30. Silas

HoldingMaven in her sleep is an intimate pleasure unlike anything I"ve experienced. She breathes softly, her soft hair brushing against my chin as I wish this moment would never end.

But the voices in my head have been getting so strong lately that they ruin even this for me.

You"re letting her waste your time. Useless boy. Utterly useless, my father whispers.

One of these days, she"ll pass out and never revive. Let her go. She"s dangerous for you.

Leave me alone, I think back, pulling Maven tighter as my ears ring.

I should have realized my blood magic would nullify whatever effects Crypt"s plant would have had on Maven. I need to find someone whose magic will work with her. Perhaps she must make the elixir for herself with her necromancy, or...maybe I need to find Pia. After all, the prophetess mysteriously healed my keeper after the Matched Ball.

Someone needs to ask that prophetess questions. I"m suspicious of her, but I won"t know any peace until I help Maven fend off her condition.

You want true peace? You only get that one way, another voice sniggers.

She can"t break your curse. She is a waste of time. You know what you must do to escape us.

"Shut up," I whisper miserably, squeezing my eyes shut to bury my face in her dark hair.

The ringing becomes unbearable, and my vision darkens as the madness takes hold. And this time, when I shake off the insanity, I"m straddling Maven with my hands around her neck.

She stares up at me with wide eyes, her hands poised and surrounded by dark magic, but she"s not moving to stop me as this situation smashes into me like ice water.

I"m…hurting my keeper.

I"m strangling her.

I cry out in horror and break away from her, bile burning its way up my throat before I lurch away from the bed to expel anything left in my stomach. I fall to the floor, tugging at my hair as the voices" mocking laughter echoes in my head.

I was just hurting my blood blossom because of them.

They"re right. There"s nothing left of my mind, anyway—I"m absolutely fucking insane, so if I"m hurting my keeper, I can"t let myself exist. I can"t keep posing a threat to her.

The ringing hasn"t subsided, so I can"t make out whatever Maven is trying to rasp from the bed. I stagger to my feet, trying to get to the door. I can"t even fucking look at her. If I see marks from my hands around her neck?—

Just like the marks that Gideon probably left, a voice in my head crows.

She"ll look at you like you"re him now.

More nausea threatens to escape. The voices in my head were just taking advantage of Maven"s most traumatic memory. And my hands were around her neck.

What have I done?

What have I fucking done?

"Silas!"

A flare of dark magic slams the door shut just as I open it, and then Maven grasps my arm and turns me around. I was right. She has bruises around her throat. A sound of devastation breaks from me, but she stubbornly grips my jaw to force me to meet her gaze.

The moment I see her determined, beautiful eyes, free of the hurt and hatred I should see there, I drop to my knees to bury my face against her stomach.

"Sangfluir. Sangfluir, im altha echair a?—"

I"m babbling nonsensically in fae, but she starts stroking my hair.

"Shh. Breathe."

Maven stays in place, fixing my hair while she waits for me to calm down and stop shaking. How vulnerable I must seem right now—how absolutely fucking weak. She should be ashamed to have me in her quintet. Why is she comforting me? I just hurt her despite promising I never would.

I cannot fucking believe I hurt her. The shaking gets worse.

"I can"t live with myself," I whisper brokenly. "I can"t live with the voices anymore, Maven. They"re right. I can"t?—"

As the voices" laughter and ringing fade from my ears, I go silent when I realize my keeper is singing softly. It"s an old, traditional fae lullaby I heard constantly as a very young child. It warms my chest immediately.

She"s incredibly off-tune, yet I"ve never heard anything more beautiful.

"How do you know this?" I manage.

"Lillian used to sing it to me."

I don"t know who Lillian is, but hearing the rough scratchiness of her voice makes me desperate to fix what I just did. I reach for the bruises on her throat, determined to erase them, but despair fills me again when I remember I can"t even fucking heal her.

Am I truly so useless to the woman I love?

