As much as I inexplicably cared for Silas, I didn’t want to see Atlas dead either. The two were family, regardless of what had come between them.
“Stop!” I called. “Stop this fighting!”
A soft sigh sounded next to me. “For Fate’s sake.”
Millie shook her head as I glanced down at her.
“They’re like two puppies wrestling around in the garden.” Millie frowned. “The last time they did this, it took my poor rose bushes three decades to recover.”
“The last time?” I gaped at her.
“Brothers,” she said with a lazy shrug, like we were watching two toddlers fight over a popsicle instead of watching two godlike deities set off a series of natural disasters by screwing with the earth’s tectonic plates.
“Right,” I said finally.
“They get into it every couple of centuries or so, though I have to say, usually Atlas is the aggressor. I’ve never seen Silas so...” Millie’s gaze flicked up to me, almost sheepish. “Sopassionate.”
“Why’s he so worked up?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“I think you know.” Millie patted my shoulder. “I’m going to put on a pot of tea for when they finish. If they get near the greenhouse, sound the alarm. I am not having my propagation station wiped out. Again.”
I swallowed hard as Millie left my side, like my precious safety blanket had been taken from me. I wanted to call after her not to leave me alone with these two feral beings.
A pause in movement—Silas was perched with a knee to Atlas’s chest, blood dripping from his lip, still as a stone statue.
Then a movement from Atlas, and the two were off again.
Another pause—then a glimpse of Atlas slicing Silas’s feet out from under him. As the men fell to the ground, the earth shook, like a Mack truck had run into a nearby building and sent tremors radiating out.
Flash, flash, flash.
One brother on top, the other bleeding below.
Until finally, the two came to a pause that lasted longer than anything else.
That was when I saw the glint of a blade.
Silas held a blade to his brother’s throat. Atlas’s eyes didn’t hold a beat of concern, rather only awe and amazement.
“You’d do it for her,” Atlas murmured. “You’d do anything for her, including kill your own flesh and blood.”
“Silas,” I whispered. “Drop the knife. He is yourbrother.”
Silas glanced at me, like I’d shaken him from a daydream. Like he’d been sleepwalking through this whole thing, not truly aware of his actions. He seemed shaken to find a knife in his hand. He dropped the dagger, stepped away from Atlas.
I moved toward the two men. Atlas groaned as he pulled himself to his feet. I extended a hand to help him up. I could feel Silas’s eyes on me every step of the way, his disapproval hanging over me like a growl.
I frowned. I let go of Atlas when I was good and ready.
I turned toward Silas. “I will not be told what to do.”
Silas’s face was bloodied, but he nodded. “I didn’t say anything.”
“I can feel your disapproval.”
Atlas burst into laughter. A rollicking, gleeful belly laugh. “She’s got your number, brother.”
“And you—” I whirled to Atlas. “That’s enough from you.”
