Page 24 of Midnight Queen

“Silas,” Quincey cries to me. She’s been so brave, but it’s becoming very clear to me by the way her voice breaks that she’s exhausted all her strength. My sweet sun has nothing left to give. “Please.”

She once begged me to let her go, to spare her life, but now she’s begging me to save it.

“Now you call for him?” Gideon chuckles hatefully. “A shame you couldn’t have done that when the cameras were rolling.” He moves them forward until her bare stomach is pressed into the railing.

Each movement he forces her to make causes her pain. She whimpers and her bottom lip has begun to tremor as if she’s fighting back tears.

Wanting his attention off her, I call to him. “Gideon, if you don’t let her go, there aren’t accurate enough words to describe what I will do to you.” His gift of immortality will turn into a curse. For the rest of his infinite days, he will spend them in agony because of me. Each day I will make him regret the day he laid a single finger on Quincey.

His dark eyes glance down at me and with a curious cock of his head, he ignores my threat and asks, “Do you regret it now?” When I don’t answer his question, he elaborates. “Do you regret taking her from me now that you know what it feels like to have the very reason you exist taken from you?”

While he talks, he squeezes Quincey tighter, making her cry out. The crazed monster inside of me beats against the cage I keep him in, desperate to get to her. If I thought I could get up there before he dropped her over the ledge, I would be sprinting to her. I’m fast, but not that fast.

I’ve never been one to offer false niceties, and I’m not about to start now. “No, I don’t regret taking her from you,” I tell him honestly. “I would do it once more without a moment of hesitation if you were to force my handagain. After all these years, you still haven’t accepted the role you played in her death, Gideon.”

He remains quiet for an excruciating long minute before he sighs, “Unfortunately, that was exactly the answer I expected you to give.” He shakes his head like a parent who’s disappointed in their child. “I have one more question for you, Silas.”

“And what’s that?” I bite out. My insides feel like a rubber band being stretched too far. It’s going to snap, and all hell will break loose with it.

“What do you want more? To see me dead or to save Quincey? I think I know the answer to this one, but the unfortunate thing is you can only choose one. If you save her, I’ll be long gone, but if you come after me...” Gideon trails off, glancing over the ledge he stands on. “Well, let’s just say I don’t think she’ll be as pretty once she hits the concrete.” Grinning at me, he continues, “I’ll give you till three to decide.”

Quincey cries out as he shoves her front half over the ledge. His fingers still intertwined with her hair are the only thing that keeps her in place.

“One...”

I stay silent and still, my face devoid of all emotion, a task that is exponentially hard now, but I’m not about to show him my cards just yet. For the first time since he reappeared in my life, I’m once more five steps ahead of him. Just like it should be.

“Two...”

Tears fall from Quincey’s eyes. They fall three stories and land just feet in front of me, indicating the place her body will land. “Silas,” her cry for me makes my chest ache, the hollow place where my heart should beat, constricting.

“Three...”

And then he lets her go.

“Are you going to catch me?”

“Always.”

He made me that promise like he was making a vow and I believed him with every fiber of my being. There wasn’t a single hint of doubt in my soul that Silas wouldalwaysbe there. That single word etched itself into my heart that night like a scar; a permanent reminder of his oath. An oath that carries so much more weight when hisalwaysis infinite.

He promised this to me when I told him I was falling for him, it never once occurred to me when he said it that one day, he would have to literally watch me fall before him.

When the man you’ve fallen for is a vampire, you believe nothing else can take you by surprise. Up until this point, I figured I was numb to both shock and surprise, but when I’m sent hurdling over the paint chipped railing, I feel both of those emotions with such force, the air is sucked out of me.

My mouth opens, but the trapped air in my lungs prohibits me from screaming. My mind knows there’s no point in attempting to grab onto something to halt my descent, but my arms haven’t quite caught up. They thrash at my sides, desperate to find something that might save me, but unfortunately the only thing that’s in my path is the stained concrete floors three stories below.

Which is a sight I have absolutely no interest in watching barrel closer to me. With my eyes squeezed shut, I crash through the air. I know I’m falling at a much faster speed than my mind is leading me to believe, but the second my bare feet left the walkway, time slowed down to a crawl.

The three seconds it takes me to fall feels like an eternity. I keep waiting for the impact to come. From that height, I know I won’t die on impact, which means I will feel every excruciating second as my fragile body breaks.

The pain never comes because when he said always, he meant it.

The first time I touched Silas and his arms wrapped around me, trapping me to his body, I felt nothing but all-consuming fear. It was the same kind of fear I felt when I woke up chained to the table. It’s the kind of fear that makes your entire body shake and your heart pound against your rib cage so violently, you’re almost sure the organ bruises.

But it’s different now.

Despite the disorientation from the fall the second his arms wrap around my body, and I’m brought against his chest, the dread and panic are washed away. I’m met with nothing but peace. Andsafety.

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