She frames my face with her hands. "It wasn"t you. It was your curse."

"That"s no excuse. You just woke up to your greatest fear. I deserve death—no, death would be far too merciful for me now," I grimace.

"First of all, that is hardly my greatest fear. If someone did strangle me, I"d revive and gladly repay the favor. Second of all, this isn"t a big deal. Some people enjoy choking. Kenzie says it"s kinky."

Gods above. How is she joking at a time like this?

I cover my face. "Don"t make light of this. Please."

"If you insist. Come here."

She leads me back to the bed. I don"t want to sit down with her. What if my sanity ebbs again, and I do something far worse? I should retreat to my private dorm and wallow in self-hatred, where I pose no risk to her. There"s plenty of hard liquor there I can try to drown my sorrows in.

"Silas. Sit."

"I need a drink."

Maven considers that. "Okay. Sit first."

I do, but I keep an arm"s length between us. I feel wretched. Haunted. I will never fucking get the image of me choking the life from her out of my broken head. I always knew what my curse would be and always anticipated hating the feeling of slipping away, but this is far more torturous than I ever could have imagined.

I"d loathe the gods for doing this to me…but then again, they gave me my blood blossom.

So, even if I hate them right now, I"ll always be in their debt.

Maven huffs and scoots closer to me on the bed. At first, I think she"s going to offer sweet words or offer empty assurances that she"s all right, even though I can see the motherfucking bruises.

Instead, my soul nearly leaves my godsdamned body when my vicious little keeper withdraws a concealed knife from her pants and drags it across her palm. I shout in alarm, but then the intoxicating scent of her blood slams into me, and I go dizzy with hunger.

Her dark eyes sparkle with daring. "You said you needed a drink."

"I—I can"t…" My mouth aches. My chest is on fire, my heart thrumming with desire and terror. She can"t let me do this. "No, I just hurt you. I won"t do that again."

Maven"s hand is now dripping, and she rolls her eyes before raising a red finger and wiping it gently across my lips. My tongue darts out on instinct, and?—

Holy gods above.

I"m on her in an instant, my fangs burying into her hand as lust and cavernous hunger roar through my veins. I immediately have her pressed against the bed beneath me, trapped. Maven"s sharp inhale vaguely registers, but I"m too far gone from her breathtaking flavor to do anything except feed.

All magic tastes the same to me.

But not hers. No, Maven tastes like she"s mine.

It"s beyond all description as her magic lights up my entire system beyond any other power I"ve ever experienced. I moan and grind desperately against her. All of my instincts are dialed up to ten as I lose control.

When she groans and bares her neck, I eagerly sink my teeth there, eyes rolling back as her flavor floods my mouth.

I could live like this.

I could die like this.

She could control me with just one drop. I"m utterly captive to my need for her and wouldn"t have it any other way.

"Silas," Maven breathes finally, the soft rasp of her voice cutting into my frenzied state of heaven-struck bloodlust.

I force myself to unlatch from her neck, lapping gently at the puncture marks left behind as I try to catch my breath. I can barely speak.

"Godsdamn you."

"They already have, but what is it for this time?" she laughs breathlessly.

I groan and continue licking and kissing down her neck. Feeding has never aroused me before, but my cock is throbbing in my pants as I try to come down from that overwhelming experience.

"Why would you reward me for hurting you by allowing me to hurt you further?" I demand, finally looking up at her.

But there"s no sign of hurt or even discomfort on my blood blossom"s face. Instead, she looks nearly blissed out. For vampires, pleasure feeding is typical, but it occurs very rarely in blood fae. We feed for magic, which is usually very painful for anyone we bite.

Yet, in some cases…

I lick my lips of all traces of her, needing every last taste. "It didn"t hurt?"

Maven"s smile is wicked. "Maybe slightly. But I prefer it that way."

