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She was none of those things.

Once she determined the blackberries were, in fact, safe to be eaten, she picked the bush clean. She slipped them into her bag that already had some mint in it.

Due to the stream nearby, the area surrounding the entrance to his home was moist. Everything was green, flourishing, and ripening, even though it was only the start of spring. Despite them being in the north, the mountains on either side of this valley protected it from harsh winds, making it warmer.

It meant Linh had a garden to play with, so long as she was willing to walk and find it all.

When she stood, Nathair placed his hand on the top of her head. He wanted her attention, and she gave it to him. Hepointed to his chest, swiped two fingers in front of his nose hole, touched his elbow and leapt to his wrist, before pointing away. “I smell something over there.”

Like with most sign language, Nathair’s gestures weren’t technically grammatically correct due to the shortening of sentences for the ease of conversations, and some of the actions could mean multiple words at once. But Linh was interpreting them into fully formed sentences, since that was what was generally insinuated.

She knew what he meant, and the fact she was getting good enough to understand Nathair meant every new word made her feel closer to him.

“Lead the way then,” she said with a smile, thankful it was something other thanfish.

That’s what she thought, but as she came upon the orange fruits that had a sweet scent to them, she grimaced.

“That’s a strychnos tree. The fruit smells sweet because it’s decaying, and the nuts are highly poisonous,” she explained.

His head reared back, just as his orbs turned a reddish pink. He circled his hand over his chest, which was very similar to how her people signedplease, but she knew he meant “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she said sincerely. “Not everyone knows plants as well as I do, and since you don’t eat them, it’s understandable that you wouldn’t know. You’re just lucky I know not to eat them.”

Then, as if he wanted to make it up to her, he took her to a different plant.

“Can you eat this?” he signed.

“Can you lift me so I can check?” she asked, staring up at the dark-purple fruit protruding from the tree’s tall trunk.

With a nod, he grabbed her hips from behind and lifted her to his shoulder. Her heart immediately picked up when he placed his palm over her inner thigh to keep her steady. She picked abulbous fruit and opened it with her long thumb nails to get to its bright-red meat. Her mouth instantly watered at the sweet, juicy smell, but she checked its consistency.

“You’re lucky!” she exclaimed, turning a grin down to his skull. “These fruit in summer in the south, but they ripen at the end of winter here.”

He put her down when she began to pick them, just so he could do it instead.

“I could have done it,” she stated with a forced pout, wishing to nettle him.

Nathair opened and closed his mouth mockingly, just like she knew he would. He lifted higher on the base of his tail, reaching heights no human could as he offered her fistfuls of plums. He turned to a second tree, as there were three huddled here, and gave her his back.

His muscles rippled around his exposed spine, and she could just make out the flaps next to the row of vertebrae, hiding away his massive back fins. Linh folded her arms to lean against the tree next to her, admiring each leap and clench of muscle. Dappled sunlight splashed across his body, making him shine with rainbows while the rest of him appeared a glossy black with grey accents.

He really is handsome.

She wanted to dance her palms over his scale-covered back muscles and see if they would respond to her touch.Duskwalkers shouldn’t have a nice body like that. It’s not fair.It made it harder for her to resist him.

Something in her periphery grabbed her attention, and she turned her lazy gaze to the side. She met eight eyes set in a small fuzzy cream-coloured face.

“Eeek!” she screamed, leaping away from the huntsman spider, which had been so close that if it had lifted a furry paw, it would have touched her chin.

Nathair spun while dropping plums to the ground, ready to defend her with a bone-chilling hiss. She tripped over his tail and landed on her arse with an oomph. He halted when he found her on the forest floor, rubbing at her arms like thousands of tiny spiders were crawling over her.

He looked around, searching for the danger, then threw his arms to the side. “What?”

Linh pointed at the spider that was the size ofhispalm.

Slithering over to it, Nathair cupped his thin jaw as he lowered to inspect it. He turned his head to her and tilted it questioningly.

“Sorry, but bugs kind of give me the heebie-jeebies.” If he had been any kind of bug Duskwalker, she would have run for the hills, uncaring if a Demon got her. To her horror, he reached the claws of both hands out to it. “No! Don’t touch it!”