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Instead, Linh focused on her heart.

Nathair slithered all around her, the walls surrounding her shifting and sliding. Although he freed her from his tail, he instead pinned her down by the throat, and she’d suffered that before at the hands of another.

So she reached down into the depths of her consciousness and escaped. With all her might, she pushed nothingness to the forefront of her thoughts, and forced numbness into her heart, her mind, her very veins. She utilised a tool that she despised because it was the complete opposite of who she was, but it had made the two months of hell sufferable.

Her eyes opened lazily as she disassociated from the present, and everything she saw was murky.

His skull was fuzzy, but she could just make out that he parted his maw wide. It came closer, and she didn’t react when something lukewarm, wet, and hard slipped across her cheek and forehead. By the blackness that pushed into her gaze, she knew she was looking at the back of his throat, and that it was his fangs she felt.

His hand softened around her neck, and she managed to push out the tiniest breath so she could suck in fresh oxygen. Linh didn’t fight, she didn’t even claw at his hand even though she was free.

Cold air swirled around them, washing away the thickness that had formed within their cuddle.Wake up, Nathair.

By the pain she felt in the front of her throat, she knew her windpipe and vocal cords were damaged. She wheezed.

Just as his fangs were about to finish their glide and would flick forward and likely stab into her, Nathair froze.

Linh was violently shoved to the side when the Duskwalker leapt back with a writhing tail. His bellowing roar blasted into her senses, as did the ability to breathe, and her body convulsed as she coughed. Forced back to the forefront, her numbness faded at the swift change of state, and she cupped her swelling neck.

The thwack of his body hitting the stone ground outside of his nest was loud, as was the constant flicking and smashing of his tail.

Renewed tears bubbled in her eyes as she rose to her knees, just as she saw purple cloth in the corner of her shaking vision. Linh grabbed her dress and drew it to her chest to partially cover herself before turning to Nathair when she heard him whimpering.

Dark-orange orbs crested over the edge of the nest. He was circling his hand over his heart repeatedly as he reached out to her from the outside of his nest.

Even though she knew he was saying sorry over and over again, was only trying to cup her face, she was so freaked out that her shoulders turned inwards to shrink away from him. She continued to cough, to wheeze, while trying to keep her tears at bay.

Usually he wouldn’t touch her when she recoiled from him, but Nathair placed his palm on her shoulder. Orange magic glittered around her, and the swelling pain in her throat dissipated.

Eyes wide with panic, she attempted to cast him a thankful gaze. He was still signing sorry, his whimper not fading, and she took in how much his arm was quaking as he drew it back.

“It’s okay, Nathair,” she offered, trying to hold his gaze to show the sincerity of that. The whole event was a blur, and much of it was her fault. “It w-was an accident. I know you didn’t mean to.”

It was an accident, and yet she couldn’t handle the way everything reminded her too much of her trauma. Her lips trembled as liquid fell from her eyes. Shehadto look away when her shock finally bled out to tell her just how fucking scared she’d been.

Had she almost been assaulted in a way she didn’t think she could bear? She’d been strangled, and if she hadn’t forced her numbness, she would have been fuckingeaten.Or, at least, envenomed.

She’d known the likelihood of violence had always been possible, but she’d thought she would have been able to handle it. Yet even though he absolutely didn’t mean to, she couldn’t stop the way his betrayal made her want to be sick.

I-I care about him.I care if he hurts me and eats me now.For a long while, she’d considered him her friend, but she’d begun to see him asmore.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, before scrambling out of the nest.

She needed to be alone so she could collect her thoughts and settle her emotions. How she felt would fade: the feeling of betrayal would dissolve when her heart wasn’t trying to come up her freshly squeezed throat.

Linh didn’t even care that she shoved herself into darkness by going into the tunnel. Balancing and guiding herself up the wall, the way was paved by memory. When it opened up, trickling water sounded in her ears, and she moved over to it.

She sat next to it and let its cleansing rhythm play so it could give her something other than herself to focus on. She covered her face and shook her head in her hands as she placed one foot on top of the other to make herself smaller.

H-have we been touching too much?Well, had she been touching herself while he watched too much?Or was last night just too much?

I feel like I’m becoming addicted to pleasure.The lack of it had been horrible. Not because she was greedy, but because she’d been taught only pain, uncomfortableness, and sickness revolving around her own body. She’d been trying to erase it, and trying in the most fucked-up way possible to share it with someone shewantedto touch. But she couldn’t because she felt so damn broken that reaching out to him felt like she could plummet.

I can’t believe I asked him to touch me.She’d been so desperate in the moment that her aching pussy had been purring for Nathair’s touch. And it’d purred so damn loud that it’d snuffed out her trepidation and let her leap too fast.

She’d enjoyed it. It’d felt nice to have someone’s gentle and kind hands on her. They had been slow, unhurried, and seemedto read what she needed. Even his strange tongue had felt good because it was uniquely his.

Why did he have to be hard?And, since he’d been in a trance, she doubted his erection had been for or about her.Was it from all the touching and the scents?Maybe they had made him fall into some kind of perverted human memory.