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"You think I don’t see through this?" Severin says, voice smooth, even. Controlled, but only just. "You offer a trade you have no intention of making."
"I never said I had no intention of making it," I murmur, watching the fortress, watching the window where I know they are. "Only that I was willing to discuss the terms."
Severin exhales slowly, annoyed but patient. "And what terms are those, Lucien?"
"Simple." I lift a hand, gesturing absently. "You return what is mine, and you get to walk away with your new prize. No blood spilled. No bodies left to rot in the dirt. A very civil arrangement, don’t you think?"
Severin’s gaze flickers toward Layla again. The pull is too strong, too absolute for him to ignore. And I let him sit in it. Let him drown in the weight of knowing what she is to him.
His fingers flex. His body tenses. He’s so close to saying yes.
"And if I simply take her?"
Orin hums beside me. Elias chokes on absolutely nothing.
I smile. Sharp. Slow. Cold. "Then you’ll be dead before you hit the ground."
Severin laughs under his breath. "How very like you, brother."
"It is, isn’t it?"
A pause.
A waiting game.
A moment stretched too thin.
The window shatters. Glass rains down in glittering shards. A body, a broken, flailing mass, comes hurtling out, slamming into the ground with a brutal, bone-snapping thud.
And before he can even lift his head, Silas is on him.
Malachi barely gets a breath in before fists collide with flesh, before Silas, unhinged, seething, alive with the thrill of violence, is beating the absolute shit out of him.
Severin tenses. Eyes flashing, body coiling.
I simply tip my head.
Smiling, as I watch him lose.
Silas is feral. Which, to be fair, is understandable. He’s been locked up, starved of stimulation, magic, chaos, and whatever has been done to him in that fortress has left him with too much rage and nowhere to put it.
Until now. Until Malachi.
The impact of his fists is vicious, echoing across the open space, each hit precise but unrestrained, not meant to kill, just to hurt. To punish.
And I let him have it. Let him get it out. At least for now. Luna, however, is already moving toward him. I don’t blame her. She hasn’t seen him in days, and she’s spent the last two weeks barely holding herself together. Of course she wants to go to him. Of course she wants to be reassured that he’s alive.
But I already know how this will go. Because Silas is fine.
If he weren’t, he wouldn’t be.
Oh.
There it is. Right as Luna takes another step forward, Silas glances up, mid-punch, grinning like a lunatic, and gives her finger guns. While still kicking Malachi’s ass.
Luna stops so abruptly that I almost laugh.
Severin does not look amused.