Ascension - Book Eight - Man x Man

Chapter 140

Spying the hesitation in his expression, I bump him with my hip as we make our way down the hallway. His arms crossed over his chest, he was borderline pouting and yet on the cusp of backing out. It was a side of myself I'd been pulling away from for so long to try and be in touch with my wolf, thinking about the magical half of my body was almost like exercising a muscle at this point. 

Being here wasn't comfortable for him, though I could imagine the means by which we got here weren't the cause of such uncertainty. Sampling the air around me, taking a long, slow inhale, I try and get a feel for the atmosphere but all I could sense was the weight of his presence. The crushing veil of such a powerful walking beside me, yet guarded behind the shadow of a vessel. Death hid behind the looking glass of mortality, a looming beast that set my own body on edge. 

While I didn't feel unsafe with him, there was a part of me that knew I should avoid this creature. Being in a place such as this, surrounded by corpses, we were in a sort of purgatory space here in the mortal realm. It would make sense that his ability would choose now to expel any pent-up energy that he'd been suppressing. 

In the back of my mind, my wolf circles in its cage, whimpering and pawing to take over and get far away from here. How was Alpha handling this? Didn't Randy tell me Alpha agreed with Fenrir?

"Did I take it too far?" I question, an olive branch as he slows his pace to glance through the windows of the passing doors. Grates over glass, as if it was meant to keep people in as much as it was to keep them out. It was almost eerily quiet here, save for the echo of our footsteps and the pattering of my heart. Humanity tended to lend with it the comforting dull roar of background noise. Rustling through their lives like good prey items, it was so rarely so.. quiet. 

With my voice drawing him out of his stupor, I note the chill in his breath as his lips part. Yet, there was no breath, it was the sheer iced-over fog of death's domain on the cusp of our reality. The barrier of his body was struggling to maintain its mortality. 

"Hmm?" Pulling his lips into a thin line, he shrugs lightly, "No.. I mean yes, that was absolutely absurd. But, no, I suppose I don't feel quite right. It's a lightheadedness almost, a haze.. I can think around it but I'm out of sorts." 

Curious, I carefully place my hand on his arm to instruct him to hold still, pressing my hands flush against his chest to get a sense of what lurked beneath. Reluctant, he grips my wrist only to quickly retract his touch, "Nic, I truly wish you'd stop touching me until we can understand what is going on."

Of course, he was worried about me when the cloak of humanity was practically melting off of him. 

"If you were going to kill me you would have done it last night, you touched every piece of me and you definitely weren't in control, then, either. I'm not worried about you killing me, your power is not meant to kill." I reassure him, catching the slight flush that comes to his cheeks as he shakes his head at my phrasing. 

"Keep your voice down.." he exhales, bringing a smirk to my lips. 

If I could keep him calm, it would allow us to get the information we needed and leave. 

An older man appears, looking tired behind large glasses, appearing to be in his mid forties. "So you're the celebrities that want to see dead people?" He questions, looking at us over the ridge of his glasses only to shudder and take an unwilling step back. This seems to unsettle him, as if he hadn't consented for his body to act this way, then flicking his eyes back toward us. Dark, near black in their depth of brown. 

"Yes. A friend." Verando interjects, voice hard as the accusing tone. He recites two of the names as the mortician checks his paperwork, mumbling to himself before gesturing with a tick of his head and then stepping down the hallway without another word. Verando follows after him as I quickly realize that was our cue to come along.