The Moon Will Sing

The end she's anticipating never comes. Rather than sharp and unforgiving fang and claw, it's a dark and rich laugh that brushes against Auden's chilled skin. "You're little more than a mouthful. More effort than it'd be worth." Unmistakably male, the voice is a contradictory mix of amusement and irritation. Composed of rumbling brassy tenor and roughness that catches Auden so completely off guard that she's broken from her frozen reverie, her legs wobble a little as she fights the urge to bolt into the darkness. She's not fool enough to think she'd get far if she ran. Some last bit of courage, and quickly-fading resolve convinces Auden to open her eyes. 

Half crouched under the watery, silvery glow of the moon the wolf was gone and in his place a male. The weak and watery light of the moon hardly illuminates the tight coils of muscle in his shoulders and arms, leaving too little and too much to Auden's imagination all at once. Across his statuesque form, bared and proudly displayed, she can see the scars that litter his body some more twisting and deeper than others; though Auden does her best not to let her gaze wander too far. He had a deep, twisting scar slashed flat across the bridge of his nose, and some smaller ones that made the woman wonder if he wasn't more imposing this way in his scarred and sculpted form. 

Auden recalled how just that morning she had thought that Charlie's flaxen gold hair looked like a precious bit of treasure. If that was the case then this male's eyes were an entire trove. A near shimmering shade of molten gold that shines at Auden through the thickly clinging night, flecks of sapphire and emerald embedded deep within. Heat creeps up her neck as Auden tries to look anywhere, anywhere but that pining gaze without much success. Around them the chilling wind stirs, sending Auden's wavy coppery sticking across her freckle kissed cheeks. She makes no move to fix it however some whispering demands in her mind reminding Auden to remain alert and still, wary that any sudden movement may bring her to violent end yet.

Drawing himself up, the male takes a half step forward all predatory grace, prompting Auden to take a step back, raising the dagger in silent warning. The air is heavy and thick and it's not until her lungs begin to burn does Auden realize she's holding in her breath. The male doesn't move, but his golden eyes seem to flash with some approving amusement, the edges of his lips twitching a moment before settling back into that too intense, unreadable expression. "You'd hurt yourself more than me." The breath she's been holding onto is exhaled harshly at his words. 

It's a warning that Auden knows, her brain all too aware of but she tightens her grip nonetheless. He makes no move to come towards her, rather observes with that contriving sense of irritation and amusement and as Auden shivers she tells herself it's merely the cold. When it's clear Auden has no intentions of backing down, the male lets out a sharp breath holding his palms toward the woman. The moonlight weakly shines upon his thick dark hair, falling a little past his ears, their ends the slightest wave. His brows, thick and full push together in a silent question, and another moment passes before Auden drops the small blade harmlessly into the dead leaves. 

Defenseless, dagger dropped willingly by her feet she half expects the male to pounce. That innate fear of tooth and claw sinking into flesh plays all too clearly in her mind. He doesn't respond for a moment, and Auden can almost feel his golden gaze sizing her up and picking her apart yet neither retreat or give an inch in the quiet thick of woods. Auden's heartbeat is little more than the brush of hummingbird wings, pumping wildly in her chest as the two observe each other. "Don't come any closer." With superhuman effort, Auden manages to still the tremble in her voice. And at her statement, unthinkingly tilting her chin upwards in some stubborn, challenging motion, hoping the dark hid well how quickly her chest rose and fell with never enough breath. 

The male doesn't answer, at least immediately as Auden can feel his gaze over her body as if sizing her up. Auden wasn't entirely convinced this wasn't how the doe felt before the wolf sank his teeth, his gaze intense and unblinking. With an incredulous snort of disbelief he breaks their gaze first this time, glancing up to the moon above mumbling something under his breath too quiet for Auden to clearly make out, though it sounds suspiciously like he's asking for patience.

"If I was going to hurt you I'd have done it by now, Lamb." That low, rumbling brassy voice is full of a cocksure confidence as he takes another step towards her. She sees no outward aggression in the measured steps, though the closer he comes the more aware Auden becomes of his impressive, towering form. The male wears the skin, the face of a man but even Auden can see the beast that lurks just beneath his skin. She can see in the way he moves, all the fluidity and grace of a predator. He stops, just out of reach and something akin to a pity that any other day Auden would of denied, darkens his gaze. "Take a breath." 

