Silas Scratch Novels & Stories

I bark. Silas is a blur of frayed iron and sparking steel. He slams into a support beam, using the momentum to swing upward, his heavy blade grinding through the lead drone’s ceramic casing with a screech that vibrates through my teeth. The machine sputters, trailing black pixels as it hits the floor.

I croaked, the word barely a vibration behind the mask. “No,” Silas replied, his voice dropping to a quiet rasp. He didn’t look at my face; he looked at the scars. He traced a long, thin line on my shoulder with the damp cloth. “I am erasing them, Luca. Every hand that touched you before mine… I am washing them away. This body doesn’t belong to the South anymore. It belongs to me.” The intimacy of it was crushing. It wasn’t the heat of a lover; it was the cold, absolute care of a master. He washed my chest, his fingers splashed across my ribs, counting every heartbeat as if he were tallying his wealth.

I knew she had probably blocked me again. I returned to the dorm in a daze and stared blankly for a long time at the scratch card I had just exchanged. Finally, I gathered the courage to start scratching. First row, nothing. Second row, nothing either. By the third row, still nothing. By the time I reached the last row, I closed my eyes in resignation and scratched randomly. After a long moment, I opened my trembling eyes. I had won! The prize column read five million dollars!

I lied, even as my knees knocked together. Silas turned his head slowly. The dim light of the passing streetlamps flickered across his face, highlighting the jagged silver scar that sliced through his handsome features. It looked like a bolt of lightning frozen in time. "You are a terrible liar, Elara. Your scent is thick with the smell of a cornered rabbit. It's offensive." I bristled. "Maybe if you hadn't bought me like a piece of livestock, I wouldn't be so 'offensive' to you."

“You’re… her. The Cursed Luna.” The mob turned. Recognition flared in their eyes, hungry and vicious. “Silver eyes!” someone shouted. “It’s the bitch from the videos!” Hands grabbed my arms, my hair. The smell of sweat and whiskey choked me. “Hold her down—” “—cut her head off—” “—government’s offering fifty grand—” A snarl split the air. Silas. He came out of nowhere, a blur of rage in a torn leather jacket. His fist cracked against a man’s jaw, sending teeth skittering across the pavement. He didn’t shift, didn’t need to. He fought like a wolf anyway—all precision and brutality.

His shirt was torn, and his shoulder was hanging at a strange angle, but he was still moving. "Where is Adrian?" Lydia screamed. "He is sleeping," Silas said. He stepped into the moonlight. "He is strong, but he is emotional. Emotion makes you slow." Silas reached out a hand. "Come quietly. I don't want to hurt the asset." "I am not an asset!"

His skin was already beginning to knit back together, his Alpha healing fighting the weight of the metal. Sera kicked at the shattered windshield until the glass gave way. She crawled out onto the cold, wet dirt, her hands stinging from the gravel. She turned back to pull Kaelen out, but she stopped when a shadow fell over her. Silas stood ten feet away. He wasn't the man who had brought her supplies and shared quiet jokes for the last three years. The silver rot had climbed his neck, looking like frozen lightning. Behind him, the First-Born loomed like a nightmare made of moonlight and bone.

Silas saw this and reached through the bars and grabbed his hands so he wouldn't touch the bars. He looked at their hands and closed his eyes as he felt the tingles. He held Ian's hand for a moment longer, feeling those tingles rise and spread up his arm. "Don't touch the bars." Silas said then let go before the tingles could make it past his shoulder. "Say it, reject me!" Silas stood there, standing tall as he looked down at his mate and swallowed the lump once more. "I, Silas Black re...." Silas starts to say but stops when it feels like his heart was just pierced. He clears his throat before trying again.

The impact made the springs groan beneath us, and before I could even draw a breath, his heavy, massive frame was hovering over me. Silas didn't strip off his clothes. He didn't waste time with the elegant protocols Daniel used or the patience of Jonas. He was a man driven entirely by a primal, desperate need to reclaim what belonged to him, to pour every ounce of the silent, suffocating torment he had felt into the only language he truly understood: raw, unadulterated friction.