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Nathair choked before he retched. With his shaking hands against the ground, he hacked, and each one broke his orbs until ethereal tears glittered around his skull. Human souls that had attached to the Demons’ flesh, to their very essences, clogged in his throat as he tried to vomit them all up. They lingered in his gut, their white-hot flames burning his insides – despite Nathair not truly being able to feel them.

Get out of me!He wanted them out, to not have them attach themselves to him. To not curse him with more fragments when he already couldn’t handle what gnawed at him.

Collapsing once he thought they may be all gone, he whined on his stomach. His lengthy body shivered and shuddered in the cold darkness, as wind from further down the tunnel brushed over him.It hurts. Everything hurts.His mind, and how it ached within his skull. His heart that had been racing too hard with all his extensive injuries. His limbs and scales that had been torn, battered, and bruised.

His nose was flooded with blood, much of it his own.

With orbs blue, and still crying, he snarled at a Demon that dared to come near. It skittered outside at his warning.

Linh,he whined.

He wanted to go to her. He wanted that little female like the pillar of salvation she was. He needed her near, to feel her stroking his skull while he dealt with the fact he ached. He craved her soft scent, the warmth of her skin bleeding into him, the way her pretty voice swirled around his throat and skull.

But he’d lost so much blood in the last few hours. He’d torn his own throat out until his spine had been exposed from theinside.All his strength had bled from him. All that remained to get him moving was the adrenaline of rage, which had withered away.

Then, Nathair fell asleep – on his own.

Blackness took him over totally. No Demons came; they would have alerted his lethargic, limp form.

Only when the wounds of his neck healed, a day finally fully passing, was he shoved into full alertness. His other injuries remained, punishing him with their stings. Sunshine glowed as it bounced off the exit tunnel to brighten a spot in the distance, and he assumed that was why nothing came to disturb his rest.

The blood in his nose disappeared when he healed, and his breaths and heart grew stronger. Weakness dissipated, leaving only worry and concern in its place.

Did we hurt her?Shit!Nathair spun, bracing his hands on the wall, before darting up the tunnel.

I haven’t scented her blood.If she’d been terribly injured, the smell of it would have called to him. He would have hunted for her and awoken with the taste of her flesh within his maw.

It was all that gave him hope.

She did not follow.He wanted to believe it was because she was wise enough to stay away.

Yet the moment he broke into the main cave, he immediately knew something was wrong. Her lingering scent made it hard to pinpoint where she was. The sound of her was so quiet that it was covered by the constant trickling water.

He checked his nest to find her absent, and it was only when he searched the horizon of his home that he saw her. His heart nearly stopped at her pale form.

Unmoving, and silent like the dead, she lay on the other side of his underwater lake. He slipped inside it, only to breach the surface next to her and discover dried blood tracking down the rocks and into the water.

The whimper that broke from his chest was so hollow, his lungs almost collapsed under the brutal shudder of it. Hethumbed next to the two puncture wounds on her right thigh, his heart breaking at the sight of them.

I’m so sorry, little nightingale,he whimpered, while scooping her into his arms when he made his way onto the thin ledge. He cradled the limp female to him, and alongside her weak heart and shallow breathing, she was as cold as ice.

Bumping the side of his snout against her chin, he took her wounds from her as his whimpers grew louder. He hoped she could hear them, and that she could feel when he grabbed her hand to circle it around his chest.

I’m sorry, Linh.

Because, no matter what he did, no matter how he tried, there was one thing he could not save her from: himself.

Healing her strengthened her heartbeat and breaths, but... Nathair was immune to his own venom. He could not envenom himself, and therefore, could not take this from her. She would not heal in a day.

Instead, every minute that passed, every hour, she would only grow weaker. His hunger was insatiable, and he could not ease it, not deepen it by stealing hers. He did not thirst, so he could not ease this for her. It wasn’t possible to empty a well that was already barren.

Within a few days, unable to eat, unable to drink, she would naturally wither away.

This is why I could not kiss you when I had venom in my mouth.He didn’t know what would happen if she ingested it, if it would matter or not, but he hadn’t wanted to risk it.

I do not always bite.

Nathair only used his venom when he had many enemies to contend with. Swallowing paralysed bodies often immobilised him for a short period of time, so he preferred to excitedly rip apart his prey while they still kicked.