(Little A/N)

IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY REREAD CHAP 17, Please do so or else this chapter won't make sense!

ALSO! I've been adding music throughout the chapters! I'll be soon sharing a Spotify Playlist of the story :)

ALSO ALSO! The picture above isn't mine! but I recoloured and edited it to fit Koda's description. All credit should go to the original artist, I want to properly credit them but I cannot find them, I have been searching via Pinterest (where I got the image) and Twitter (Where it says the OG image came from) If anyone knows the link to the OG artist please message me! I hope they didn't delete their twitter account or something along those lines :( But please keep in mind that the image is NOT MINE.

Thank you for reading.

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"Koda?"

That name. His name... Spoken so breathlessly from my lips in absent recognition of my own voice...

That name was heavy on the tongue, encapsulating full intensity of the ominous brooding figure who held that very name in possession...

The cold of the night struck my fearfully stiffened state in a billowing stirring breeze, whirling and whistling between us. I stumble back upon weak legs and meagrely attempt to hide my anxiety in the wind's sudden whisk by pulling my coat closer to my chest and tucking in my neck as the raw tendrils whipped at the locks of my hair.

The blast of wind sang turbulent tunes throughout the garden grounds; playing off the swaying and groaning tree branches like they were instruments, carrying the sound of wood chimes fixed at the shrine and voicing a haunting echoing howl through the arched vine cage.

But unaffected by the calling ghastly chill, was that stare... of eyes burningly bright and unblinking. The wind was tremendously outmatched for Koda's alluring reticence, and so the flurry cowered in his suffocating silence and twisted off into uncertainty.

There was something gentle amongst my panic, like that of the flowing river... a soft stream of lulling sensitivity, a massage of the most nostalgic feelings. Seeing him evolved a soothing strength that corrupted me within, with mellow thoughts lacing over my instinctual dread.

There was no entrapment, there was no paralyzing force. Only crooning feline whimpers lead me to the golden eyes of The Hybrid...

"You're... Ko-da-" I croaked out his name before and keeling over at the waist.

I suddenly began gasping and sputtering for I had burst into a loud coughing fit as my throat was dry from speechlessness.

When I managed to take some air in and breathe, I gasped at the frightful notice of Koda gripping my forearm in support.

Steadily, I nervously straightened up into this intimate closeness that we shared. I gazed above to see Koda, unhooded, out from the shadows and gleaming underneath the blooming lamplight above us both.

"Uhm... Thank you... I uh-"

He remained blink-less tilting his head lower to the left in well-honed observation of my voice. Every little bit closer had me flustered with fire in my cheeks. I take another breath in. 

"I've-I've heard a lot about you...."

He was a tall and elegantly lean muscled man. Crowned with a longish mane of silky dark chocolate hair that loosely framed over his smooth amber-skinned complexion. The angular structure of his face displayed a prominent outline of round cheekbones and the distinctive diamond jawline riding up to his slightly pointed ears.

A cute bulbing nose sat with a high bridge, it followed out into wide tip and broad nostrils, where beneath were plump pink-tinged lips that looked soft to the touch.  And curtained under full, dark, low dipping eyebrows... were those mystical sharp yellow eyes radiating like sunlit topaz...

Koda released my forearm, awkwardly pulling his broad hands to his sides and swallowing down with a bobbing of his projected Adam's apple. In the prolonging quiet tension, I gnawed down on my lower lip with a flush of internal embarrassment But the moment sunk away as Koda blinked, twice, too quick to even register clearly.

The hybrid's eyes had started to drift from mine, wandering down and retreating low to his feet, those light peals of warm purring quakes rose again. It seemed he had understood what I said and was enthralled... though bashfully enthralled.

I chuff into a smile I quickly hid away. There was a certain airiness to his expression that beamed with ease, melting much of his hardened exterior away in place for a more mellow characteristic. I considered it to be solacing, and so, in a tiny drive of bravery i raised my fingers and brushed the tips against the back of his hand.

Koda swiftly flicked his gaze back which almost jolted me from my spot. I freeze, hesitantly observing the Hybrid... but when I saw how he remained reserved under my touch... I gently place my hand in his.

"I... I just want to thank you. Koda. For saving my friends and I at the station. And for... for looking after Lelita and Ojwang." I say in a more quiet and trembling voice.

With my serious words, Koda seemed to follow in on me, he narrowed in on me, lightly gripping my hand with the interest of what I had to say. He was heaving deeply, that defined chest of his rising to the point I could hear the resound of his heartbeat.

"I just want you to know that... whatever comes next... we're all here to hel-"

"(YYYYY/NNNNN)!~"

My heart tightly constricts in a sharp jerk and everything beneath my skin quickly turns cold with that one distant shout.

Koda drew backward with the calling, his eyes widened and drew an unshakably firm glare over my right shoulder. I apprehensively pursue his range of sight spanning down the ground's pathways, wherein that vine-knotted curvature; three figures step out into the moonlight in faraway laughter.

"(Y/N)! Where are you?!"

"We get it! you are good at hiding now come on out!"

During their careless piping, Koda's grip on me sharpens firmly. The blood under his skin boils high-strung heat to the point where I could feel myself burn under his hold. I shrill beneath this pressure and gradually twisted to face the unsettled Koda, whose calm demeanor was dangerously shifting before my very eyes.

There was fear emanating from Koda, a fear that secured me in his desperate clutches. The Hybrid rapidly blinked as his heating body violently twitched out of control. Koda's lean muscles strained and bulged in fractious convulsions, producing pained, grating rasps stifled by his intensely clenched jaw.

I watched in utter stiffened dread as he tottered over in torture that was ripping Koda from the inside.

The grip on my arm became crushing to the bone, squeezing, draining the flow of blood in my arm and a growing sharpness on his fingers pierced into my skin. Claws were forming from his fingers Koda suffered in whimpers between morbid growls, and the external shadows of night coiled around his body, a blinding cloak of vibration I couldn't fight against.

"NO!"

Koda hurls me away in a harsh impact, throwing me down to the ground as his guttural scream rips through the atmosphere. I scramble along the cobblestone in breathy cries, feeling my arm leaking streams of hot blood. Retreating further, I falter to get up on my feet and weakly defend my spurting wounds in my shrieking.

I moan out anguish that's deafened by Koda's screams of perilous agony. He pulled at his dark locks with begriming fingertips that danced with those strange shadows and a yellowish glow. Koda plunges onto his knees, overcome by his contorting body.

"P-P-Please!" He frantically cried out to me in his rough growling voice.

The Hybrid raises his eyes to mine, their glowing golden color overtaking the whites in a manic glare. "R-R-Run!" He hoarsely warns, quivering upon his all fours. With a swell of twisted bursts pulsing through the air, his clothes rip at the seams and another frustrated rumbling tore through the air.

"RUN!"