Lead Heart (Seraph Black Book 3) (27 page)

Making up my mind, I navigated to his contact and quickly typed out a message.

Will you come over tonight
?

I stood and walked down to the stage at the bottom of the lecture hall, needing the privacy of my own thoughts as I waited for a reply. I paced from one end to the other, my brow furrowed and worry gnawing a hole in my chest. I didn’t even know if he still had his old number, or if he was in possession of a phone at all. When my phone finally vibrated, I pulled it out of my pocket so fast that I almost dropped it.

You’re a terrible trap, angel.

My heart sank, and I had to swallow back against the sudden threat of tears.

“He thinks that you guys put me up to it,” I called up to them in a strained voice. “I don’t think he’ll come back again tonight.”

“He will if you ask him to,” Quillan returned calmly.

The others didn’t say a thing. Noah had his jaw locked and Cabe seemed too worried to speak. I stared at the screen of my phone until the words started to blend together, and then I forced my fingers to type a single word.

Please
.

His reply was instant.

You can do better than that.

I sucked in a breath, clenching the phone in stiff fingers as I marched up the aisle of seats to where the others still sat. I hurled my bag at the ground and ripped off my jacket and scarf, taking a second to deliberate my next move before looking Quillan squarely in the face.

“You might not want to watch this.”

He only frowned in response.

“I warned you,” I mumbled, bending down to pull off my shoes.

“What are you doing?” Cabe asked, standing from his seat.

Noah jumped over the back of the seat in front of him, walking down to stand on the stair below me, his expression curious and guarded all at once. I ignored them all, freeing the buttons on my jeans one-by-one.

“Whoa, Seph, what the—” Quillan surged up, panic in his expression.

“I
warned
you,” I repeated, tucking my thumbs into the waistband of my jeans and sliding them down my legs.

I stepped out of them quickly as Cabe burst out laughing and Noah’s jaw started to shift like he was grinding his teeth. I notched my foot on the chair that Quillan was still standing in front of, peering down at the flowering bruise on the inside of my thigh.

“Who’s going to take the picture for me?” I asked the room, poking lightly at the mark.

“Is this some kind of new-age sexual blackmail?” Cabe piped up, his eyes wandering over my legs as he leaned back against one of the seats, folding his arms across his chest and making no move toward my phone.

“I don’t even know what that means.” I rolled my eyes at him. “But it
has
to be in an inappropriate place, or he won’t get mad enough.”

He grinned back and I stumbled over my own smile.
Damn
Cabe and his stupid smiles.

Quillan snatched the phone out of my hand, closing his fingers around it like he was seconds away from crushing it into dust. His eyes were fixed on my bruise.

“What the hell is that?” he asked me.

“A bruise,” I answered, inserting a hefty dose of sarcasm into my tone.

His frown deepened and his displeasure swelled until he seemed to grow several sizes bigger. He stepped into my personal space and brought up a finger, holding it right in front of my face. He didn’t admonish me, and I couldn’t shake off the suspicion that he was too angry to form words.

“What?” I balked. “I get punished for bruising easily now?”

“
Seraph
—”

“Don’t
Seraph
me,” I griped half-heartedly.

“Yeah,” Cabe added, sounding highly entertained, “don’t
Seraph
her.”

“Go and lock the door, Cabe,” Quillan snapped. “Before someone walks in here.”

Cabe jumped over the row of seats to make his way up to the door to the lecture hall. He flicked the lock on the door and then returned to us. Nobody had moved, and I seemed to be stuck in a silent battle of wills with Quillan. Eventually, his eyes strayed from mine, and caught on the bruise that marked my neck.

He made a scoffing sound and dropped the finger that he had been holding up.

“Are there more?” he asked.

“Um…”

“Show me. Now.”

“This should be good,” Cabe intoned.

“Shut the hell up, Cabe.” Noah spoke up for the first time since I had texted Silas, his voice rumbling with angry emotion.

I glanced over at him, but his eyes were also on my neck. Since he and Quillan really couldn’t get any angrier, I pulled down my neckline and flashed them the other bruise before releasing the material. It clearly hadn’t been enough of a demonstration, because Noah stepped forward and unceremoniously yanked down my shirt again.

Noah and Quillan seemed riveted to the mark, while Cabe watched my face. He looked like he was feeling a little sorry for me now, but he certainly wasn’t intervening.

“It’s not going to grow legs and walk away,” I said dryly.

Noah quickly released my shirt and stepped away, averting his eyes. Quillan had half of his face buried in one of his hands and his shoulders heaved with a deep breath.

“Will someone just take the picture?” I asked, plucking my phone from Quillan’s fingers and waving it around.

“Give it here,” Cabe said, snatching it off me and kneeling in front of me.

Quillan turned away, striding a few rows of seats down. Noah seemed torn, like he wanted to follow Quillan, but also wanted to keep an eye on Cabe. Since Cabe was the only one being nice to me, I ignored the others. He bent his leg and then tapped his thigh. I planted my foot where he indicated and he turned my leg from the knee so that he could get a clear shot of the mark.

Noah made another angry sound: this one caught between a snarl and something that snagged on frustration. I caught Cabe smiling again.

“You can help, if you want,” he said.

Noah seemed to think about it for a second before kneeling on the ground beside Cabe and snatching the phone off him. Cabe didn’t seem perturbed as he leaned out of the way, simply holding my leg from the knee and propping up my foot while Noah quickly snapped a photo. He handed the phone to me and then shoved my jeans into my hands.

“Thanks.” I pulled my clothes back on and quickly checked the picture before I sent it to Silas.

