average human’s Reviews > Control My Night > Status Update

“With ID and an invitation from Arwood, or he won’t make it far,” Dobromil winked.
“He could slip over the west corner,” the other guard added. “Steep drop, though. Natural barriers—more effective than any of us.”
“Ah, yes,” Dobromil said, entertained by the thought. “Can this guy levitate?”
Chatter dissolved as Steadman and Matej swept in. Their hands landed on the shoulders of a guard two down from me. With a single nod from Steadman, they marched him out of the kitchen, leaving his half-empty bowl behind.
“Poor guy. Shit’s gettin’ real,” Dobromil breathed.
I had a feeling I already knew the answer, but I still asked. “What are they doing with him?”
“Tryna’ plug the leaks, miss. Ain’t making for a good working environment, but we’re enjoying losing people less.”
Appetite ruined, I excused myself.
Closing my extravagant filigreed bedroom door, I slid to the floor. A heavy, dragging sensation covered me like a wet blanket.
Isobelle remained out of reach. Training with Anika might be making me stronger, but I wasn’t any closer to unlocking what I’d done the night of the casino. I’d been a hamster in a wheel these past weeks, soothing myself with the illusion of action while the walls drew closer.
Missing my father made me feel like my heart was about to burst out of my chest. I longed for the insulated days inside my estate, my theoretical discussions with Zeina. Since my abduction, life held colors I never thought I’d see. I wanted to hate everyone around me. I should hate everyone around me. How often I forgot this made me uncomfortable. The girl with smoothie on her legs would’ve wondered what the hell my problem was. The girl with her back against the door, with over twenty deaths to her name, had nothing to say.
Eventually, despair and inaction got old. I entered the bathroom and did all the things old Keanna had found comfort in; I exfoliated. Shaved. Conditioned my hair. Tried to address the irritated, flaky skin underneath my black collar. It was red and itchy and another sign I’d been here too long, that this thing should have been off weeks ago.
My attempts to utilize the cortisol cream I’d swiped from the first aid kit in the kitchen proved pitiful, but it was all I could think to do. Unless Arwood suddenly felt charitable, this thing wasn’t coming off. Frustrating minutes passed while I nudged lotion underneath the metal, hoping I wasn’t just making the irritation worse.
I was almost thankful for the interruption of a knock. Giving up, I pulled my bathrobe tighter around my body. Hopefully it wasn’t Steadman playing fetch. In my current state, I wouldn’t be ready for at least thirty minutes, which would piss him off to no end.
I opened the door, frowning. No one was there. Another knock came from the wall behind me.
The servant’s passageway cracked open.

58%

I should have known it wasn’t Steadman. The knock had been subtle and hesitant, two things Steadman wasn’t.
“Can we talk?” Silas whispered, nudging the door open further.
My hand went to the waist tie of my bathrobe as I agreed, my pulse picking up speed.
“Did I interrupt something?” At my questioning expression, he pointed to the tube of cortisol. Oh. That.
“Some neck TLC.” I sat on the edge of my bed, continuing to prod it under my collar to give me something to do. And to give the impression I didn’t care a boy was in my bedroom. Door shut. At night.
Another first.
“I got that when I first came here, too.” He shook the wrist with the black band. “Do you need help?”
This made my beast way too excited. “I think I’ve got it. What did you need to talk about?”
He mussed his hair, casting a glance around the room before sitting on the Chesterfield. “I hated tonight.”
“The ragu? You’re too hard on yourself. The lamb wasn’t that dry.”
“You look like you’re joking, but—”
“Of course I’m joking. I can barely cook toast, you won’t hear me dispensing culinary critique.”
He narrowed his eyes playfully, then turned serious. “I hate ignoring you like this. You seemed upset, and I couldn’t ask you why without worrying someone would notice.”
“I’m fine. It’s just …” I gestured to the walls, my collar. Anywhere that wasn’t him. “Our daily existence. Thank you for checking, but I’ll be alright.”
“I’m not. Alright, that is. With any of it.” He plucked at the hole in the knee of his jeans. “I … I’ve been thinking, and I figured if I was going to put myself through this, you should at least know why.”
Put myself through this. Silas being raw, vulnerable, was like witnessing something sacred. I wanted to hold on to moments like this forever.
“You don’t have to tell me if you’re not comfortable,” I said. “I understand why you have secrets.”
“It’s because you understand that I want to tell you. But it’s dangerous information to learn, so I wanted to give you a choice.”
Was he kidding? It sounded like he was giving me keys to the kingdom. “I won’t say a word.” I paused. “Garden buddies for life, right?”
He gave a small smile. God, he was beautiful. The low light from the lamps beside my bed threw a glow over his olive-toned skin and gave a honeyed hue to the brown curls of his hair.