Then her expression sobers, and I immediately realize I"ve been all over her without checking in to see if her aversion to touch was bothering her. I apologize and try to remove myself, but Maven wraps her arms around me and shakes her head.

"I was just thinking. How can we fix your curse?"

"There"s no cure." Aside from breaking my curse by binding my heart to hers…but hers is in the Nether.

She seems thoughtful for a long moment before tipping her head. "Would Baelfire"s dragon scales help somehow? Is that why you wanted them so badly?"

The reminder of how terribly I"m failing at getting those scales makes me sigh. I move to lay beside my keeper, pulling her close again. It"s selfish, considering everything that just happened, but I need her close.

"No. The dragon scales aren"t for me. I want them for two things."

She waits expectantly.

I study her and sigh. "The main reason, I"m not at liberty to say. I promised to keep it a secret."

But Maven is exceptionally sharp, so it only takes her a moment of thought. "You have no close family left. The closest person in your life is most likely…the Garnet Wizard, your mentor. Are the scales for him?"

I can"t say a word, but I can nod.

"His quintet died," she goes on. "I overheard that weeks ago when I was studying in the library, and two faculty members mentioned him in passing. So, if his keeper is dead, then his curse returned. It must be a nasty curse since he"s believed to be very powerful. Do you want scales to help him with easing his curse?"

I nod again. "I"m running out of time to help. He"s been my only semblance of family for ten years, and his last letter read like a goodbye. If I don"t get scales to him soon, he—" My voice cuts off as my fae promise keeps me from saying anything else about it, and I sigh. "By the way, you would make a decent detective."

"Just as you make a decent caster," she snarks, the same insult she used after seeing me fight for the first time.

I narrow my eyes at her, trying not to smile at her playfulness. "Minx."

"I take it you promised him not to tell a soul, which must be why you resorted to betting on my pussy just to get what you want from Baelfire."

I flinch. Fucking hell, I"ve been the worst match in the world to her, haven"t I?

"I"m sorry for that. I"ll always be sorry for that."

She shrugs and examines her hand, which is still bleeding lightly. "It"s in the past. I forgive you. But I"d like to know the other reason you want dragon scales."

The sight of her injury turns my stomach, despite how my mouth waters again at the sight of her blood. It"s such a paradox.

"I"ll get bandages," I say hoarsely.

But when I try to move, Maven again stops me and seems almost…nervous. I realize why when she softly chants in necromancy. Just like when we were searching for the changeling, the air chills and my own magic tingles with wariness in my veins at my proximity to such a twisted, dark craft.

I watch in fascination as Maven"s skin starts to heal and the bruises fade. But her fingertips blacken, and her skin becomes paler than its usual olive-toned hue.

When she"s done, she looks at me. "Well?"

"Forbidden though it may be, I find your necromancy beautiful."

Her lips twitch. "Thanks. But I meant, what"s the other reason?"

Ah. I grimace. "Don"t tell Baelfire. Or the others. They"ll think I secretly have a bleeding heart."

Again, she waits, and finally, I huff and sit up to magically clean up the mess I left on the floor earlier. As my magic works, I mutter, "The last family of dragons are infertile. In another generation or two, they"ll go extinct. I"m developing a potion to reverse their troubles, but it requires golden dragon scales."

Maven stares at me before sitting up and tilting her head. "You"re…trying to help Baelfire"s family procreate?"

I wrinkle my nose. "Phrasing it that way makes it sound obscene. But yes, basically."

"But why wouldn"t you tell Baelfire?"

"The Decimus family is extremely proud. They get unbelievably testy about the fact that none of his siblings has had children if it"s brought up. Baelfire would probably rather eat shit than ever ask for help, let alone from me. If I told him I wanted scales for that, he would think I was freakishly invested in his pedigree, which I"m not." I shrug. "Also, I was going to sell the fertility potion to his family at a ridiculously high price."

"Because why be altruistic when you can be rich instead?"

"Precisely."

She snorts and shakes her head. "You idiots are all so determined to pretend you hate each other."

