Page 82 of Vows of Silence

But then I figured Silas was intimidating enough, and after all these years of not talking, he would have been able to command his staff easily enough.

And all the while, amidst the chaos, Silas stood in the doorway, his intense, dark stare following them all, making sure they fulfilled their role exactly as he wanted.

When they left, each and every one of them shrank as they brushed past him, curling in on themselves as though he terrified them.

Leaving just me and Silas, and the feast he had prepared for me.

For a few long seconds, neither of us moved.

I stared at the table. At the ridiculous amount of food. At the rose sitting in the middle of it all, like this was some bizarre breakfast date instead of whatever the hell this situation actually was.

And through it all, Silas remained standing silently in the doorway, watching me.

My chest tightened unexpectedly.

Just like the original Beast, he’d been scared of rejection. I knew that as certain as I knew the sky was blue.

Beneath the scary exterior, Silas needed reassurance that someone—anyone—cared.

Him leaving hadn’t been a punishment at all. It had been a response to my discomfort. I’d asked to stay in my room, and instead of forcing me downstairs or getting angry, he had transformed the space around me to accommodate what I needed. Somehow that felt far more intimate than if he had simply brought up a tray of food like before.

Slowly, I looked back towards him, taking in the black suit, the silver mask, the gloved hands resting calmly at his sides. He looked exactly the same as always, and yet something about him felt different today.

Less controlled. Less confident.

Though how I knew that without seeing his face was anyone’s guess. But I did. Maybe it was because I was beginning to understand him. Or maybe it was because he was beginning to let me.

“You did all this because I got overwhelmed?” I asked quietly.

The silver mask tilted slightly.

Yes.

God, this was dangerous.

“You know this is how Stockholm syndrome starts, right?” I muttered, mostly to myself, as I crossed the room slowly. “A traumatised girl gets kidnapped by a terrifying man who feeds her pastries and buys her flowers until she loses what little sanity she had left.”

Silas’s shoulder jerked once beneath his suit jacket.

A silent laugh.

“I get the feeling you wouldn’t be too upset with that outcome,” I told him, and then sat down at the table, not waiting for his response.

I’d let him sit on that little tease for a moment.

Another sharp huff of breath escaped beneath the mask, and despite everything—despite the manor, the kidnapping, the dead bodies undoubtedly piling up somewhere downstairs—I felt my mouth threatening to smile.

This man was going to psychologically destroy me.

“You can sit down,” I told him after a second. “I did ask you to stay.”

For the first time since returning to the room, he hesitated.

It was brief. So brief most people probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all. But I saw the subtle tightening of his shoulders, the slight flex of his fingers at his sides before he finally crossed the room towards me.

And suddenly the atmosphere changed again. The bedroom had felt safe before. So much so that I hadn’t wanted to leave.

Now it felt intimate.