With Hell we Raise | ✔

|10|

Orion woke before he did. It was almost as if she could sense when he would have a dark night, it was in the way he shifted restlessly in his sleep, or how he would make those pained sounds behind closed lidded frantic eyes and furrowed brows. She knew better than to wake him when he got like this, so she simply waited, her hand stroking through his hair soothingly.

Seth shot up, his eyes searching the room desperately, his fear gripped him tightly by his beating heart which threatened to tear itself right out of his ribcage. A soft, warm palm against his pants covered thigh grounded him as he found what he had been looking for. All he could see in his minds eye, was the remnants of his terror filled dream, of his uncle laughing maniacally with the bodies of his loved ones at his feet. 

He didn't pause to think, knowing that it would only make him hesitate. Instead he followed his instinct driven need to have her closer, to take from her the comfort only she could give. He pulled her into his lap, burying his face in her neck before taking a deep breath of her scent. 

It reminded him of their cottage, she smelled like the clearing there- a crisp scent, that crystalline sharpness in the air that came on a cold day, or just after the rain had fallen. He loved it; it smelled like home. She smelled like home.

For a moment, he wasn't entirely sure that she was really there, his hands biting into her hips a fraction tighter drawing blood where they became claws whilst his lips desperately sought the flesh of her neck and collarbones as if to prove to himself she really was there.

Orion straddled his lap and continued to stroke his hair gently, murmuring soft assurances that she was there and that he was okay. She barely even let out a sharp hiss at his claws, and though it hurt she knew he would hurt himself more if he found out that he had hurt her in any way. 

Seth was grateful that she didn't push, simply letting him calm himself with her presence; it was as if she knew exactly what to do to ground him. He felt him self steady, as if he had finally stepped off a tightrope onto solid ground, in waves he felt the changes as his heart slowed, his hold on Orion loosened and his claws turned back into fingernails. 

He lifted his face to meet Orion's gaze, her hands caressing his cheeks before resting on his neck. He reached up, his intention to tuck one of her newly un-braided curls behind her ear but froze at the sight of blood on his fingernails. He looked down to her hips, a new and different kind of distraught filling him. 

"I hurt you." His voice, tinged with disbelief and almost not there at all, broke the silence.  

Orion caught his hands, halfway to his head before he could bury them in his scalp. She shook her head, nudging his face with her nose tenderly. "You didn't hurt me. I'm okay." 

As if to prove it to him, she kissed him- starting by his cheek, then down his jaw and across his chin before teasing his lips. She nipped, sucked and bit at his lips gently until he finally relented and gave in to her advance, kissing her back with a groan. 

One of his hands found its way back down to her hip, snaking down to rest against her tail bone whilst the other slid its way up her spine, until his fingers were wrapped around the back of her neck, holding her in place for him to take more from her hot, delectable mouth. 

He rolled over, hovering above her, eyes full of apology as he took her lips with his once more. His hands trailed her sides until they reached to her hips, pulling back to get a better look at the damaged he had done. He tried not to be too hard on himself, to push away those thoughts that told him that he would only hurt her, that she deserved better.

The cuts were small and not at all deep, they had barely beaded any blood, mere scratches than actual cuts. To him they were cuts deep enough to prove that he was perfectly adept at destruction, that he would ruin her if she trusted him too much.