Touch of Flame

Malachi watched the blood dripping from Ravina’s hands and he couldn’t deny that it did hurt him even when it didn’t seem to hurt her. Coming back here, seeing the devastated and tortured look in his brother’s eyes and being reminded of his sister gave him the strength to resist whatever pull this woman was trying to use against him.

Malachi hadn’t wanted to believe it. He didn’t want to believe that she would go so far as to torture him using this weakness against him because then… then what would be of him? What was he supposed to do than to tear himself away from the part that identified her as his breedmate and live like a crippled man for the rest of his life? No, not crippled. He would be mentally deformed.

Well, now she made him believe. The moment he saw her on the rooftop, even if he was freed from death, he already died inside. He was doomed to the same fate as his sister and it hurt him even more now because now he knew just how much pain she had endured. How much torture she was put through.

How could he have forgotten that while chained? How could he even for a moment, see this woman in any other light?

Turning around he went back inside not wanting to see any more of her. He was ashamed of himself, of the way he was while a prisoner. He had actually thought of giving in. Or perhaps just punishing her back a little and then making her his. Now, he was sick by all of it.

It must have been all the sedatives and other things injected into him and all the blood taken from him that clouded his judgment. Otherwise, he was nothing but an animal following his instinct.

As he sat at the table, his mother walked into the room. “Malachi.” She probably came from talking some sense into his brother and now she was here to talk some sense into him.

“Are you going to let this continue?”

“Yes.”

“She is your breedmate.”

“We are not mated.”

She walked across the distance and came to stand at the end of the table. “I am sure you have endured a lot in their hands but I told you not to go there.”

“I wish I had listened.” He admitted.

His mother frowned.

“Oh Malachi,” she looked at him pained. “What happened has happened now. You can make it right.”

“Mah! I did not bring her here by force. You can tell her to leave now, she won’t. She is here, knowing she is my breedmate. Does that remind you of something?”

Tears wet her eyes. “It doesn’t have to be that way.” She was in denial. “She could be different.”

He chuckled, feeling devastated. “She is not, Mah! Do you think it didn’t cross my mind? Do you think I had not deeply wished and prayed she would be different as much as that pained me because not being different would hurt even more?”

His mother blinked to hold back the tears.

“I kept hearing father’s words. He was right all the time.”

His mother shook her head, now a tear falling down her cheek.

“They don’t feel it as we do. They don’t feel it at all. I was chained, sleeping while standing sometimes like a horse, starved to the point I could not heal. I was poked with all kinds of things you can imagine, drained of my blood, and injected with so many things that I couldn’t tell sometimes if it was day or night. She kept coming to me and she felt none of it. Nothing! Do you need more proof than that?”

His mother remained quiet as another tear fell.

“In fact, she shot me, took my blood at some point and studied me, studied about our kind, and came down there to taunt me about being my breedmate. I think this should be enough proof.” He ran his fingers through his hair feeling distraught. “Otherwise the fact that she is here should be proof enough. Now she isn’t just taunting. She planned to release me so she could come here and exploit the very thing that is sacred to us.”

His mother’s hands clenched at the sides of her body.

Malachi felt tears burn in his eyes and he chuckled as a way to fight them back. This whole thing was ironic. His mother wiped away her tears.

“It is enough. Your sister is gone. I don’t want to lose you too, so please Malachi, leave her behind and try to… give her a chance.”

“Mah!” He rose hastily from his seat. “Did you not hear anything of what I said?” He couldn’t believe her.

“I heard you! But what can I do? What should I tell you? To keep hurting her and hurt with her?”

He clenched his jaw, his whole body trembling with fury. “You think I will hurt less by accepting her? She is a clever woman, mah and she lives up to her name, while Amal… I can still hear her screams in my sleep.”

This was the first time he was admitting it to his mother. He had wanted to protect her from that pain. The one he couldn’t protect his sister from.

She sucked in a deep breath and her chest remained expanded as if she held her breath. Malachi regretted saying it out loud but his anger got the best out of him. He had been suffocating holding it inside.

“It is my fault. Saul is right. I thought I was saving her from becoming a breeder and I thought she would be better of with her breedmate. Even if he turned out to be human, that was much more worse. I gave her away to the enemy.”

“Stop Malachi!” She buried her face in her hands, crying.

“Now you are telling me to give myself away? To the one you already know intends to hurt me.”

Unable to see the pain he caused her, he walked away before he said it all. All that was rising to his throat. He would just taint his mother’s soul.

Malachi rushed outside, transformed, and flew far away, Then he sat alone on top of a mountain allowing the cold wind to cool his rising temperature, but now that he allowed those memories to resurface he could not stay calm.

Amal. He had only wanted his sister to be happy. He had not wanted her to be a breeder. Never did he think that her breedmate… would hurt her to such an extent. It did not exist in their world. It was impossible.

He had already been suffering thinking of her pain, of how much she must have endured to end her own life. He was only enduring a fraction of it, also having found his breedmate in a human that intended to hurt him, yet it pained him so much. Perhaps his life was fated to end the same way.