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Her features grew ashen, and she attempted to look away. Nathair threw his arm into her view, showing her he wanted answers to his questions.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled, as shame seem to fall over her features.

“You asked me to touch you.” A small growl escaped him. “I did not ask for that. You did.”

Linh folded her arms across her torso and rubbed her biceps as if hugging herself. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“You are using me to take back your body because I am not a human m-a-l-e,” Nathair signed, daring her to say otherwise.

“No. That’s not–” She bit her lips, unable to finish the denial. Tears bubbled in her eyes as she began to tremble like a wave of sadness washed over her. Her arms lowered, and she clutched her stomach with sickness. “I promise I care about you. I do.”

“I care about you, too,” he answered, tipping his head.

She shook her own and gave in to her wobbling legs to kneel before him. “I swear I don’t desire you for such a selfish reason.”

Nathair sighed, wondering if she truly believed that or not. Of course she desired him. He didn’t think her arousal was solelyfor her own self-pleasure, not with the way she’d bitten her lips in want at his cocks while he stroked them.

He was not normal to her, and that was likely why she considered him safe. He had two cocks, double the trouble as she’d said, and he had more strength than multiple humans combined. If Nathair wanted to, he did not need permission, and there was little this female could do to stop him.

He could take, and take, and not care for her feelings or the state of her body, mind, and heart afterwards. But he cared how she felt about him, what she wanted from him, and what she thought of him.

Nathair would only use his power to protect and adore her.

I only realised what I was beginning to feel recently.It would be unfair of him to pry into her heart when his own was just as confused.

Yes, he desired to protect his little nightingale; he’d wanted this from the beginning. To add her to his treasures, and guard her as he would them. To stare at her like a greedy creature, snickering as he placed her in different lights until she gleamed the way he wanted her to.

Her scent had been pleasing, and instantly wrapped around his mind like a silky cloth. She stole his focus and had lowered the burden of his fragments. Not enough for him to notice the true impact, but enough that it meant he wasn’t... insanely lost to them all the time.

Before her, his lethargy had been worse. The headaches, the clogging of his lungs, the sickly twists of his gut – Linh was a balm to them.

But something had shifted in his mind and heart for this delicate female when he figured out what had happened to her. This insatiable need to shield her with his entire body had come upon him violently and with unbreakable force.

He wanted to hunt down those who hurt her and snuff them out – all the way down to their putrid souls.

However, he would have to leave her here. She wouldn’t be safe. The moment his presence was gone from his home, Demons would chase down her scent and eat her within a night. She had nowhere to run in the main area of his cave, and everywhere else was filled with darkness.

Nathair could not take her with him. He may turn on her, should he succumb to a rage. He also didn’t want her to face her attackers. She wished to forget them, so dragging her back for his own selfish need for retribution was...cruel. Nathair may be selfish enough to hunger for her body, but he would not hurt her heart in this way.

It was too fragile.

Nathair desired her. Part of him longed to have such a beautiful, trusting creature belong to him from the first night he saved her. He’d ignored it, as the potential of a bride was a poor decision on his part.

Yet he wanted her soul to protect. He wanted to be the one to help heal it, and teach it that his touches were different from the selfishness of others. He wanted to be able to hold it in his palm, and not have it skittish or backing away from his skull as if it feared he’d consume it without permission.

The only way to obtain this was to capture her heart.

Her heart is locked from me,he thought, as he gazed at her breaking apart before him.It is hidden away from all.

This female may care for him, but everything about her was too guarded. He hoped it didn’t matter that he bore a skull, and that he could win her regardless, but he knew what he was for her.

A tool. One which he was dubious enough to wield until he’d picked the lock around her heart’s cage and was able to reach into her centre.

If she wanted to learn how to touch and be touched with faith, then she could stroke his scales until she was content. If she wished to learn what it was like to share heat with passion, rather than sweat in fear, he’d scald her with kisses, heavy breaths, and intertwining groans. If she wanted to be intimate in order to take back her body and heal from this, then Nathair would find a way to fuck his way into her heart.

I am... in love with her.At least, he thought he might be, since he’d felt the fragments react intensely in this way. He’d realised just how deeply he was falling for this female when she became his songbird. His nightingale. His damn salvation. A dark obsession.

With one song that gave him the peace he’d sought for centuries, she’d become the most important creature in existence.