I lean forward to kiss her. "We"re your idiots."

She smiles back at me, which twists my heart into delighted little knots, but then her expression shifts quickly to something heartbreaking.

"You deserve to have your curse broken. I want to find a way to help, but…" She clears her throat and looks away, seeming pained. "It"s not too late for you to find a different keeper?—"

"Not this again," I sigh. "The answer is no, Maven. Absolutely fucking not."

"But if someone else who has an actual fucking heart can keep you from going insane?—"

I kiss her again, forcibly this time to keep her words from coming out. Pulling away, I shake my head. "My curse isn"t your burden. If it goes unbroken, then that"s my fate. I still want you, ima sangfluir. The descent into madness will be much sweeter with you at my side."

Maven looks as if she"s about to argue more, but we both hear the sound of a door closing somewhere else in the apartment. Her face lights up, and even though I can"t stand the rest of our quintet half the time, I swear on the gods, I could hug all three of those bastards for getting that pained expression off our keeper"s face.

Before she can try to leave her bedroom, I quickly stand and hold up a hand to stop her. "Let me check on them first, sangfluir."

She goes very still. "You think they"re injured."

"Possibly."

"And you don"t want me to see it, snap, and slaughter everyone I pass on my way to the Immortal Quintet."

"Again…possibly." The whole truth is, I don"t want to see her more upset than I"ve already seen her tonight.

Maven grumbles but agrees. As she waits in her bedroom, I slip out and find Crypt and Everett in the TV room. Everett"s perfectly fine, of fucking course, but Crypt"s face is slowly healing from several bruises. I watch as he rebreaks a bone in one of his fingers so it will heal correctly.

"Enjoying the show, Crane?" he drawls.

"Very much. Where"s Baelfire?"

Everett loosens his tie ever so slightly, looking exhausted. "He didn"t want Maven to see all the blood."

Damn it. "How bad was it?" I ask Crypt.

"If you"re offering to kiss my boo-boos away, you can go fuck yourself instead. Frost told us the elixir didn"t work on Maven." He stands and goes toe to toe with me, his violet eyes murderous. "For your sake, you"d better hope the next draught works. If you"re useless to her, I see no reason to keep you around."

Everett rolls his eyes. "Back off, dream eater. We all know you won"t hurt any of us because it would upset Maven. Your bark has lost its bite."

Did Everett Frost just defend me? I make a face. "Just because I"ll watch you kiss our keeper doesn"t mean I want your friendship, you frozen ass."

The elemental"s face turns bright red, and he mutters something under his breath about my creepy-ass red eyes before storming toward Maven"s room.

"I"m not covered in blood, so I"ll be with her. Crypt, wash that shit off of you."

Her door closes, and the Nightmare Prince looks at me. "Did fucking Frost just try to give me an order? So much for him not being covered in blood."

Before he can move to go after Everett, I hold out an arm to stop him, shaking my head. "Don"t stir up shit tonight. Maven is tired. We"re all fucking tired."

"Especially you," he smirks cruelly. "How many days has it been since your insanity last let you sleep? Three? Four?"

I grit my teeth, my freshly-powered magic tickling at my fingertips. I"m always on edge around Crypt, and if he keeps insisting on needling me, I"m going to end up hurting him and upsetting Maven.

Just a little murder won"t hurt, a voice in my head insists.

He"ll kill you if you don"t get to him first.

Avenge me. Do something useful for once, my father hisses.

Baelfire steps out of the hallway shower wrapped in nothing but steam and a black towel. He doesn"t bat an eye at the standoff between me and Crypt. He just shoves us apart so he can walk through the hall to Maven"s room. Obviously, his inner dragon is making him moody.

When her door opens, I can hear Maven"s sigh of relief, and then she pokes her head out into the hallway to look for the rest of us. I quickly step in front of Crypt to hide his bloodied clothes from her.

