"Speak your mind."
Amos' tone was flat as he regarded Aura with an unreadable expression.
"Is that really necessary when you can hear my thoughts?" Aura sighed leaning against the wall beside her bed.
"I'm giving you the option to choose what you want me to know," he responded.
Aura glanced at him from the corner of her eye, too tired to care as he slowly lowered himself to sit beside her feet.
Alone in her room, he'd revealed himself to her again. She didn't know if she would ever get used to the sight of him...
Clearing her thoughts Aura blushed furiously and burned her gaze through her hands. Focusing instead on how she'd ended up back in her room.
Tanya found the Alpha in no time. When he got to the scene, Aura didn't need to have her powers to feel the agony that ripped through his core, despite his impressive ability to stay collected. He merely stood there for a few moments in silence before coming toward the mate he shunned and crouched by her head, pausing to tentatively stroke her short hair.
'Leave.' He'd said, his voice was quiet. The angel had barely stepped through the threshold when the alpha ordered her to return to her room and stay there.
Aura did as she was told, but she didn't miss the crack in his voice. Her heart broke for him.
Rayne.... though she was by far among the least pleasant of people to be around, she didn't deserve to be mutilated. To have her entrails scattered on the ground like that.
The angel took a sharp intake of breath and closed her eyes. "Despite the person she was... I don't ... she didn't... there is something humiliating about having your body parts scattered and insides loose like that."
"But you would do that to a demon?" Amos countered, leaning back on his elbows. "If given the chance you would do the same thing to a devil."
Aura paused. "But they don't deserve mercy in death—"
"Says who?" Amos interrupted. The storm in his eyes seemed to intensify as they pierced through hers with a silent question he didn't say. "Rayne, if given the option could be no better than a lower demon. She had... perverse interests and an unsettling thirst for blood. Of course she has part of their heritage somewhere along her bloodline due to what she is but regardless, what makes her worthy of a dignified death, yet not a creature of hell?"
"Demons are soulless, emotionless beasts-"
"Are they?" He interrupted again.
"We're talking about the same thing right?" She asked, her features scrunching.
Amos shrugged, "I believe anyone is capable of love. No matter how bad they might seem as individuals, that shows presence of soul and emotion."
She wanted to argue with him, refusing to believe that the people who tore her home apart were capable of love. "Even those who slaughtered thousands of innocents?"
Amos looked away. "We're no better Hakkeesee. We've killed too."
All life is equal, was something her father would say to her, years ago.
In her core, Aura understood. She could argue as much as she wanted but deep down she knew.
All were capable of love, whether it be over something minuscule, or something important. But then, who was she to judge who's love mattered more.
It wasn't her place.
"They have done terrible things, to be where they are now," Amos continued, referring to the damned, "But it's not up to us to decide what someone deserves in death. As a warrior, I kill because it's my duty, there may be times where I desire nothing more than to deliver a treacherous death but that doesn't mean it's right. Again, I'm not always prone to doing the right thing."
He finished his sentence with a ghost of a smile, and if Aura didn't know better, unease would pool in her gut. "Don't make a face like that." She grumbled, kicking his hip with the balls of her feet.
He shuffled slightly, his grin widening, "Does it scare you?" He leaned towards her like a predator, twisting to rest a hand on either side of her waist.
Aura looked down at him, her brows tugged into a frown. "Impossible."
"Liar." His lips stretched further into a breath taking grin. For a second it was all she could focus on, the chaos outside feeling like yesterday's problems.
In that moment, Aura was hyper aware of her developed body. Her mind zeroed onto the hand at her waist, her breath hitching.
"Again. Impossible." She muttered absently, knowing full well if she were to ever lie her soul would pay the price for it as an angel.
She jerked in surprise at the sudden weight on her stomach.
Amos had decided to rest his head below her breasts, his arms wrapping around her torso.
"What are you doing?" She blushed.
"You looked so comfortable I couldn't help myself." He mumbled against the material over her skin.
Just a few hours ago he was hesitant to touch her, and now he pressed himself flush against her as though she were a comfort toy.
Aura didn't complain.
Not even as he shuffled to lay between her legs so his lower body was on the mattress.
"I'm not entirely sure what this is but it can't be decent."
Amos didn't respond.
Absently, her hand seemed to travel to the curls atop his head, her fingers combing through them tenderly. Her other arm instinctively reaching for a broad shoulder.
It was so peaceful, if given the choice she would stay like this forever.
Something touched her about the way his long lashes fanned his cheeks with his eyes shut. That despite his enormous size and what he was capable of, this rare display of vulnerability made him appear so innocent.
It was crazy. This was the one who had protected her all these years, had her back from the moment she opened her eyes to a new bedroom as a little girl.