“Arwood has my mother and my sister. He’s kept them off site, in the basement of one of his office buildings, since I started working for him.” He nodded at my slack expression. “They’re … they’re as comfortable as they can be, locked in a room with supervised bathroom breaks and designated mealtimes.”
I blanched. Those three days stuck inside one of Arwood’s cells with no option to leave had been borderline traumatic. Silas had started working for Arwood eleven months ago.
He shifted to the front of the couch, leaning his forearms against his knees. “It’s okay,” he assured me, even though we both knew it wasn’t. “My father was a member of the Sect, swapping information for funding from Arwood. That’s why he was supposed to be at your party, scoping out your company.” Seeing my face tighten, he said, “I had no idea. I promise. That was the kind of stuff my father did for Arwood. He accepted money to keep his restaurants afloat, made poor investment decisions, got deep in debt. We didn’t know about it, of course. Not until it was too late.” He fidgeted, nails dragging over his stubble.
“Because of that, I started working for Arwood, doing what my father used to do. Protecting him, that kind of thing, in lieu of paying back the debt. The amount my father owed would have ruined us otherwise. But Arwood’s not an idiot. He knew he needed to convince me to do the right thing. I mean, I could not ignite a shield”—his devilish smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared—“and he and his team would be dead. So he took my mother and sister.”
If my father had been taken, I knew there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done to keep him safe. I thanked the stars Arwood hadn’t done it. “I’m so sorry, Silas.”
“I rebelled early on, let some of his men get shot. They survived—it wasn’t life-threatening,” he added, seeing my eyes widen. “I just wanted to prove he didn’t own me. But … he does. He kept my family in the dark for two days without food.”
He fell silent. I wanted to wrap a blanket around him, shelter him from the world. I also wanted to run from this place screaming.
I couldn’t help but snapshot the Silas and Keanna from the garden. Him in his suit, me in my beautiful green dress. Shiny. Young. Flirting and full of promise. A far cry from the shirt and ripped jeans he wore now, the bathrobe and collar contrasting against my pale skin. We’d had no idea what was coming for us. We’d had no one to protect us.
“For a while there, I was staring down the barrel of lifelong service, but a few days ago things changed,” Silas continued. “Arwood told me if we found his daughter, he’d let me and my family go. Debt repaid.”
I sucked in a breath. That was my deal. I could imagine Arwood rubbing his hands together with glee as he pitted Silas and me against each other. “I’ve made the same bargain with him. Do you think …”
“He’ll recant?” Silas said, hearing my change in tone. He contemplated my question, his nail running over his lip. “Arwood is a man of his word, despite everything else. Months ago, I wouldn’t have put it past him to play games to keep us both under his thumb, but he’s desperate now.” The knot in my chest eased. Barely. “Besides, he’s smart enough to understand the more people are motivated for his cause, the better off he’ll be.”
Okay. That made sense. And fell more in line with the Arwood playbook I’d observed so far. From my conversation with the guards, he wanted loyalty. Preferred people choosing to work for him. What a dichotomy. For someone who valued choice, he had no reservations taking it away. “We track down Isobelle, we both go free?”
“Sounds too easy, doesn’t it?”
“You don’t think we’ll find her.”
“After the things I’ve seen this past year … I don’t think the world is a good place anymore.”
The hopelessness in his voice hurt. Pressure built in my chest, my beast rousing from her slumber. Not incensed, like when I was in danger. Instead she sat wary, watching my tears form. I couldn’t let them fall. This wasn’t about me. “The longer you work for Arwood, the more you damage yourself.”
“It’s the least I can do. My family are having enough trouble keeping themselves mentally intact without knowing what’s going on here.”
I’d watched Silas pass out more than once. A battery, charged then depleted. The air of defeat lingering around him said, more than anything else he’d told me tonight, that we were running out of time. Eventually, Silas would have nothing more to give.
“Did your mother know about the Sect? Could she help with Isobelle or Johan?”
“He kept a lot from us. I’ve never asked her.”
I could barely breathe from the pressure building. I bent my head and reached blindly for the cortisol. Around me, a buzz matching the one within swelled. The hairbrush on the writing desk rattled next to a rocking lampshade; an abstract painting jittered on its hook against the wall.
Silas leapt to his feet. “Are you alright? Here, let me help you.”
I shook my head as I tried to swallow the lump moving up my throat, tried to suppress the intensity of the storm brewing inside of me. I’d never be able to explain why I’d screamed in my room, or why Silas had been there to begin with.
“Seriously, let me help. You’re okay.”
But he wasn’t.
I was scared if I protested I’d start screaming/crying/a combination of the two, so I kept my head bowed. The mattress dipped behind me as he sat, plucking the tube from my loose grip. His proximity doused the worst of the pressure. I took a deep breath through my nose, trying to calm myself.
The rattling stopped.
Silas gave a soft laugh. “Well. That was new. Training is paying off.” When I didn’t respond, he asked, “Keeks? Can I move your hair?”
