Silence

Silas:

Lucien always had a way of ruining a good moment.

Twisting it. Poisoning it with that silk-stitched cruelty of his. All teeth and charm and swaggering ego. A storm in leather boots. He’d been that way for centuries—always tearing through places, through people, like beauty was something meant to be broken open and bled dry.

And he almost got to her.

Almost.

But not this time.

Not with her.

Not with Isadora.

I felt it the second his hunger bloomed—wild and hot and laced with that wicked edge he barely bothered to hide. The graveyard shivered. The wind turned. The trees whispered my name like a warning, or maybe an invocation. Death stirs when something ancient threatens to take what's mine.

And I am death.

I came before the carved gates of this school, before Lucien wore his first tailored suit, before kingdoms fell. Time may have softened the edges of others, dulled their instincts, but not me. I remember the old language of shadows. I speak the tongue of silence. Of endings.

And she—Isadora Gravelle—has no idea what she’s invited by simply not running.

Most people flee from death. Fight me tooth and nail. It's instinct.

But her? She sits with it. With me.

She reads her worn little books while I hover like frost on her shoulder. She speaks to me like I’m not a monster. Like she’s not afraid. She shouldn’t do that. But gods help me, I crave it.

And tonight, Lucien tried to take it from me.

Tried to take her from me.

I saw him through the willow’s veil, all cocky angles and menace, hovering too close. I saw his shadow fall across her page like a promise he had no right to make. I felt her heartbeat shift—not fear, no—but something just as dangerous: attraction.

He thrives on that. He feeds on that.

Not me.

I feed on silence. On the space between breaths. I feed on stillness.

But the second I saw his mouth trail too near her throat, that control cracked. My power surged before I could leash it—cold and ancient, the kind of cold that whispers beneath tombs and settles in marrow. It didn’t hit him with force—it didn’t have to. Lucien and I are old enough to speak without words.

He felt me.

And he knew.

I stepped from the shadows, not a word, not a breath wasted.

Her eyes found mine. Wide. Caught between confusion and something else. Relief? Hope? Possession is not love. I know that. But I felt it—whatever that flicker was—and I took it for mine.

Lucien cursed, but he didn’t stay. He never does when the air turns to ice. He slunk back into the dark, tasting her on his tongue like a thief caught mid-sin.

Good.

Let him taste what he can never hold.

She stumbled toward me—her book forgotten, her breath shallow—and for a moment, she looked like she might speak. I almost wanted her to. But she didn’t have to. She reached out—not quite touching, but close enough that I felt the heat radiate from her skin to mine.

She didn’t ask if I was real.

She didn’t ask if I was safe.

She simply said, “Thank you.”

Thank you.

Like I was something good. Like I was a light in the dark and not the cold thing wrapped around her fog.

I turned with her, let her fall into step beside me as the moon painted her hair with silver. I didn’t speak. I never do unless I mean it. She didn’t press.

We walked in silence, the kind I once wielded like a weapon. But with her, it felt… gentler. Not like absence—but like understanding.

She doesn’t flinch at my nearness.

She doesn’t recoil when her fingers brush the edge of my coat.

She doesn't know what I am. Not truly. But she senses it. She must.

No one who’s seen death up close walks as she does. No one who hasn't kissed grief full on the mouth can look me in the eyes without blinking. But she does.

And I don’t know what that makes her.

A girl carved from shadow?

A witch?

A warning?

Maybe she’s just tired of being afraid. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t tremble when I draw too close. Or maybe she’s too far gone already.

And that, above all, is what terrifies me.

Because Lucien saw it too.

He saw how she draws things to her—dark things, ancient things, things like us. But unlike me, Lucien doesn't protect what he desires. He devours it.

And if I hadn’t shown up tonight—if I’d let that bastard brush her neck, let his fangs slide into that porcelain skin—it wouldn’t have been a chapter in her story. It would’ve been the end of it.

I won’t let that happen.

She’s not his to consume.

She’s not even mine to protect, but I’ll do it anyway.

Because when she looked at me, I saw something I haven’t seen in centuries.

Recognition.

Like she remembered me from another life. Like somewhere, in some dim corridor of time, we’d sat like this before. Her with a book. Me with silence wrapped around my throat like a noose.

Only this time, maybe I don’t want to vanish when morning comes.

Maybe I want to stay.

But staying means risking what little tether I have left. It means letting her in. Letting her know the things I’ve buried under centuries of frost and marble and dirt.

Would she still sit beside me if she knew the truth?

Would she still offer that quiet, beautiful thank you if she saw the bodies I’ve left behind?

I don’t know.

But I want to find out.

Gods help me, I do.

And that makes her dangerous in a way Lucien never will be.

Because Lucien ruins things for the thrill.

But she… she could ruin me without even trying.

So I walk beside her. Silent. Watchful. Possessive in a way that doesn’t take, but shields. Because if Lucien ever comes for her again—

I won’t just stop him.

I’ll end him.