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“The second time, I found myself at your pond. I was so tired from running all night and day, but I couldn’t sleep in the darkness if I wanted to live.” With her right hand, she lifted it to place her palm over his snout. “Thank you for saving me from the bandits that day.”

Linh had no desire to elaborate on any details. She didn’t want to describe the violence she’d been dealt, still wanting to tuck it all away so it could stay a horrible nightmare. This was as much as she was willing to face, or say out loud, and she realised then that she wouldn’t speak any more about it, or again.

But she wanted to tell the one person she thought needed to hear this much. To explain her crying, not just today but in the past few weeks, so that he understood the depths of her pain he kept trying to shield her from.

No part of Linh had been safe, and as an apparent ‘wife,’ that meant doing her unwanted ‘duty’ every day for two months.

No person deserved that kind of hell.

She was no longer naïve, nor ignorant, but she wanted to pretend she was still innocent. With Nathair, she felt that way.

He was her first Duskwalker. The first person she’d touched with scales, claws, fangs, and even a long tail. He was the first person she’d started falling for, and she was starting to wish he’d be all her lasts too.

“Nathair,” she uttered quietly, digging her fingers into the empty eye hole of his skull. “If I asked you to... would you kill for me?”

A growl, so soft and light, rumbled into her.

Cupping her entire neck with his free hand, Nathair licked along her jaw, the forks of his tongue always perfectly nestling the sharp edge of it. He pressed her soul back into her chest, so he could sign freely.

“Was already planning to.”

After dipping beneath the surface to find her undergarments, Nathair took Linh back to the other side of the lake’s narrow tunnel. The entrance to it glowed, showing the crystal reflected even when they entered darkness.

“Oh no,” Linh stated as he helped her to the rocky ledge. “I forgot to blow the candle out before we left. I didn’t think we’d be in there all night.”

Neither had Nathair, but fucking hell was hepleased.

His whole being hadn’t stopped thrumming in deep contentment. He hadn’t lied to the little female when he said his cocks ached. The last time he’d come had been strenuous. It was like she didn’t want him to stop, even when she grew so tired her eyes closed. The moment he stopped pumping into her, she’d whine at him to keep going with a groggy tone.

It was like she was trying to shove a lifetime of orgasms into a single night. Nathair had been absolutely delighted to find that Linh had an insatiable appetite for pleasure, to the point it almost combattedhis.

Not even her tears after waking had managed to tamp downhow he felt, although they had been concerning.

But, as Nathair kept reminding himself, it wasn’t her fault, and wasn’t his fault, nor should he wear a single ounce of blame for it. He also refused to. They would be intimate again – he’d make sure of it. He’d rut her until she finally woke up cuddling him.

Until then, he’d just be patient.

However, the part of her story she’d told him... his rage hadn’t soothed since, and he felt it in each of his agitated and puffed scales.

I was already planning to find those who harmed her.He would have gifted her their heads as proof.At least now I know it was only one.Didn’t make it any less enraging, though.

Does this mean I’ll end up killing all the bandits anyway?Nathair shrugged.I cannot do anything until she makes her decision.

Whether she chose to stay or to leave, he could not leave her in his cave by herself. It’d take him a few hours to travel to the bandit camp.If I fall into a trance while I’m gone, or if it takes me a long time to kill everyone, I could potentially leave her for days.

All the Demons on the beach needed was a night without the strength of his scent, and they’d come for her.

He couldn’t take her with him, as he’d likely kill her in the confusion of his bloodlust. Everything was foe, no matter who they were to him. His mother had faced that.

She must either give me her soul, so I can teach her to turn intangible, or... she must go back to her people without me.It was why he’d not already gone to destroy her attackers.

He did know one thing with absolute certainty: they would die, no matter if she chose to leave.

He’d like to destroy anything that could harm her, so he could feel as though he’d protected her from a distance. Then Nathairwould leave this place, so he wouldn’t be tempted to steal her from the very home she sought to remain in.

If she did not want him, then he wouldn’t be like those who had kidnapped her.

I will be sad, though.