"No, I'm not.” I turned toward him and narrowed my gaze. "I'm not going to abandon a helpless creature to die in the cold. It's not who I want to be."
There was a moment of silence as my words hung in the air, and I could see the uncertainty on his face. “Fawn…muse…we can’t do that.”
“But it…”
“It’s in its habitat,” Aimon reminded me. “I know there’s been a lot of death, and this baby monster does seem different.”
“But it’s still a monster,” Jasper added with a frown.
“I hate to agree, sunshine, I really do.” Casper’s frown deepened. “But it belongs in its habitat.”
A deafening roar reverberated through the air, freezing us in our steps.
The baby wailed with terror, and the mother abominal's screech immediately followed behind us.
We slowly twisted around to find her—her fur glowed like a kaleidoscope of emerald greens and blues as the sun hit it. Piercing, emerald eyes glared at us as she raised her head and roared again in uncontainable rage.
Her powerful frame quivered with alertness, ready to launch a deadly attack at any second.
Any one of us was able to wipe the abominal out in one go, but something deep inside of me screamed that it would be a terrible idea.
"Back away.Slowly!” Aimon hissed urgently.
My hand trembled as I pulled it to my chest and stepped back cautiously. The six of us carefully retreated from the young, my heart thudding heavily against my chest.
I didn’t want to have to fight the abominal, not when she was just protecting her young.
The baby abominal immediately jumped up and ran toward its mother. The mother wrapped its large arm around the baby, clutching it to its chest. The abominal began to slowly back away from us, her eyes still trained on our every movement.
When we didn’t make any move to attack, she tilted her head.
With a loud roar, it turned around and sprinted into the forest, its baby held close to its chest.
We watched in stunned silence as it disappeared into the distance.
“We lost our chance,” Silas stated bitterly, shaking his head. “There was an abominalright there!”
“We’ll find another,” Aimon assured him with a frown before glancing at me. “Though, thatwasa good chance to get the femur.”
“What was that?” Bastian knitted his brows together. “I mean, what just happened? The abominal mother just…took her young and retreated.”
“It was…” Jasper frowned.
“Odd,” Casper finished for him.
“I don’t know.” My shoulders slumped as I glanced toward where the abominal ran off. “It was like the spirits were warning me against killing it.”
“What do you mean?” Aimon tilted his head.
“I didn’t have a desire to kill it,” I muttered. “I’ve always had a fight-or-die response around monsters, even their young at times. Not this time.”
The abdominal mother emerged again, this time with her baby nowhere in sight.
“Careful,” Silas whispered, stepping slightly in front of the group in a protective stance.
Instead of the expected vengeful and aggressive spirit that monsters usually harbored, she was oddly calm.
“She’s not here to hurt us,” I murmured, stepping beside Silas and lacing my fingers through his.
