Never Too Late

[Oriena]

Though he arrived in a halo of flame, Ori glowered to see he was still on his fucking feet and decidedly did not need her help – although perhaps it was for the designation of avenging angel, which she certainly didn’t care for. Nox moved like a wounded animal though, and it stayed whatever notions of retaliation flickered behind her eyes, if not the way they narrowed in a scowl at him as he drew closer. Her fists tightened, biting back provocation of the beast she was always trying to entice out of him. It didn’t stop the shiver of desire, not for him (he looked like shit), but for the moment itself, even in her own fury. Or maybe because of it. His lips scorched like a furnace. But it was the low cadence of his voice which seduced. The words he spoke.

She didn’t know what a rougarou was, nor cared to ask the question. As he turned away she only followed up the staircase. It was clearly vengeance; what she could see of Nox’s injuries from behind, they were not the fresh sort inflicted in a fight, and the heat of his skin suggested a deep-set fever. She didn’t know exactly how long he’d been missing. Long enough for Sage to worry, she supposed. Ori waited in the threshold as he entered a child’s room, with half an ear on the hallway behind for any warning noise. The house could not be empty. But anyone foolish enough to approach now would feel the unceremonious brunt of the power lighting Oriena up from within. The same went for anyone foolish enough to attempt escape while Nox was preoccupied. For inside the room, she saw a child in a cage, and her expression had flattened.

She made no attempt to stop Nox during what unfolded in those scant moments. Ori uttered not one word, though had he hesitated she would have told him to do it. She didn’t think the boy’s pleas for death would leave her brain anytime soon, nor the sight that she nonetheless did not blink away from as the beaten body slumped. For the rest she helped without question, though all the screams were human. The power raged through her, and she was deaf to the humanity. No one left here deserved sympathy. But by now the smoke was thickening, and Nox looked dead on his feet. It had to be him supporting the mansion’s structure, and she had no desire for either of them to die if he pushed himself to passing out. It was time to go. She’d shove him about bodily if she had to.