Closer now, Auden can make out some of the male's finer features. Too many scars that crisscross his sun-kissed skin boast of battles he'd emerged from; a battle tested victor. Shoulders, impossibly broad and a firmly sculpted, proudly bared physique. "Then, what do you want?" She's too tired and too cold for any pretty words, too many panic stricken scenarios turning through her head. The question seems to catch him off guard as his head tilts ever so slightly, thick brows furrowing together. Beneath silver moonbeams she watches his throat bob, as if swallowing words he wasn't sure how to speak. 

Rather he turns his head up towards the night sky, closing them a moment an unintentional respite for Auden from that golden gaze. "What do you want?" The question is mirrored, thrown back at Auden as she feels her guard drop ever so slightly. "Doesn't your kind usually stay in your walls? Stick to your roads? You're a long way from home, Lamb." There's amusement in his tone, served at her expense but a genuine flicker of curiosity beneath the words. Embarrassment, stinging and immediate causes Auden's gaze to narrow, if only slightly as she shifts the small satchel across her chest. 

Too easily at the question, Auden feels her lips twist into a scowl, all too well recalling how confining those walls felt. What awaited her back there, a future preordained and signed off without input or consent. "Well I would find a road once I got past the wall, and follow it." The sharpened, dry wit only makes the male grin, teeth flashing at Auden through dark. "Which I would like to continue doing. Alone." It's bold words, some of Auden's natural spitfire returning the longer she spoke with him. 

Emphasizing her point, Auden clings onto those vestiges of steel and courage in her core and begins to brush past the male. He makes no move to stop her, but he calls out to Auden again only steps past him. "If you'd like, but I'm not the only thing out here. And they're not all the conversationalists that I am." She didn't want to think on what he was, let alone what other things could be hunting in the dark. At her hesitation, the male approaches her drawing just steps behind Auden. "So, why are you stumbling around looking for roads in the dark?" 

She turns, a little too fast on her heel finding herself near nose to nose with the male as he observed her with some knowing half-smirk on his lips. The coldness of the air burned in Auden's throat, their breaths forming small clouds that swirled and floated away in the night. Memories, dreams of howls inviting and; the suffocating walls and how they whispered and beguiled Auden in her gilded cage and the beckoning, intoxicating, freedom those dark woods had promised from her window slip through her mind. A restless itch beneath her skin that her circumstances had cumulated to grant her the courage to go. Still it's too much to voice to the wild male before her, so Auden gives a small shrug, their clashing gazes holding steady against one another. 

"Because I wanted too, and tonight was as good a night as any I supposed." He doesn't press her but his lips quirk with amusement at the single small satchel hanging from her shoulder. Perhaps he knew a runaway when he saw one.

"I'd guess it's more because you're impulsive." The observation is as quick as it is revealing and Auden can only scoff at the assessment but this doesn't stop him from continuing. "Disappearing into the night, a single satchel, and an old dagger you can't hold properly..." He's too close, the warmth of his bared skin despite the chill radiating against Auden's back. Something in her mind tells the svelte copper-haired woman to take a step away, but Auden finds her stupid feet useful as leaded blocks. "You really are that woman's child." With those simple words, the entire atmosphere shifts between the two. 

Rather than the condescension Auden had come to expect at the mention of her mother, there's a begrudging admiration in this male's voice. Stiff with cold, Auden tries to straighten herself up, tilting her chin slightly as she studied the male's face with mute intensity, as if expecting to see the answers she sought written there. When she doesn't see them, her mismatched doe eyes glimmer greedily at the small mention, desperate for more information. 

"Did you know her?" He hardly looked older than Auden herself; but he'd also come to her first in the form of a great wolf. She had the feeling appearances meant little with this man. Still to her disappointment he shakes his head. He opens his mouth as if to answer, but from further in the woods in the dark a chorus of howls break out, and as they reach their crescendo Auden watches a ripple run beneath the man's too taunt skin. 

"I'll make you a deal." There's some roughness, akin to a growl beneath his words that weren't there before and Auden wonders exactly how much of this male is beast and man. "We knew your parents, my pack. Come back with me, and we'll tell you everything we knew about Tabitha and Rowan." Again that too confident smirk touches the edges of his lips, his eyes sliding into the darkened woods about them. "I wouldn't suggest staying here I wasn't lying earlier. I'm not the only thing out here. I can take you back to the walls. It's up to you, but choose."