Page 25 of Midnight Queen

Feeling his arms around me feels like coming home..

For a very long time, the idea of ‘home’ didn’t bring happy thoughts. It made me think of the broken place I grew up and the damaged people who raised me. There were rarely happy memories made there. Even when I moved to Boston, the apartment I lived in was just a place I rested my head.

But now I know why none of those places ever felt right.

They weren’thim.

Silas is my home.

The impact of my body colliding with his finally dislodges the trapped air in my lungs and I greedily breathe in air that smells of him, further soothing the fear inside of me.

Every time I so much as flinch, everything hurts, but I’ll gladly take the pain right now. My arms move on their own accord, snaking around his neck in a hold that should be too tight for anyone to find comfortable, but I don’t care.

I’ve yet to open my eyes to look at him. Just feeling him is enough right now.

He must feel the same way because he tightens his grip on my shaking body and brings me closer. It’s as if we’re both trying to settle the chaos of emotions inside of us by getting as close to each other as we can, but it still doesn’t feel like it’s enough. The thin fabric of his shirt even feels like it’s creating too much space.

With a shuddering breath, I drop my head to his shoulder in a mixture of relief and overwhelming exhaustion.

My heart skips a beat when his lips skim across my temple. “Mon Soleil.” Silas says my name like it’s a prayer. He speaks so quietly that if I wasn’t so close to him, I would have missed it.

It doesn’t matter the circumstances or how bad things appear, hearing him say those words will always bring a smile to my face. My lips lift, causing the split in them to pull, but it’s okay because this is exactly what I needed to hear. Hearing the name he’s given me is the last thing I needed to confirm that he’s truly here with me.

Needing to see him, I lift my head from his shoulder. The expression that is written across his face makes me feel like I’ve been sucker punched in the stomach. I should probably be more alarmed by the blood that’s sprayed across his handsome face, but that hardly holds my attention.

Silas is skilled at many things but keeping his face bland and emotionless is something he excels at. Right now, he’s failing at it, allowing me to experience each of the emotions with him as they appear on his face. Those midnight eyes of his that I’m obsessed with are filled with an unimaginable amount of pain as he looks down at me.

There are a million different words that I could string together right now that could help soothe him, but what comes out of my mouth is, “So, I’m going to need a rain check on our date. Something else came up that I couldn’t say no to.”

His eyes widen like he’s caught off guard by my words, but slowly, I watch as the harsh lines of his troubled face lessen. Releasing a long breath, he drops his forehead to mine.

“Thank you for keeping your promise,” I whisper, my throat suddenly tight as emotion clogs it. I don’t want to cry. Not here. This place has taken enough out of me already. I’m not willing to leave any more of myself in this building.

Silas shifts my weight so he can hold the side of my face. He gently lifts my head, encouraging me to look into his dark eyes. “For lifetimes I’ve lived without you, but I have no interest in ever doing so again.” His fingers thread into my tangled hair. “There was nothing that could have kept me from you. In this life or the next, I would have found you again, Quincey.”

Silas’s words are like a pain reliever. They wash over me, taking the sting of my wounds with them. Who am I kidding? I don’t need his pretty words and sweet anecdotes. I just need him with me. And Ireallyneed him to take me away from here.

“I don’t want to be here anymore. Can we go home now?” My voice cracks despite how hard I’m trying to keep it together. “Please, just take me home.” The house I once viewed as my prison is the only place I want to be right now.

He soothes his thumb over my face. I haven’t seen a reflection of myself, but if I look as bad as I feel, I’m sure I’m quite the sight to behold right now. All I want to do is cleanse my skin of this horror show and sleep. I want to sleep for a week and allow my head to be filled with sweet dreams like the one I had of Ira.

“You’ve been so strong. We are almost done here, my love. Just stay with me a moment longer,” he encourages. “We just have to take care of one more thing.” His face sharpens at the last line. He doesn’t have to elaborate any further—I know who he’s talking about.

Tilting my head back, I peer up at the walkway I fell from. The man who will be the star of all my nightmares moving forward is nowhere to be found. “Where did he go? He said if you chose me, you’d lose your chance at catching him.” Panic builds in my chest, the unhinged look in Gideon’s eyes replaying in my mind. “Silas, we can’t let him go. It’s not safe for anyone if he’s free—”

Silas hushes me gently, cutting me off. He opens his mouth to say something else but he stops and his head whips in the direction of what I assume is the back exit. “Don’t worry, we found him.”

A door opens and quickly slams shuts somewhere in the building. The all too familiar clicking of chains follows close behind, along with a dragging sound. A low voice I can’t quite make out bounces off the concrete and metal walls.

The plastic that covers one of the doorways is harshly torn away and the silhouette of a tall man appears. At first, I think it’s Duke, but the man is a few inches taller than him. Unsure of who it is, my muscles tighten in preparation to flee if I need to. I’ve never been skittish of strangers, but after my last day, I’m craving familiar faces.

Sensing my alarm, Silas soothes his hand down my arm, but his eyes remain locked on the man approaching. Silas doesn’t seem worried about the stranger’s presence, and I use that knowledge to force myself to relax. One thing I will never doubt is Silas’s judgment of others—especially the people that inhabit his world. It’s a world I’m new to and I’ve yet to meet all the players.

“Do you have any idea how far I had to run after this fucking freak?” A thick Irish accent fills the heavy air. “I fucking hate cardio.” The sound of chains comes again when he drags something through the door behind him. “I stepped in a puddle full of mud; my shoes are absolutely trashed. Don’t think I won’t be adding that to your bill, Laurent.”

The stranger finally steps out into the light. I thought Silas had a lot of blood on him, but this man looks like he bathed in it. The strands of his messy blond—almost brown—hair are caked with it. Smears cover his face like he halfheartedly tried to wipe it off but gave up quickly. His white T-shirt is splattered in so much blood it’s like a gruesome tie-dye project. The tattoos on his arm and neck are barely visible because of his skin being painted crimson.

“And he had to make things difficult by refusing to walk himself—like atoddler. I had to drag his arse all the way back here.” With a final tug of the chain in his hand, he pulls Gideon’s bound body across the threshold of the doorframe.

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