"You need to stop treating her like this!" Cillian yelled as he grabbed Fionn by the throat and hurled him across the room.
I rushed from the table and retreated to the far end of the dining room, trying to make sure I didn't end up caught in the centre of the brawl. My heart was racing. Fionn's ruthlessness frightened me the most, especially when it turned on his own brother. I knew they’d taken me but that didn’t stop the fear twisting in my chest for Cillian. He was kind and caring towards me. Was he as much a prisoner under Fionn’s rule as I was?
Torin didn’t move to help. He brushed off his sleeves, glanced at the mess, and sat back down with a shrug.
"Are you seriously not going to stop them?" I shouted, eyes locked on him. Cillian was my only ally. I couldn’t just watch him get torn apart”
"Aren't you enjoying the show?" Torin asked, pouring himself another drink with a smirk.
He stared at me over the rim of his glass. His eyes gleamed, not amused, but calculating. He lowered the wine from his lips, watching me with predatory eyes.
"Don't think about running off. You'll miss all the fun." Torin grinned, but the threat was clear. It wasn’t just a warning. It was a promise.
It felt like he’d reached into my thoughts and plucked the idea straight from them. Even though I had decided against making a break for it, I knew better than to test him. I decided it would be easier to stay close to Torin than have him grab me and drag me back. Every instinct screamed to keep my distance, but survival demanded proximity. I reluctantly made my way back to the table.
"Tilly, little darling..." He set the glass down slowly and deliberately, trying to provoke me.
"Would you like to play a game?"
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. The room was still spinning from the fight.
"It’s hardly the time for games," I said, my patience wearing thin with Torin.
"You will like this one," he replied, his voice low and laced with wickedness.
"It’s a game where our love is the prize..."
He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"But death... is the cost."
His brothers were bleeding, and Torin was inviting me into a game of love and death as if it were foreplay.
I didn’t know whether to scream or laugh, but I knew better than to do either.
He picked his drink back up, unbothered.
"You've probably surmised by now that we're not ordinary men. We're from an ancient race that existed long before civilisation touched this world. We've travelled among the stars, but Earth has intrigued us and provided us with what we need."
He cast me an appraising look.
"We came here for you. No matter what you do, there's no escaping your fate for it is entwined with ours."
The dining room doors burst open. Seraphina strode in with a furious look at the sight of the wrangling brothers.
"How dare you act disgracefully in the Rosenwacht-Halle! Stop this at once!" Her voice, powerful and unwavering, cut through the chaos, offering a momentary reprieve from the fight.
EIGHT
FORBIDDEN GIFT
Despite Seraphina's resonant command, Fionn and Cillian continued to brawl with such viciousness that I thought they'd kill each other. Torin didn't seem to care much about one or the other, and he merely sat watching with a detached amusement as though he were watching a movie at the cinema rather than witnessing a real fight.
Despite the violence, I saw no injury or blood spilt. I recalled a pub fight I'd once seen in the village. Though such disturbances were rare, there would sometimes be trouble with some of the supporters who'd consumed one too many pints after a rugby match. The fight there had been less vicious than this one by far, yet there had been blood pouring from one man's nose, and another bled from a cut above his eye, which I'm sure would have turned black the following day.
My gaze shot to the tall windows beyond the dining table. Gardens and mountains beckoned, tempting me with thefreedom I so desperately wanted to taste, but I knew any attempt to escape would be stopped long before I reached the window. If I wanted to escape from the brothers, I had to wait for the perfect moment, and I instinctively knew this moment wasn't it.
"I said stop! Now!"
