“Neither are you,” Jayden intervened calmly. “And in case you haven’t noticed, you’ve royally pissed off the Voda Heir, which isn’t exactly the smartest move for a Director-in-the-running, even if you are gearing toward a reform.”
For a panicked moment, I thought that Jayden was referring to me, but his eyes were fixed over my shoulder. I glanced back to the doorway, finding all three of the guys facing inwards and looking furious enough to cause serious damage. I felt a sharp stab of something inside my chest, but it wasn’t their emotion pushing into me, for once. It was mine… and I was proud of them. My own fury had been appeased by the simple apparition of their fury, because it evidenced their feelings about the threat against Silas. Though I hadn’t actively acknowledged it, there was a small part of me that had been fearing the moment Silas would go too far—not too far for the Klovoda, but too far for his own brothers. They weren’t particularly vocal in their brotherly feelings, and they didn’t often demonstrate the depth of their own bonds with each other, but I realised now that it was because they didn’t need to. It was a given. An inevitability. A simple, unbreakable fact.
“Silas has never harmed an innocent person before in his life,” Quillan stated, his resonating voice smooth enough to trap us into a trance as we gazed at him, before it snuck beneath the surface of our skin and cut right through our vulnerable human feelings. He wasn’t even aiming the words at me, but I felt a sharp sting nonetheless. Yas visibly winced.
“He has hurt people, yes.” Quillan’s voice lost the hypnotising quality and grew distinctly more cutting. “He has killed people, yes… he loses control. He was designed that way; Weston wants him that way. Weston wanted Dominic gone, he wanted Gerald gone; is it really a believable coincidence that every person Silas has killed was a person that Weston wanted dead? You all turn a blind eye when it suits you, but now it’s too much? Now it’s too far? If he really has taken Weston, he’s finally trying to eliminate the reason he is pushed to hurt other people in the first place. He will never kill our father, but he’s reacting on instinct right now. He’s just trying to protect himself, and her.” He pointed at me. “The girl you all find so important.”
As the eyes turned back in my direction, I found that I could only stand there, bearing the attention as my heart squeezed painfully inside my chest.
“Silas,” I croaked. I wasn’t sure how long he had been there, but I could feel his heartbeat battering against mine all of a sudden.
“Are we having a party?” he asked dryly, striding into the room as Noah and Quillan stepped aside for him. He passed his dark eyes from person to person, skipping over me. “An intervention? Or are you imitating bait again?”
As he voiced the last question, his eyes landed on me, flickering quickly over my face before gripping my own eyes with unnerving strength. I bristled in reaction, my temper rising in defence against the more panic-inducing emotions that fought for dominance within me. It was my usual reaction to Silas, but the feelings had become amplified with the very uncertainly that stood before me. I didn’t know what was true about him anymore.
“Where is Danny?” I asked without preemption, attempting to keep my tone neutral as I rose shakily to my feet.
“Oh, you want to get it all out in the open right now, do you, Seraph?” Silas quirked a winged brow, his expression sharpening enough that the air gained a distinctly acidic crackle.
I tensed, because I had begun to associate the use of my name versus my nickname with his violent alter-ego. I squinted at him, but he was so carefully blank, that I couldn’t tell which of him I was currently challenging. Nahab and Obasi had been situated closest to Silas, and they both surprised me by standing and moving away, sitting by the back wall instead. They were better protected in their new position, and while it wasn’t entirely surprising that they sought to protect themselves against Silas, it was surprising that they had been so obvious about it. Poison and Clarin were the next to move away, but I couldn’t spare them a glance, because I was now certain that Silas wasn’t in control of himself. Everyone else could sense it.
I struggled for a moment, grappling for the courage that I needed. “Yes. Alright. Fine. Something happened and you’re here because of that something and—”
“Something?” He loomed closer and my mouth dried up, my knees locking together.
“Someone get her out of here before she gets hurt,” Yas whispered urgently.
I wanted to roll my eyes and tell her that Silas could still hear her.
“If you want to keep your hands… you won’t touch her,” Silas murmured silkily, warning off whoever had stepped up beside me.
The person backed away silently but my gaze stayed locked on the fire-filled eyes before me. It was probably unreasonable, but I suspected that Silas would lunge for me the second I looked away from him.