Page 81 of Vows of Silence

Fitted black suit, worn with perfection.

And that intense stare that had me shrinking back—although it wasn’t from fear. It was just a really intense stare.

I chuckled under my breath, half from relief, half from my own silly thoughts, and smiled at Silas.

“Morning! I, err… well, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so I just… well, I just stayed here,” I finished, feeling absolutely pathetic.

I noticed that today he didn’t have breakfast with him. He didn’t have supplies, water, or anything else. It was just him.

For some reason, that made me feel… weird. Wrong, almost.

Christ, Isabelle, you’re verging on some fucked up trauma bond, Stockholm syndrome here! You don’t need him to fucking feed you like a caged animal!

Didn’t I?

What did I need? Because none of this felt okay.

This felt… well, it felt like a husband coming to collect his wife, ready to start the day. It felt intimate. The kind of intimacy that came from years of familiarity and routine.

Domesticity.

Silas tilted his head at me, noting my discomfort, and then silently his arm raised, gesturing for me to follow him into the hallway.

My response was visceral.

I flinched, pulling backward, every nerve ending I possessed screaming at me not to follow him. I didn’t feel as though I were in danger, but I knew on some deeper level that following him out of this room, sharing breakfast with him in his dining room, would cement something I wasn’t entirely sure of.

Silas’s head jerked back slightly, his arm falling as his fists clenched at his sides. For a second, the room filled with the sound of his breathing beneath the mask, harsher now, like he were forcing himself not to react.

He was getting angry, and I was powerless to do anything about it. Because even knowing my reaction displeased him, I couldn’t bring myself to walk forward and accept his invitation to leave.

As if I should even require an invitation for fuck’s sake!

Something flashed in my mind—a memory of a film I had watched as a child. The Beast had roared, “If she doesn’t eat with me, she doesn’t eat at all!”

The Beast hadn’t been angry. Not really. He’d been hurt by Belle’s rejection, and he’d lashed out the only way he was capable of.

He punished her, because he didn’t know how to process his emotions, and she didn’t know how to handle him.

I, however,Isabelle, did know how to handle my beast.

So before his anger could take root any further, I took a deep breath, opened my mouth, and was honest.

“I’m feeling a little overwhelmed here, Silas. Could I—I mean… would it be possible to eat breakfast up here? In my room?” I locked eyes with him then. “With you?”

Silence I had expected. Silence was familiar. What I hadn’t expected was no communication at all.

His fists didn’t unclench, his head didn’t tilt, he didn’t stride towards me, his breathing didn’t change. He gave me none of his usual signs that I had said the right or wrong thing.

Instead, he turned on his heel and closed the door behind him, leaving me on my own.

Thanks to my new digital clock, I was able to see that exactly fifteen minutes passed before the door was opening again. I turned, expecting to see Silas, and instead was met with maid after maid, each carrying something new.

I watched as they transformed the small area near my bed, bringing in a round table and two chairs, which had a single rose placed on top of it in a glass jar.

They brought in cushions for the chair, coffee, tea, a teapot filled with hot water, and everything else to make a perfect brew. Then came the food itself—cereals, toast, jams, croissants, bagels, sausages, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes… more than I could keep track of, with new dishes appearing every few seconds until the small sitting area looked more like a luxury hotel breakfast than a prisoner’s room.

I did pause to wonder how Silas had commanded all of this. He didn’t speak to anyone, so how had all of these maids known what he wanted?