It showed the edge of my underwear, half of my thigh, and of course, the mark. It was also pretty clear from the angle that I hadn’t taken the photo myself.

Quillan returned to us without a word and the three of them resumed their seated positions while I waited for a reply. It was past time for Quillan’s ‘tutoring session’ to end, but we didn’t move until my phone finally vibrated, and I opened it to show them the message as I read it.

Invitation or threat?

“He’ll come tonight,” I told them, slipping my phone back into my pocket without replying to the message. “I have to go and meet Poison and Clarin before they think I’ve been abducted.”

I picked up my bag and slung it over my shoulder, heading toward the door. The messenger was out there somewhere, but he’d have to do more than quote creepy nursery rhymes if he wanted me to lie beneath that tombstone.

For the first time,
I
had foiled one of
his
plans, and I got the feeling that he was still reeling from the fact that I had returned to Maple Falls after only a night, with no collar to be found. Perhaps I had just declared war, but war was better than espionage.

War was something that I could win at.

I paced beside my bed with my heart in my throat, my palms gathering sweat and my stomach flipping over and over until I felt sick—but I didn’t stop pacing. I was in my normal pajamas and it was midnight; Cabe had already texted me twice to find out what was happening, but I had nothing to report. I had no idea how Silas had managed to break into Cabe’s room the night before, so I didn’t know whether to wait inside or on the balcony.

“Ah,” a voice spoke from the doorway. “You waited. I’m flattered.”

I spun around so fast that my hair whipped into my mouth. I quickly swiped it away, standing frozen as Silas stared at me from across the room. He leaned in the open doorway leading into the sitting room, his shoulder propped up against the frame, one booted foot crossed behind the other. His arms were also crossed, his fingers tapping unconsciously against his biceps as he watched me. His hair had grown so long now that he needed to pull it back into a knot. His beard was trimmed so that it was only slightly longer than stubble, enough to obscure whatever new scars he had gathered on the lower half of his face. I caught my breath, because I was seeing him in the light for the first time in months—conscious, at least. He was still as frighteningly beautiful as ever—just… maybe a little more frightening than beautiful now. I had always thought that the twins could have easily been models, though Silas would have eventually punched someone for telling him what to do and Quillan would simply have refused to take his shirt off for any photoshoots. I didn’t think that Silas would be able to pull off the model look anymore… but the roughness in his appearance was strangely compelling. The more he warned people away from him, the more I was drawn to him. 

“You came.” I couldn’t help the smile that caught at the corners of my mouth.

He pushed off and closed the door, walking to me and catching my chin. He pulled my head up and little sparks of heat pricked over my face as he examined each of my features.

“You didn’t give me a choice,” he grumbled. “Who the hell took that picture?”

“Not telling.”

“Don’t play games with me, angel…” he leaned forward, his eyes searing right through me. “How long do I have before my idiot brothers bust in here for an intervention?”

I opened my mouth to answer him, but found that I couldn’t voice a response. A strangled sound escaped instead and he caught it on his lips as he quickly forced my mouth to his. He barely kissed me before pulling back, his grip on my chin tightening painfully. He sucked in a breath, releasing it on a groan.

“I should never have kissed you yesterday. That was stupid. I don’t know how I’ll stop now.”

He pulled away before I could form a response, and a moment later the door cracked open. Cabe caught sight of Silas and kicked the door open fully, marching inside.

“I should pay someone bigger than you to kick your ass,” Cabe announced flippantly. “You deserve it for disappearing on us after Seph gave up everything to get you back.”

Silas grinned, crooking a brow. Apparently that was all the explanation he was going to give.

Noah followed Cabe into the room, appearing exasperated at the evidence of Silas’s smile, and Quillan came in last, pulling his twin into a hug that somehow wasn’t awkward—though Silas didn’t exactly hug him back. One of these days, I would figure out how to make Silas show affection to his own family.

“You’re all emotionally retarded,” I declared, looking from one of them to the other.

“Were we supposed to cry?” Noah asked, now smiling along with the rest of them.

It was enough that they were smiling, I supposed. That was rare enough in itself.

“I guess this is the first family meeting,” I said, ignoring Noah’s joke. “Since I’m usually excluded from your meetings and you can’t call it a family meeting unless I’m there.”

Cabe chuckled, tossing an arm over my shoulder. “Don’t get too big for your boots now, pretty girl. Miro’s going to be holding up a finger if you try to take his position as Leader of the Free World.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I turned to Quillan, “did you want the opening speech for yourself?”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” he returned, sounding entirely serious—though I could discern the glimmer of humour in his dark eyes. “So first thing’s first… Silas, you asshole, you’re not a bounty hunter. The messenger isn’t a target on your hit-list. You can’t slink off into the night and take him down all on your own. You’ll get arrested by the human police or prosecuted by the Klovoda. We do this as a unit—
without breaking any laws
—or we don’t do this at all. Understood?”

Silas’s expression didn’t shift. “That was the first item? There are bigger things to discuss?”

“You know how this works. You agree first and then we move onto the second item.”

Silas scoffed quietly, moving to sit in the chair by the wardrobe. “Fine.” He waved a casual hand. “You didn’t even have anything to worry about. I haven’t figured out who he is, yet. Next?”

“No more biting.”

Silas flicked his eyes to me and then back to Quillan before he laughed. “That was more important than me getting arrested?”

Quillan folded his arms over his chest, the tension in his body building.

“I can’t,” Silas said, his eyes drawn back to me. “I’m sorry. I can’t promise that.”

“We can revert to the original rules,” Quillan countered. “Whatever you do to her, the rest of us can do. Keep that in mind.”