Chapter 58

Chapter 58
Talia

I scream when Silas’ fist connects with Tristan’s jaw, blood spurting out of his mouth as his head snaps to the side and a grunt leaves his lips. There’s tense silence for a moment afterwards, no one move, no one speaks, the air feels thick with anger.

There’s too much of it in the air, too much frustration and fury all mixed together in an explosive sort of way, it had to boil over eventually, and I was witnessing just how quickly a fight can escalate between two alphas who have the same temper.

Goddess above, what do I do?

How do I stop them from tearing each other apart?

Tristan slowly turns towards Silas, his expression murderous. “You shouldn’t have done that.” He says in a low voice, almost too low for anyone to hear, even with our wolves.

Silas laughs coldly, the sudden sound making me jump out of my skin. “I shouldn’t have done that? You are the one who shouldn’t have provoked me.”

I step forward again, trying my best to defuse the situation before it can get any worse. “Let’s just take a moment and breathe.” I say, “this doesn’t have to turn into a fist fight.”

Tristan laughs this time, the sound hollow, forced. “It’s too late for that, he punched me and you want to defend him?”

“I’m not defending anyone.” I protest, my legs trembling. “I just want you both to stop, please.”

Neither listen to me, they’re too busy staring each other down, one waiting for the other to strike. It’s too tense, it’s too much and I’m going to drown in my own panic.

Tristan smiles so suddenly that I flinch, unable to help it, and a second later he’s throwing his fist towards Silas’ face, towards the exact place he was punched only minutes ago.

I hear myself scream, and I try to intervene by getting between them, but Zade pulls me back, getting me out of harms way a mere second before all hell breaks loose.

“You have to let them do this.” Zade tells me softly, holding me back so I don’t get in the way.

“I have to stop them before they hurt each other.” I cry, tears sliding down my cheeks.

My body has gone straight into panic mode, the same way it used to before my father whipped me bloody. My body is screaming at me to run, but my head is screaming at me to stay.

A small, very small part of me knows that they need to do this, there can be no meditation until they do. But my heart is telling me that this is all wrong, that this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

Neither wants the other to be mated to me, or have their marks on my skin, but it’s too late for that now. I wear both their marks, nothing will change that, even if they want it to be torn from my flesh.

“If you intervene, you’ll be hurt.” Zade tells me, his voice still soft, “you need to let them fight it out, that is what alphas do.”

The patience this man has is more than anything I’ve known before, he looks just like my father, with hints of the woman who raised him. But he is nothing like the man who raised me, he may look the part, but he grew up somewhere else. Somewhere my father couldn’t get to him.

In a way I’m grateful for that, because Zade sees exactly what kind of monster my father is, and he wants to stop him, not just for me, but for Aria.

But I also know that he will never understand the pain I have been through, or the way that our father treated me because I was born female not male. He can never understand because he hasn’t lived it.

He never dealt with the fear or the pain, he was never locked away and beaten for looking at a man. I was. I lived that life for eighteen years, and the only outlet I had was Aria. She saved me when I thought all was lost. If it wasn’t for her, I never would have escaped.

I would have never had the courage to run if it weren’t for my sister, she gave me strength when I needed it, and in return I gave her love. I’ll never forget that, and I’ll never let her experience the years of harm that I did.

She already bares enough scares because of what he did to her, never again. Never again will I let him hurt either of us.

I don’t fight Zade’s hold anymore, I try to relax and just watch the chaos as it unfolds around me, but my heart won’t stop thumping in my ears, and my chest feels like someone is sat on top of it. I feel like I’m being crushed from the inside.

I can’t breathe.

The world is spinning.

Zade pulls me towards a chair and pushes it to the far wall, away from the fighting before he sits me down, his eyes soft, caring. Nothing like the man he resembles.

“Breathe little sister.” He whispers, showing me how to take a deep breath. “That’s it.” He says when I mimic his actions, “well done, keep going. You’re doing great.”

After a few minutes my heart rate begins to calm down, and I can breathe almost normally again, but the anxiety doesn’t leave me. Especially when I can hear the sound of knuckles hitting flesh.

I turn to look and see that both men are covered in blood, they harbour many wounds each, a testament to how alike they actually are. They are a match for each other, a perfect opposite. But they don’t see it.

Zade catches my chin, “don’t look at them, look at me.”

I follow his instructions, though I feel more like a scolded child than a woman fighting her own demons.

I hate fighting, I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable around it.

But my brother is right, they need to do this.