He had comforted her in her dreams, spent countless nights consoling her when she felt lonely, protected her at every turn and never once told her why.
And yet, even though he'd been with her throughout the entire duration of her stay in this realm... she often felt like she'd known him for longer. As though she had always known him. The more she tried to concentrate on the feeling, her memory would flash to familiar reds and greens before sparking with pain.
It was like the answer to her unspoken question was on the tip of her tongue, at her fingertips yet just out of reach.
Oddly enough, in another life with the years he'd spent watching her grow, he should feel like a brother— or some kind of guardian.
Yet not once did he ever feel like that to her. Markus filled in the role of adoptive father, but Amos? With this... magnificently terrifying creature resting on her stomach, it was different.
It was something raw.
Maybe she didn't need to understand it. Maybe she needed to just accept and thank the Lord for offering her this friendship.
That was what it was right?
She drifted off to sleep before she could ponder on it further........
~
The two angels jerked awake at the sound of a roar.
Trinkets on her desk rattled metallically against the quaking ground, for a moment, everything shook.
Skye had been guarding her door from the second they'd returned to her room in case anyone tried to come for her. The leopards following warning growl indicated that that was exactly what was happening.
Amos wasted no time.
While he was a blur shooting to his feet, Aura blinked against the dim light of the candles on her desk, trying to settle her disoriented mind as she tried to snap awake, stumbling off of the bed.
She met him at the now opened the door in time to catch Skye chasing after a retreating figure.
Aura was about to open her mouth until Amos pressed a finger to his lips, using the same finger to then gesture towards the opposite side of the hallway where Skye pursued the intruder.
She only turned her gaze in time to catch a glimpse of the approaching silhouettes before Amos pushed her back inside the room, closed the door and locked it behind him.
They'd used someone as bait to lure Skye away from her.
Unease settled in Aura's gut.... it shouldn't be that easy. Skye should have been able to scent the others.
Blocked by a thick sinewy arm, Aura made a strangled noise in protest until Amos interrupted her, his eye blazing, "We saw what happened to Rayne, you know someone made it through the wall. Let me deal with this." His voice rumbled with quiet rage. "It's my duty to protect you."
Aura was too stunned to respond, only the banging fists against her door snapping her out of her stupor.
"A-" The scathing look he sent her way silenced her.
The banging came again, this time with so much force the door groaned against it. "Come out you bitch." Amber.
An animalistic growl coated her words, "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. They will see. One way or another they'll SEE I was right."
She just doesn't give up.
Amos frowned, if Aura didn't know any better she would have mistaken the look that crossed his features for a split second as confusion. He snapped out of it quickly and stalked towards the door, diligently lifting the latch to unlock it.
"You've got ears princess—" Amber had expected to see the slender angel on the other side of the door.
Instead she was subjected to the suddenly very visible, 6'9 giant.
At her height she came up to his stomach, it was almost comical watching her crane her neck to see his face, her features contorted with shock.
The surprise caused her minions behind her to stumble.
As shifters, they could sense the undercurrent of raging power leaking from his pores.
"As a matter of fact, I do." He responded cooly. "You'd be surprised at how much I can hear."
Amos was a blur, closing his hand around Amber's throat and herding the six others behind her further away from Aura like sheep. She didn't even see when he'd taken out his dagger, only when he pressed it against the lioness' throat, a bead of blood dripping onto his knife which seemed to glow in appreciation. "I could kill you right now. Give me a reason not to."
Although Aura couldn't see much past his back, she felt the fear of his adversaries lick against her skin with static energy,
Despite the circumstances, Markus would have been embarrassed by the cowardice had he been there to bear witness. "She- they only want the angel, they'll leave the rest of us alone," you could hear the tears and desperation in her voice, the snot gathering at her nose.
The others weren't much better.
At that moment, Amos unfurled the wings on his back, obsidian against the shadows. A deafening boom echoed across the hall as they slammed against either side of the walls. The sheer length threatened to swallow everyone whole.
Aura cringed, mercy on the tip of her tongue. It was what forced her through the threshold in hopes to save them from his wrath.
They weren't worth it, she wanted to say.
Maybe she would have been able to, to say anything had she noticed the approaching shadow. Maybe, if she had taken a moment to pay attention to how rancid the air felt around her, thick and sticky against her bare arms. Distracted, she realised a second too late.
She barely had time to inhale before chains whipped across her throat, closing behind her. It was so fast no one had time to register what was happening as she was forced to the ground.
Her surroundings blurred passed her as her infernal capture dragged her kicking and screaming across the floor with inhuman speed, scraping and bruising her bare skin.
An eerie chuckled rang against her ears.
"Not so clever now."