She"s too smart for that and rolls her eyes. "As long as no one is hurt, blood on clothing won"t bother me. Both of you come here. I have a request."

We exchange one more glare before walking side by side to Maven"s room. Crypt shoves me into the wall to go in first, and I repay him by discreetly kicking him in the shin when I pass by him on the way into the room.

Baelfire, the big brute, immediately picks up Maven and sits on the edge of the bed with her in his lap, burying his face in the crook of her neck. The rest of us scowl and glare at him for not even asking first, but she gently traces the collar around his neck as she glances over the rest of us. I notice that she's put gloves on again, to hide her blackened fingertips from the others.

"What did you want, love?" Crypt asks. "Anything, and it"s yours."

She squirms a little, and Baelfire promptly takes her off his lap and sets her beside him. At the very least, I can be glad the assholes I"m in this quintet with know how to sense when Maven"s haphephobia is acting up.

"Don"t be too sure. It"s a weird request," she mumbles.

She"s usually so confident. Seeing her unsure makes me move to sit on her other side, smiling gently. "There"s remarkably little the lot of us wouldn"t do for you."

Maven fidgets, clearing her throat. "Would you all sleep in here tonight? With me? I just…" It seems to take effort for her to get the next words out. "I need to know that you"re all safe. And close. If you don"t mind."

I blink. Everett and Crypt look equally surprised, but Baelfire"s face lights up like the sun.

"You want a sleepover? Abso-fucking-lutely, Mayflower. Also, that"s not a weird request at all. Most fully fledged quintets sleep in the same room, you know."

Our keeper looks between us and arches a brow pointedly. Her meaning is clear: most quintets aren"t us, with all our ongoing squabbles.

We all exchange looks and come to a silent agreement: if Maven wants us to play nice and stay in the same room, we can manage it.

"Truce," I mutter to Crypt. "Just for one night."

"In your fucking dreams," he murmurs back. "But at least you"ll be having dreams tonight. Feel free to thank me in the morning."

He slips into Limbo without another word to me, but his meaning is clear: he"ll make sure I sleep tonight. But sleeping near the Nightmare Prince without a dreamcatcher to protect me is out of the question. Paranoia crawls over my entire body like leeches, sapping away my control until my ears start to ring again, my eye twitching.

Before it can get too far, Everett spots a small spill of blood on the bed and the air in the room plummets. Our breaths plume before our faces as the sudden cold snaps me out of it.

The professor glares at me. "Want to explain this, bloodsucker?"

Maven doesn"t miss a beat. "I offered Silas a snack."

Baelfire chokes, and Everett recoils.

She rolls her eyes. "Stop clutching your pearls. I enjoyed it. Now, if you don"t mind…" She waves her hand and turns off the lamp using common magic. "I"m exhausted."

We remain quiet as we all settle into bed with her. When reserving this apartment, I had the bed in the keeper"s bedroom custom-made to be larger than an Alaskan king, so it"s not a tight fit, even despite Baelfire"s overbulked frame.

Maven curls up in the middle of the bed, and Baelfire is quick to press against her left side, nuzzling against her neck. I lay beside her on the right, not surprised when Frost lays at the very edge of the bed on my side, still wary about getting too close to Maven.

But apparently, no matter how conflicted he is, he"s too far gone for her to try to leave tonight.

"Night, Mayflower," Baelfire yawns, and I hear him kiss her cheek.

She hums, obviously already drifting off. But I have no hope in hell of going to sleep anytime soon. I"m still keyed up from feeding, and having Maven"s body so close to mine is keeping my cock hard as fucking steel. I shift slightly under the blankets, gritting my teeth as I stare at the dark ceiling. The voices in my head are whispering, chills slithering over my bones at the idea of resting anywhere near the rest of these legacies.

I think I"m in for a long, miserably hard night.

So I"m not expecting it when a brush of incubi power sends a flood of fatigue through my system, sending me into a deep sleep within seconds.