Amos flexed his wings, visibly irate.
"She's under my protection." He forewarned, the noise reverberating from deep within his chest.
It had been some time since he'd seen the Hound.
Despite how fond he may have once been of it in the past, he could have waited another millennia.
Each pair of those crimson eyes turned to him, dimming with a sudden despondency that hadn't been present mere seconds before.
Amos prided himself when it came to his instincts. He wasn't sure what it was that evoked a stiffness in his gut, one that slowly creeped across his body. Perhaps it was a scent in the air his subconscious picked up, or his memory relying on patterns of the past to spot something inconsistent...
In the split second that passed between the now and the hounds declaration that it was here for Aura, something had happened.
He didn't dare turn his back on the canine to observe the nephilim behind him. The dog was too unpredictable, driven by forces he wasn't allowed to understand, though he wouldn't take a single chance.
Amos flexed his fingers on the hilt of his sword.
Then the sentry began to retreat.
With a unanimous regal incline of each head, a shadow cast over those beady red eyes. "Until we meet again."
Then, each muzzle tilted to the skies before exhaling a deep howl. In response came calls of the same kind, coming from different directions, some further than the others, confirming Amos' suspicions that it was not alone.
It shook its coat as though to remove the tension, then composed itself and gave one last sombre look at the nephilim standing beside him.
Its withdrawal was silent. If you blinked, you would've missed it slink into the shadows and disappear as though it had been a figment of your imagination, leaving you to question your sanity if you didn't know any better.
Almost immediately the environment changed in its absence. Despite the darkness, the air lightened. Bishi buzzed passed his ears and lorkai peaked at them from the shadows, vacant features constantly shifting, searching for a face to lure them away.
He wasn't worried about them. He bared his canines and hissed a warning.
They scattered.
It was then that he finally sheathed his sword and allowed his body to absorb its energy back into himself. It disappeared and rejoined his essence. Each weapon he harboured was an extension of himself, a weapon shaped by the intricacies of his soul. It allowed him to withdraw it from himself and conceal it whenever needed.
Only then, with his guard lowered, not down, did he turn to face Aura, who seemed to be a shade paler than she had been moments before.
He searched those violently blue eyes that stared vacantly into space as though haunted.
"Hey?" He murmured softly, confused. He took a tentative step towards her, trying to make his size seem comforting, unsure if this was her reaction to seeing the hellhound or if something else had happened.
That stiffness in his gut.
He ground his teeth when he pieced it together.
It had entered her mind.
Shown her something...
He debated prying, hesitated, and then stopped after coming to the conclusion that whenever she was ready she would tell him.
For now, all he could do was be present and give her the time she needed.
Amos reached a hand to the curve of her jaw, stroking along her cheek. Aura flinched at the contact, blinking as though breaking out of a trance.
He saw a trickle of moisture in the corner of her eye and didn't even give it time to stream before pulling her tightly into his arms. Burying a hand in her hair, he inhaled the sweetness of her scent and skimmed soothing circles against her back.
I've got you.
He didn't project the thought, so she wouldn't hear it, but he expressed it with the embracing of her body.
"So... " He teased, a smirk playing at his lips, "We gonna put some clothes on now or...?"
There was a lot to be imagined with the way he ended that sentence. But he knew her. He had always known her. He knew her mind and it was what she needed then. A smile had carved his face before he even felt her body rock with laughter.
He would destroy worlds to protect a sound so precious.
__
It wasn't long before the others found them. Fully clothed of course. Aura's gift with the air around them allowed her to dry the clothes within minutes so to preserve her dignity.
She felt clean. Her body chemistry didn't allow her to stink but nonetheless, she had made it habit to bathe on a daily basis and had broken ritual over the last few days with no access to water.
By the time the others had found them, Tanya didn't waste a second checking her for injuries and fussing over her, asking if she were okay, if they had seen the dogs that were there one second and just poof disappeared.
Aura let Amos do the talking as he filled them in, except for the part of the hound entering her mind and telling her she essentially needed to jump off a cliff. He didn't know that though. She wouldn't tell him either.
It was likely all bogus anyway.
She wouldn't let herself think about it.
She wouldn't even process it. Aura decided right then and there she was going to act as though it never happened.
She couldn't help but scoff inwardly. It almost had her with that scene in the hall. The assortment of human races for a vampires palate. That one there was creative, it really was.
She glanced at Hayden, his brown eyes and closely shaved haircut. He came from the Adam world. Surely if that were true he would've mentioned something.
The angel spaced out and let the others take the lead. It had become a unanimous decision to head for the ocean now, and Amos claimed there was a way less than an hours walk from here. So the next thing she knew, they were on the move.
The half angel, the fallen, the phoenix, the wolf and the leopard.
What a band.
One foot in front of the other. That's what she focused on. She fell into the relative rhythm, staring at her bare feet replace each other over and over again. To just keep moving.
That was what survival was all about wasn't it?
As least she would see her mermaid friend again. Her chest ached at the opportunity. How many nights had she spent at the bottom of the ocean dancing with her, a gentle reprieve from the life she was given.
"You okay?" Came the only voice that could make her chest tighten the way it did.
Aura braved a smile and turned her chin up to look into a pool of grey orbs. He was concerned. She could see it in the tightness of his eyes, the taut skin between his eyebrows.
She stopped, in turn stopping him, and reached out to touch him. Felt the slab of muscle beneath her fingertips, therapeutically grounding her in the present. "Always," she breathed.
"Sorry to interrupt your moment." Came Tanya's upbeat chirp. "But... a-hem.... When you said we were close to the sea... we didn't— w-hat?"
Aura turned away from her mate for two seconds to see what on earth Tanya could possibly be speaking about. Her jaw went slack.
She hadn't realised how long they had spent walking... or paid any attention to the changing air and the layer of salt in the atmosphere as they emerged from the forest and approached a cliff, where Hayden and Skye peaked over the edge.
The former looked looked a little grey.
Aura assessed the horizon, seeing the cliff stretch for miles on either side of her. With a deep exhale she broke away Amos and sauntered towards her leopard.
"Surely the drop can't be that bad." She wondered aloud.
When she saw it... she could only blink.
She had to stop saying things like that.
"That bad?" Tanya squeaked.
"That shit looks like straight suicide." Hayden stressed his hands through his hair. "We're supposed to jump that?"
Aura eyed the waves lapping up at the side of the cliff and then looked up at the sky. The shade of azure that touched the heavens.
It was a beautiful day.
The view was so scenic she could almost pretend everything was fine.
Then she turned to face everyone else. Even Skye was eyeballing Aura as though a notion like jumping was ridiculous.
"How do we even know we won't be going into straight rock?" It wasn't long until Hayden became accusatory to her mate, "This was your plan all along wasn't it... you're working for the enemy."
"I can assure you, the water is very deep." Amos drawled, a baleful glint to his eyes. "I've been here before."
"I'm not going first." Tanya retreated, holding her palms up and backing away. "No way. No way. How would the fish people even find us?"
"You should go." Hayden challenged the fallen angel, as though trying to square up to Amos despite being a head shorted than him. "You'd have to have a death wish to make a jump like that."
Maybe she was possessed but it was all ironic wasn't it? The laugh that bubbled out of her chest and got everyone's attention was hysterical. Maybe this was it.
Maybe she was losing her mind.
That damned dog. She screamed internally.
Aura stretched out her arms and closed her eyes with a locked jaw.
She paid no mind to the others screams of protest when she fell back and well... dropped.