Indigo's Owl [Indigo Rewrite]

Chapter 35 - Stronger than Wrath

"This time," she said, her voice tight, restrained. She pressed down, choking the Warden beneath her boot. "But I'm going to make sure there isn't a next time."

There's Sloth gas in the room, whispered the feather-and-wind voice again, each word a little more distant than before. The dome cracked. You need to get her out. The longer she's in here, the harder it'll be to—

The voice cut off.

Shift glanced at the dome, seeing the spiderwebbed cracks and recognising the faint lavender scent for what it was.

He didn't have time to think about what it meant that he'd inhaled it, if he'd end up like the people in the rooms upstairs. His only job right now was to get Athira out of this room, because if he didn't, she was going to kill the Wardens — and even if a part of Shift was convinced they deserved it, that small measure of vengeance wasn't worth the cost of Athira's guilt.

"Thira, stop," said Shift, reaching for her arm. "We have to get out. There's—"

"I told you already," she hissed, shaking him off as soon as his fingers touched her skin. For the first time, she turned to look at him, taking her boot off the Warden's throat. "Anything—and right now, that means sending a message that every, single one of these idiots will never forget."

Shift found himself staring back at her, realising that there was nothing he could say that could soothe her anger. He couldn't even tackle and pin her like he had in the training room on the first day — at least not without puncturing a lung and passing out in the process.

Yet they stood here now because she'd trusted him enough to come back to base and tell Indigo the truth, to fall asleep beside him with her head over his heart. They stood here with the Wardens half-dead on the floor, because in a rage so blinding that even Talon couldn't get through to her, Athira had protected him.

Shift refused to believe anger had anything to do with that.

Unable to come up with another way to prove it, Shift grabbed Athira's face and kissed her.

He held her as tightly as he dared, palms either side of her jaw, his thumbs brushing beneath her mask to stroke gently over her cheeks. He expected her to pull away, to shove him back, but it didn't matter — he just needed to get her attention for a moment, to give her a chance to snap out of it and realise—

Athira began to kiss him back.

Her lips moved slowly against his — uncertain, almost — as her fingers curled tight in the crook of his elbow. A soft gasp mingled her heated breath with his as she leaned up into him, pressing herself closer, claiming his mouth with hers. Shift slid a hand behind her head, threading his fingers through her hair as she grabbed the fabric on the front of his torso, holding him against her, until—

Shift pulled back with a hiss of pain as her hand pressed against the tender spot on his side. "Ow. Almost forgot about that for a moment."

Athira stepped back, a new kind of hesitant concern in her movements. "Did I hurt you?" Her hesitation sank beneath a predatory stillness. "Did they—"

"I'm fine," said Shift quickly. "Just sore. But there's Sloth gas leaking into this room. We need to leave."

"Sloth gas?" she said, her head turning towards the cracked glass of the dome. Her fingers curled into a hard fist at her side. "He—"

"No," said Shift, wrapping his hand around hers. "We need to leave, and right now, I'm not sure I can walk more than a few steps without your help."

Athira took a long, drawn-out breath, and after a tense moment, she released it along with a shake of her head.