He didn't know what was harder, seeing the beast's teeth and imagining if it would really eat him, or privately admitting Jessie was right all along. In any event, he swallowed his discomfort and decided to play a card that his stomach would never have thought possible; he pulled the creature closer to his body and held it against him without allowing a tremor ripple in his fingers. To make his show more effective, he would have kissed it but he couldn't risk a misjudgement of where her lips could be—if he said he just had bad aim when he kissed what was supposed to be her eye by accident, then there'd only be one other opening for a retry and the illusion would obviously no longer work. He just hoped that his initial reaction to seeing his 'girlfriend' hadn't been seen by anybody; if his partners saw it, they'd scream for him to run now while they had a chance.
"If you don't get the hell away from
her this instant, I'll leave and you'll never see me again, is that what you
want?"
He raced the beast once more and ran his hand along its back, ignoring the
blood sprouting up along his palm in its wake due to the spines along its
spine, and whispered a question, asking her what 'her' name was, praying he'd
be able to decipher its answer. He knew that dog-types were wonderfully
accurate at detecting fear by owning one through his betrothal with Jessibelle,
and he hoped this creature didn't hold such talents. He heard what he thought
was 'Mihrasta' but he couldn't be certain, so he said the word again to make it
seem that he wanted to perfect her name and the creature nodded, snarling
something like her parents were foreign and wanted to acknowledge their roots.
He found the whole thing very hard to believe, especially now he was wondering
when the creature would drop the pretence and go for him. He excused himself
when he heard another insult thrown in his direction to coax him into running,
and then stood squarely in front of his partner so his back was completely
facing the monster but his face was exposed to Jessie. He kept the harsh tone
the whole time he spoke to her, but it was his expressions that told her to
search for the deeper meanings behind them.
"Get the hell away from here Jessie, nobody told you to come here and I certainly don't want you to be anywhere near me"
"Nobody invited me, as you just put it, but friends are supposed to look out for one another, regardless of how inconsiderate and churlish they can be"
"I'm going to say this once more Jessica so listen up: I'm not going to let you stand around here whilst I'm with something other than you, okay? Now just turn around, walk away and pretend I've disappeared for an hour or two, can you trust me to be unattended for that long, or will I need your supervision?"
She tuned out the sarcasm the instant she heard her full name being mentioned, and she immediately knew what he was trying to pull off. Fear struck her as she suddenly realised that it was almost certain death if he went through with it, as the ploy was hardly likely to work for all that much longer. Her face went from that of a set expression of trying to order him away from a demon, to that of despair as she realised she could lose the best friend she ever had, even though he'd been an abominable jerk to her as of late, even though she'd brought it upon herself. She shook her head in disbelief, tears lacing her eyes as she struggled to find words to convince him there was no point in his attempt at being noble. She saw the consideration in his eyes and became determined to free him from his plan, so she grabbed the cuff of his sleeve and pulled him towards her, but he held his ground, shrugged off her hand from his wrist and shook his head, wordlessly telling her that he wouldn't risk her life by doing it. He rested his right hand on her shoulder, and with a sympathetic smile, he pushed her away, mouthing the words 'take care, honey'. She cried openly as she regained her footing from her backwards stumble, but the heart-wrenching moment was destroyed when she was pulled back further and held up by her throat by the creature's talons. With a sinister sneer, it squeezed the claws closer together, and whilst she struggled for air, Mihrasta turned to James and told him not to cheat on her.
But she'd been standing with her back to him when she'd twisted her neck around to face him, without moving any other part of her body.