Touch of Flame

*Triggering Content*- no details included.

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Once Malachi went back home, his brothers were waiting for him, gathered in the supreme hall. He knew what this meant and he had expected it. Saul was the eldest brother after him, then came Joel, Kenan, and Aaron.

“Can we talk now without involving mother?” Saul stepped forward with a grim look on his face. “What do you intend to do with the human?”

“I am keeping her to get hold of the inventions,” Malachi said.

His brother tilted his head to one side. “Then shall I keep her for you?”

Malachi felt the rage burn in him despite knowing that his brother was just hurt and was trying to hurt him back. “I will take care of those matters.”

Saul stepped closer. “I really hope brother, that you have no intention of making that human our queen, because if you do, I won’t only challenge your position with words.”

Malachi frowned. “You want to go that far?”

“Yes!” His brother raised his voice. “I will go that far. If you can’t do your first and foremost duty which is to protect our people then I will have to step in.”

Not wanting to fight Saul and knowing that he was deeply hurt by the loss of his breedmate and child to the humans, he looked at his other brothers. Joel and Kenan took Saul’s side. Only Aaron looked stood somewhere in the middle.

Malachi clenched his jaw. His breedmate was already causing division in his family. She would rejoice at this.

“Don’t push me, Saul,” Malachi warned.

“You have already pushed me, Malachi. Many times and I have kept my eyes and my mouth shut but no more. These kinds of mistakes never happened when father was alive.”

“You stood beside me against father, so don’t make it sound like it was all me.”

“I stood beside you because I believed you could do better.” He spat. “And despite all your mistakes and all the lives it cost, I still stood by your side. We all did but enough is enough!” He yelled, his face twisting and his eyes burning. “I will not sacrifice more of our people. Not even to your breedmate.” He then said calmly.

“You know why she is here, Malachi,” Joel spoke.

“I know,” Malachi said hating it deep to his core.

“I know it hurts and I hurt for you brother, but it will hurt more if you fall for it again,” Joel told him with utmost sympathy.

“I already said, I am keeping her for the inventions.”

“I don’t care about the inventions,” Saul said. “Not if it means she stays here and you get more attached to her and she lures you into her trap.”

“You really show trust in me.”

“I am sorry if I don’t from your past actions.”

Malachi was completely heartbroken by this hostility from his brother. Kenan put a hand on Saul’s shoulder to stop him. Saul pushed his hand away.

“No. Let’s settle this once and for all.” He said, looking at him pained yet angry. “I think we need to do that. I think I need to say it out loud so we are pulled out of this fantasy we live in.”

“Saul, please stop!” Aaron told him.

“No. You will listen too.”

Malachi prepared himself for what he was about to hear.

“Your brother here,” He said turning to Aaron. “Believed in peace between us and the humans. He convinced us all and we stood by his side.”

Aaron shook his head, not wanting to hear it. He already knew most of it, just not the details.

“He then took our sister…” His voice became thick.

Malachi became sick. “Say it! Say. It!” He yelled. They all blamed him in silence anyway so why not just say it?

Saul’s eyes trembled. “I just hope the same doesn’t happen to you. I see you are already attached to her and it hurts to see you like that.”

“I don’t need you to hurt for me.”

“You think you will be able to get away from her because you are a man? You fool yourself. The fact that she is here and can blatantly say that she will become our queen already says something about you.”

It did? He scoffed.

“Then maybe I should just make her our queen.”

Saul punched him hard in the face causing his head to swing to one side. Joel and Kenan tried to hold him away but he was raging, almost transforming so he pushed them away so hard, that they fell on each side. Then he threw himself on him.

Malachi fell back and Saul sat on top of him landing another punch. “Then do it!” He yelled punching him again. “Do it so I can have a good reason to kill you.” Another punch.

Malachi didn’t defend himself. He let his brother release his anger as he yelled at him and punched him until he couldn’t feel his face anymore and Saul got tired. Malachi wished his brother could just kill him instead of keep blaming him but that would hurt him too. He could already see his eyes glistened with tears from all of this.

“If you allow such thing, then you are dead to me Malachi. Dead.” He said removing himself away. He looked down upon him and then walked away.

Malachi just lay on the floor, blood seeping from his whole face as he listened to his brothers leave. Where they already done?

Come back! He wanted to yell.

“Malachi!” Suddenly he heard his sisters scream again. Oh no! He covered his ears but she kept calling him. “Help me! Malachi!”

His tears mixed with all the blood streaming down his face. He should have died that day. The day when he took his beautiful sister to her groom, helped her escape the cruel fate her thought their father decided for her, and took her with his own hands to her death and destruction.

His brothers hated him because they felt as guilty. He had convinced them to help him take Amal to her groom, and then…

He remembered how after he was shot with an immortalizer, he lay on the floor, unable to control his body, slowly losing consciousness while his sister cried for help in the background.

He couldn’t see her clearly, he tried to see her, fight to get up and help her but he could only hear. He could hear the laughter of her groom and his friends and the cries of his sister while they defiled her. While she cried for his help and he… he could just listen. And when the horrifying screams ended….

Malachi felt the air get knocked out of his lungs as he remembered the state he found his sister in when he regained consciousness. The men didn’t kill him as if knowing he would rather have it that way than to see his sister like that. Chained, naked, covered in blood….

He got up feeling nauseous and hurried outside to relieve his stomach. But he ate nothing for two weeks so he could only vomit the acid in his stomach.

This was why he did everything for his memory not to go back to that day, but perhaps that was what he needed. Saul was right. He needed to be pulled out of the fantasy he lived in. The last time he had a fantasy… about peace… he destroyed his own sister.

“Malachi,” Aaron came back to him.

Malachi turned around to look at his youngest brother. The one who was spared the fate of taking their sister to her own death. “I don’t blame you.” He told him.

Malachi stood up, wiping away the blood and tears from his face. He wasn’t healing properly because he was still fighting the infection in his body.

“I am on your side,” he assured him.

Malachi chuckled. There were sides now?

“Is there a way I can help you?” He asked, looking at him with pity.

“You can’t!” Malachi told him.