth finally fastened onto my neck. I arched against him, my fingers moving to the back of his neck, pressing into his skin. I heard the thump of the paperweight as it dropped out of his hand and then his hands pushed under my camisole to settle around my waist. He lifted me slightly, heaving me close enough that my chest was crushed against his. His breathing changed, his hands on my waist constricted, and I tilted my head back as his mouth moved down to my collarbone. There were wings of enkindled valcrick spluttering about, winking at me and zapping my body in tiny pinches that made me catch my breath. The static in the air drew tightly around us and the ceiling light suddenly exploded, a rain of sparks falling from the fixture, momentarily lighting the room before sending us into sudden darkness.
“Tell me to stop, Seraph.” His words came out on the point of a breathless grumble. “Tell me to kiss you. Tell me to stop touching you. Tell me that you hate me,
or that you want me. I can’t stand this purgatory.” His hands were constricting so tightly that the fingers of his opposite hands were almost touching, and it was bordering on too painful, but the feel of his tongue sweeping over the rise of my collarbone turned the sting into a rush.
“Silas…” I released his name on a breath and his lips lifted back up to my mouth, hovering but not touching. He was giving a rare glimpse into his mind, and it was more intoxicating than the alcohol that I had consumed. I wanted more of his words. I wanted to drink whatever truth he had, just to taste it, to know that he had offered it to me willingly.
He groaned. “Say it.”
I was saved when a knock sounded at the door. Silas froze and the knock sounded again, more insistent. He stood and turned, setting me gently onto the edge of the bed before taking several long strides to the door and pulling it open.
The lights were on outside and I could see Hunter clearly beyond the outline of Silas. She blinked in surprise—despite the fact that she had been knocking on his door—and ran her eyes slowly over him before glancing past him. The room was too dark for her to make out details, so she quickly shifted her attention back.
“Hunter.” He was toneless. “I’m sorry I pushed you.”
“You’ve done worse.” She smiled for a moment, but her lips trembled. “Can I come in?”
“I’ve got company.”
She tried to look past him again but he stepped further into the doorway, closing it halfway behind him.
“I shouldn’t have called.” He sounded resigned. “It was just… habit.”
“Is it the girl? God, Si, she’s like seventeen or something.”
“I’m aware.”
“I had no idea.”
“There’s nothing to have an idea about, Hunter. I’m just…”
“You’re just fucking a seventeen-year-old?” She spat. She seemed to regret it as soon as she said it, and she stepped back, running her hands through her hair.
“That’s enough,” Silas said, taking another step out the door and inching it closed even more. “She’s in a bit of a situation right now and I’m helping her. I can’t deal with two women at once.”