His knee brushed my hip, distracting me further. I swallowed painfully, nodding.
Light fingers grazed the terry material of my robe. I stilled, hyper-aware of how he gathered my wet hair, moving it to one side. At least I no longer needed to concentrate on keeping my scream suppressed. Silas dominated my attention.
“Try and relax. Tensing makes it harder to move.”
I exhaled, squeezing my knees as he touched me, pushing the collar upwards as far as it would go. Goosebumps erupted. I focused on breathing evenly; I kept holding it, anticipating when he’d touch me next.
He loosened a sigh, no doubt at the ugly red band of skin underneath, then cool relief hit my neck. I shivered.
“Relax,” he whispered. I lowered my shoulders, realizing they were up near my ears. “I’m sorry if it’s hurting. A few days of this and it should clear up.”
I didn’t correct him, too embarrassed to admit it wasn’t hurting at all right now. Opposite spectrum. My abdomen tightened.
“I hate that he makes you wear this,” he said.
“Does yours shock you, too?”
“No. That’s why yours is so inhumane. Ours is a signal to the people of the city. Who we belong to. I guess it’s better than tattoos. We have a hope of removing it.”
My fingers danced across the blunt edge of my collar. The people who understood studied it with a strange combination of intrigue and fear. I was a deadly chained animal. Arwood held my leash.
Yet … he hadn’t forced me to scream in weeks. He hadn’t even been with me when I’d decided to blow up our pursuit. Worse, the satisfaction of watching the cars careen over themselves had reached beyond my motivation. My beast had enjoyed death coming to those endangering us.
“I’m scared I’ll become something I don’t recognize,” I whispered. “I’ve done so much damage already. I’m not sure what I’ll do if I can’t get away from him.”
“You’re trying to change your situation.” His hand moved to the front of my throat. My breathing turned shallow. “That counts for something. We’ll find Isobelle, and then you can go home to your father.”
“And you can go home with your mother. And your sister.”
The bed shook as he nodded. “I also have an older brother. Gabriel.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He worked for Arwood, too.” His tone sharpened. “I … I think he’s dead. I haven’t seen him in months. No one I talk to has, either.”
“What’s Gabriel like?” I used present tense deliberately.

Silas didn’t. “Everything you’d want in an older brother. He was a better person than me. Kind. Always pushed me to do what was right.” His fingers curved around the top of my shoulder. I could sense he was done but for some reason wasn’t moving. I didn’t want him to. “He and Arwood never got along. They clashed too much to be productive, and once my father died there was no one to stand up for him.”
I made a sympathetic noise. Silas’s hand tightened, stopping me from turning. “Please … please stay as you are. This is easier if you’re not looking at me.”
I understood what he meant. It was like confiding to someone in the dark. “Why do you think Gabriel might be in trouble?”
He resumed rubbing along the back of my collar. Not done, after all. “Being maspotem is hereditary. If a parent is a mage—either side—it’s all but guaranteed you’ll transcend. My father was a ferox, and a good one at that, so it was a given. But Gabriel’s time came and went without it happening. In our circles they called him a nil. That’s it. ‘Nil’, like he had nothing better to offer.” Silas sighed. What was he thinking? What memories tormented him? “I transcended on my nineteenth birthday.”
“Were you worried you wouldn’t? That your parents would …”
“Would what?”
“Be disappointed.”
“My abilities don’t define me,” he said. “As long as we’re healthy, they would have accepted any outcome. We don’t know why it never happened for Gabriel, and it has to have bothered him, but he took it in his stride and made his body a weapon instead.”
My abilities don’t define me. I wished I believed the same. “You talk about him like he’s for certain dead. What if he’s escaped?”
“He’s dead.” His hand slipped to my shoulder. “I can feel it. I just wish I knew how. And when. I’m scared I’ll never find out.”
I touched first my fingertips to his, then my whole palm. Warmth flooded down my arm. My heart maintained a steady, pounding beat. My beast was calm. So was I.
I’m a firm believer that you have a path in life to follow. Not predetermined, exactly, but occasionally the universe throws you a thumbs-up. Moments of internal stillness, a peace and rightness you can’t describe past a lightness in your chest and an assurance in your soul you’re on the correct path, that all signs are pointing north. I knew, despite everything else, that this was where I needed to be. With Silas. Our fingers were barely threaded together, we weren’t even looking at each other, and I felt more connected to him than I had to anyone else in my whole life.
Somewhere along the way, Silas had become important to me. Somehow, it didn’t scare me. I wanted to be his ally. If we could be nothing else, that was enough.
I was all in.
“I’m on your side,” I whispered. Silas was right—this was easier. Not seeing his expression made me braver in my quiet declaration. “Always. I promise.”
Silence.
Had I talked out of turn, scared him off?
