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Her face brightens as she speaks about her family and people.It was obvious she cared about them very much and had deep bonds with them all.

She is so lovely.Her face had gentled, yet the corners of her lids were crinkled with effervescent fondness. It made his chest swell with gooey warmth, and he almost leaned down so he could taste the emotion curling her lips.

Nathair refused to steal this moment with a drive to kiss her. Linh was finally sharing. Every word was important, and each new thing he learned of her and her people was locked away in his mind to be kept forever. The melody of her voice would sing in his memories, as would his nightingale’s song.

“Why could you not help?” Nathair signed, since she seemed to be rather witty. He imagined she’d have information to share with other females.

Other males would have tried to catch her.

Too bad for them – Nathair currently had his claws in this female, and he was reluctant to let her go.

Even if she asked to leave, he... may not let her. Just the thought had the heaviness of greed and possessiveness clamouring around in his veins. He’d rather bleed them empty than remove the way her essence clung to each drop. To each scale. Nathair would need to rip himself apart and scrub his entire being to cleanse how she’d burrowed beneath his flesh.

Just as his orbs were about to flicker a dark green, Linh snorted a laugh. “Well... like I said, I didn’t really have anyone my age. I’d never dated anyone. My parents were planning to take me to Fayrest Town after my twenty-first birthday to see if I wanted to” – she jerked in his arm, her cheeks turning pink – “dateanyone. There are more people my age there.”

She turned away from him and scratched at the back of her neck, as if awkward about telling him this. Nathair couldn’t care less about who she dated or what she’d done before he met her. He hadn’t even beenalivefor any of it.

He had not existed in the same plane as her.

He could growl, huff, and fold his arms, but what would it change? Nothing. So, he’d rather just discover more about this female, while she was so willing to share.

Nathair placed his foreknuckle under her chin and lifted her face to him, then pulled his hands away so he could sign, “Did you find anyone?”

He’d like to know if he needed to constrict away the lingering of someone in her mind. This was all that mattered: that her heart was empty so he could swim his way inside it.

“No.” Once more, her features fell. No, they didn’t just fall – her entire body seemed to slump. Her heart sped up, while her lungs quickened in what would only be anxiety. “The bandits came before then, and they didn’t allow us to travel between towns freely. None of us were allowed to leave in case we figured out a way to relay hidden messages. We became trapped inside our village walls, and then I was...”

“Taken,” Nathair finished for her.

Her eyes lifted away, only to land on the storm clouds above them. “Yeah, I was taken.”

Seeing this was likely the end of this conversation, since her eyes had reddened and turned glassy, Nathair lifted his sight to the sky as well. Then he tapped her shoulder to get her attention. “Do you want to sit in the rain?”

She sniffled quietly. “Isn’t that dangerous, though?”

Head rearing back, and with jarring and annoyed movements, Nathair waved his hand up and down his body.

She gave a deadened laugh.

“True. You’ll just keep them all back, won’t you?” Her voice was utterly shaken and weak as she spoke. “Biggest and scariest thing around.”

Absolutely,Nathair thought with a sharp nod.

Perhaps other Mavka would be wary, but he was larger, faster, and he had a wall of tail. No harm would come to this female,no matter how many Demons came. He would also take her into the cave and become a wall of aggressive wrath should they try to enter it.

“Y-you really are that strong, aren’t you, Nathair?” she asked, her voice wavering even more. “Enough to keepDemonsaway in the rain, in the night. At... all times. Land or water, it doesn’t matter to you, does it?”

Any pride or cheer he’d held was instantly strangled at her tone, the way her bottom lip trembled. The brimming of tears became heavier.Perhaps we talked too much for her.

He didn’t know how the conversation of Demons and his ability to thwart them became distressing for her, but he rubbed her back in a comforting gesture. He even massaged his fingers into her shoulders and the back of her neck, trying to remove the tension that had stiffened her.

That only seemed to worsen her state, and she threw her face into her hands as a sob broke.

Since she’d covered her eyes, he prodded his foreknuckle against her cheek to get her attention. He wanted to ask her what was wrong.

She only shook her head, purposefully ignoring him. Except he didn’t need to ask, not when the truth spilled from her lips.

“Where were you when I needed you?” Linh cried into her palms. “Where were you when mypeopleneeded you? I needed protecting from bad people, and then I neededsaving,and no one came! No one came to save me, no matter how I waited every day. Every minute I prayed for someone to help me, but I knew... I knew no one would come. I knew everyone was as trapped as I was.”