Blessed by Night

With Thea crossing the boundary so easily, this gave the rest of the group the confidence needed to follow her.

Together, they all locked arms and jumped through the doorway in one massive leap of faith.

Regret followed them immediately.

How to describe such a dreadful experience..?

Their bodies felt like they were suffocating underneath the weight of the world- no, more like the entire universe.

It hurt to breathe, fear threatened to flood every recess of their brain, and adrenaline ran rampant throughout their bodies.

They hit the ground like sacks of potatoes; choking despite the presence of air in their lungs and mere moments away from greeting one of the several incarnations of the grim reaper.

Malachi was doing the best out of everyone, but not by much.

Meeting Stheno and Jasmine before this had definitely helped to give him some level of preparedness for dealing with insane otherworldly pressure, but this was on another level.

The only thing that aided him was his immense care for Celeste.

She was human without an ounce of magical power or experience in dealing with these types of trials.

Even with all of Thea's buffs and pep talks, she was lying face down on the floor while her body was wracked with shivers.

Malachi couldn't leave her like that.

Despite the weakness in his muscles, Malachi crawled towards Celeste and pulled her into his arms.

For reasons he could not express, he was reminded of the day that he found Jo in the blessed internment camp.

She was so afraid. So vulnerable.

And just as he had back then, Mal took away all of those ugly feelings from her.

Her wellspring of fear that was about to overflow became a river and flowed into him safely.

Only when it dried up did she take a deep gasp once again, with light and clarity returning to her eyes.

But the very first thing she saw when her vision came back was Malachi's grief stricken face; just as heartbreaking as it was charming.

Celeste knew that he was somehow the reason why she felt better. Whatever Mal had done had come at some kind of personal injury to himself.

Celeste was so moved that she leaned her face forward before she could recognize what had come over her.

Malachi was more surprised than anyone, but he was too delighted to care.

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'Huh… Maybe I should've tried that too.' Thea was feeling rather jealous as she watched this scene.

She'd just successfully gotten Aubrey and Aisha under control, but she wasn't getting any kind of reward like that.

'Maybe I should've been the one who was more proactive this time… I kinda feel like I missed an opportunity here.'

"You know, you're not very good at keeping your thoughts to yourself…"

"Ack!"

Aubrey was still reeling from the worst headache of her her life, but even she could tell why Thea was staring at her brother and Celeste.

"I-I was just curious about seeing that instinctive need to preserve the species in real time, you know?"

"…Sure, Thea."

Against all of the young princess' expectations, Aubrey too leaned forward and gave Thea a small kiss on the cheek.

And after a moment's hesitation, Aisha did the same.

"Orgy!"

"KYAAA!!"

"What the hell?!"

Everyone in the room looked up in horror to find that they were no longer alone.

At some point, two individuals had appeared within the hallway along with them.

Well, more like three.

A young girl was seated atop the back of a large scaly creature that resembled a Komodo dragon on steroids.

It was easily the size of a small horse or full grown pony, and its dark red eyes seemed to bore into Malachi intently as if it found something interesting about him.

Atop the back of the creature was a girl no more than five years old who seemed to have no resemblance to Thea.

Her skin was on the paler side, and she had short black hair that seemed to be naturally unruly.

She wore a black t-shirt several sizes too large for her with the image of a skull across the front.

"C-Courtney! Where did you learn that word?"

Mal craned his neck to look upwards at the tallest woman he had ever seen.

Standing at around 6'7, she was practically Thea's older, paler, more muscular carbon copy.

Her only clothes were a pair of oversized sweatpants and a sports bra that was fighting for dear life.

Evidently, this was where Thea had acquired her long golden hair from, as well as her stunning physique.

The only major difference between the two was that Thea's mother had a pair of red eyes instead of purple ones, and a single horn coming out of her forehead.

Oh, and both of her arms were covered in intricate Nordic tattoos.

Malachi felt like that alone made this woman seem immensely familiar to him, but no matter what he tried he certainly could not place her face.

Aubrey and Aisha had never understood how Malachi could find interest in a woman and her mother before, but they were already on the verge of walking back every name they had ever called him.

"Great Uncle Darius told it to me!" The child confessed.

"And why in the world would he tell you something like that..?"

"Because I asked him what he liked to do for fun!" (She thinks it means getting a bunch of people together and kissing them)

"I see… Sweetie, you know what we tell you about your Great Uncle Darius sometimes?"

"That I shouldn't get too attached because one day dad is going to take him out to the great big pasture in the sky and put him down like the dog he is??"

"That's correct." Thea's mother nodded.

"Is it time to say goodbye already??" The child pouted.

"It will be once your father comes back and we tell him what new word you learned." Thea's mother showed a smile that was not a smile; inadvertently revealing some very sharp canine teeth.

"Aww! Where did dad go?" Thea complained. "I wanted him to meet Malachi and Aubrey."

""He's in Hell.""

"That's today?? I can't believe I didn't get to see him off!"

Malachi, Aisha, and Aubrey were wondering when, if at all, they were going to hear something normal come out of this conversation.

It didn't feel very likely.

Thea finally picked herself up from the ground and ran to embrace both her mother and the young girl atop the back of the scaly beast.

"Well, I'm home guys!"

"And you've brought friends I see."

"I just wanted to let you know that I don't know what happened to those 'Pop-Tarts' you hid in the back of the pantry…"

Thea wasn't sure if she should address the loss of her brown sugar delicacies at a later date or open an inquiry now.

Eventually she decided that there was no point, since she would ask her sister what happened and her only answer would likely be Apophis.

And Thea would go confront him only to reveal that he and their youngest sister ate them together in the dead of night like bandits.

So to save herself some time, Thea decided to just skip to introductions.

"Guys, I'd like you to meet my mom Sif and my baby sister Courtney." She smiled.

"Not a baby!" She corrected.

"Adults have to go to work, Pumpkin."

"…I'm a baby sometimes."

While the girls were snickering at the child's obvious sense of humor, Mal felt like he needed to get his ears checked.

"I'm sorry… You're Sif?"

Malachi had seen Sif before.

This was not Sif.

The version he explicitly recalled was atleast fifty pounds lighter and a foot shorter.

And she most certainly did not have a horn jutting from her head or dangerously sharp teeth.

"I am… You must be Nyx's new children. I've heard a lot about you. And you are…"

Sif glanced at Celeste's lipgloss that was half smeared on her own lips while the other half was smeared on Mal's.

"A woman after my own heart it seems. There's nothing like a younger man behind you at night, is there?" Sif winked.

Celeste's face turned so red that you would've thought that she got punched in the nose.

"What are you talking abou, Ma? Dad's got like a couple billion years on you." Thea reminded.

"I like to ignore that fact because it isn't like I knew it beforehand. He was just my handsome little sugar baby with a big…"

Sif suddenly paused and looked down at Courtney who was still clearly paying attention.

"Personality." She corrected.

Courtney didn't understand why everyone in the room was giggling as if something super funny had just happened.

"Sorry I'm late! I had to fix my face."

Suddenly, a new woman appeared from out of nowhere.

Though she wore an innocent and breathtaking smile, her appearance triggered a reaction in Mal's body.

Even though he felt perfectly safe just a moment ago, his mind was now screaming at him the words of wisdom that his cousin Tsath shared with him.

'Dragons do not like N'Kai.'