Page 92 of Salem’s Rise

When I first arrived in Salem’s Fall, I had no idea what the Veil was. If Silas had told me there was a secret, deadly cult and my family was one of its most powerful founding families, I would have laughed in his face and called him insane.

“I suppose not,” I admit reluctantly. Then another thought occurs to me. “But Josh found out. Didn’t he?”

“He began asking questions about your father,” he says, nodding. “About the Fourth House and the people involved in his murder. He went looking for answers alone on Veil Night.”

I think of Van then. How he’s hated me since the very first day he saw me and how he tried to kill me in the tunnels during the First Trial.

“So that’s why Van is after me. Lucien killed his parents because of my family.”

“Yes,” he says.

“And this is why you wanted to partner with me,” I say, anger rising again. “You think the Fourth House will somehow help you win?” I laugh bitterly. “Well, I don’t know anything. My father is dead. My mother can barely get out of bed, and whatever she once knew, she drank away years ago. I have no power, Silas. I’m no help to you.”

Fury flashes across Silas’s face, sudden and fierce enough to steal my breath.

“You are absolutely maddening. Do you really think I partnered with you because of the Fourth House?” He steps closer, each word clipped and controlled. “I don’t care who your father was or what power comes with your name. That isn’t why I want you beside me.”

“Silas—”

“No. I’m not fucking finished,” he says, his voice turning rough as he closes the remaining distance between us. “You are strong. You are smart. You see things everyone else misses. You survive things that should break you. You run headfirst into danger others would run screaming from.” The anger in his eyes has become something else now, something far more exposed and raw. “I don’t give a damn about the Fourth House or what it can do for me. I chose you as my partner, Mercer. Not your House. Not your family.” His voice drops. “You.”

Something inside me shifts forever, irrevocably.

I am not standing outside the world anymore, demanding to be let through a door everyone else can see. I am part of it. I’m no longer an outsider. I’m a Mercer. The Fourth House.

The feeling that I do not belong anywhere has been wrong from the beginning. Salem’s Fall has always been waiting for me to come home.

Suddenly, I’m tired of denying myself the things I want. Another trial could come tomorrow. I could die. Silas could die. Standing here with him looking at me like this, saying all the things he’s said, I can’t remember a single reason I’m supposed to stay away from him.

“Okay.”

Silas blinks, clearly thrown. “Okay?”

“Let’s keep going.”

His brow furrows. After all he’s said to me, he looks almost insulted by the simplicity of my answer. “With… the alliance?”

I step closer. “With all of it.”

Before I can second-guess myself, I push onto my toes and press my lips to his.

At first, his whole body goes stiff, like I’ve short-circuited some invisible force field he’s spent his whole life building. But then my back meets the bedroom door with a loud thud, the old wood rattling in its frame as Silas lifts me with startling speed, like he’s been dying to do this for weeks.

My legs wrap around him on instinct, and he groans low in his throat, the sound vibrating straight through me. He gathers both my wrists in one hand and holds them above my head. Something about the possessiveness of it, of being held completely at his mercy, makes heat pool low in my stomach.

“Mercer…” he rasps against my lips. Almost a plea. “What are you doing?”

“I have no idea,” I say, rocking into him, wanting to feel every inch of him against me. “Do you want me to stop?”

His breathing shifts, ragged and uneven, and there’s a war happening behind his eyes. They’re darker than I’ve ever seen them.

“You have a lot to deal with. We both do,” he says, his hands lingering on me for another moment before he reluctantly lets go and steps away. “This would be a complication neither of us needs.”

My stomach drops.

Wait—

Did I somehow read this all wrong? Is he actually trying to talk himself out of this—out of me?