He moved my hair aside further. Tickling breath hovered above the curve of my shoulder. His lips connected with the sensitive skin there.
I sucked in a breath, my eyes drifting shut. My skin sparked beneath his touch, electricity traveling down my body and pooling low in my abdomen. Holy hell. I swallowed the moan threatening to rise.
“I don’t trust in much here, but I do with you,” he murmured. “I always knew I could, as soon as I saw you in that garden. You are sunshine, Keanna. You lit up my life then, and you still do.”
I pivoted. My heart had broken for him earlier; now it was racing. His eyes dropped to my lips. So many reasons we shouldn’t be this close, this alone. I couldn’t think of a single one.
A shared breath released as our lips came together.
His scent filled my nose. I turned further, and our legs tangled. The roughness from the stubble on his chin met my smooth skin. My chest swelled with excitement—and fear. Self-consciousness over my lack of experience darkened the corners of my mind, slowing my response. I should have thought about this earlier, prepared somehow. How would I know if I was doing this right and not making an idiot of myself?
Silas planted a kiss on my lower lip and then the corner of my mouth, moving slowly like he sensed my hesitancy. “Is this okay?” he whispered.
No judgment, no expectation marred his voice. Despite my insecurity, safety warmed me. This was Silas. He knew me. He saw me. Somehow, he liked me anyway. The desire to feel his body against mine enticed me forward. I curled my hands around his neck, entwining my fingers through his soft hair as our lips met again and again. Fleeting panic at my lack of experience gave way to natural, rhythmic instinct. My beast—or both of us—sighed as I sank further into his arms.
I clutched him tighter, straddling him, my tongue brushing his. He gripped my hips, pulling me against him, blazing kisses in a path across my cheek. His lips went to the space behind my ear, shooting heat straight to my abdomen and plucking a gasp from me. My pelvis moved of its own volition. For a moment I feared he’d find my hips and thighs too big, too awkward, but a moan rumbled in his chest like he enjoyed how I moved against him.
Of course he does, my beast admonished.
He rolled us to the side, my head falling against the pillows. A hiss escaped as his lower body settled between my thighs. My bathrobe gaped open, revealing the swells of my breasts and the valley of my torso. Silas paused, breathing ragged as he took me in, awe coloring the way he whispered my name. The friction of his jeans against me was a reminder that a single layer of material separated us. With another tug of my bathrobe, I’d be exposed. Was I ready for that?
Picking up on my indecision, he kept the bathrobe where it was. Instead, he explored the exposed parts of my chest and neck, leaving a trail of fire and robbing me of my sanity. I wanted him to kiss me everywhere, but I had no idea how to ask for it.
“Does this feel okay?” Silas asked, his teeth tugging at my lower lip. The calluses of his palms smoothed across my naked legs as he hitched my knee over his hip. His hair framed our faces, cocooning us against the world.
A quiet—very quiet, very far-off—part of me wondered if we were moving too fast, careening toward an edge we couldn’t come back from. The rest of me didn’t care in the slightest, lost in the heady sensation of his body stretching across mine, our matching heartbeats. My beast had no issues. She howled in delight as I felt him hard against me.
My answering “Yes” caught on a sigh as Silas kissed me deeply. He began a slow grind against my pelvis that tightened my body like a coil and brought a keen up my throat. His hand cradled my butt as my fingernails dragged under his shirt and oh—it felt so good, he felt so good. I wanted him, all of him. Against me. Inside me. Pressure built within my chest, spiking my blood.
Careful, my beast warned.
Silas paused, panting. I realized belatedly I’d tensed up.
“Keeks?”
Jamming my eyes and mouth shut, I released a steady breath through my nose.
I’d become so worked up I’d nearly let a scream loose.
I didn’t dare imagine what would happen to Silas at such close proximity. Would he have the chance to produce a shield? A sickening churn kicked up in my stomach, washing away the heat.
“We should stop.” I willed myself to calm down. My beast sat quietly, like she wanted me to relax.
Silas rolled to the side, tying my bathrobe closed. I murmured an apology—how could I even begin to explain what had just happened?—but he shook his head. “Don’t apologize. I got a bit carried away there.”
“We both did.”
His smile turned playful. “I promise I didn’t visit with an agenda.”
“You mean you didn’t plan to get me on my bed in only a bathrobe?”
“Imagine if I applied myself.”
Silas didn’t need an agenda. He just needed to look at me, touch me, and I was his. What did that say about me? Was I making up for lost time, or was it my reaction to him?
His smile faded. “I should go. They might do a sweep.”
I’d dreaded this. This moment held a fragment of the universe we could control. Some things are precious in their brevity, like a sunrise or a sunset. Just as the clock ticked beside me, what we’d shared in this room was slipping away.
“I’ll pretend not to see you tomorrow,” I whispered.
Silas opened the passageway and, with a small smile that said everything, slipped out.