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Of course, her father refused – which resulted in the intense spectacle of everyone watching each of his hands being clubbed. Even then, he’d still said no, as did her mother, as did everyone in the village.

As did Linh.

She never got that choice in the end. He’d ended up just taking her despite everyone’s outrage, forcing her to pack at knife point, and then told her father to be thankful marriage was his choice.

He didn’t love her, but he’d always given her a disgusting appreciative eye. He gave the same one to many women in the village. But his need for control was why it washerhe’d taken.

Bragg couldn’t destroy their homes, or they’d revolt. The promise they’d protect them from Demons, which they did, was the only reason they were even tolerated to begin with. Thereason they didn’t have soldiers was because they stopped them from reaching out to the south for aid.

But when Bragg asked for more – more crops, more clothing, more medicine – choking them of the supplies they needed to survive, the angrier everyone became.

And the more he set his sights on Linh, the more worried they all became. He kept hovering around her, kept finding a reason to be in her vicinity. A random scrape she needed to tend to, a concoction to help one of his men with a stomach bug, anything he could think of.

He’d even offered to take her and her mother personally out into the forest to find herbs they couldn’t safely get on their own. He’d been rather forceful with his ugly attempts to woo her, but her mother’s proximity had kept him at bay.

His patience had run out, even more when her father bartered too hard to protect their village. When her father had... tried to send a message to the south for aid against the bandits, and had gotten caught.

Bragg had grown enraged. He’d finally had enough of her father. He’d turned to Linh as his option for control, but she knew it was more than that by his continuous creepy stalking.

Death or pain did not frighten her father; he’d already proven that by his injured hands. It also hadn’t frightened the men who fought back. They’d all constantly argued with Bragg’s men and forced them back, tried to stop them from...takingher.

The moment her throat was in his rough palm, her potential death frightened everyone.

The last hug she’d gotten from her mother had them both shaking and in tears. Her mother had promised they’d find a way to save her, and all she had to do was live. Survive. To just get through each day and know they were trying every resource to bring her home.

But every painstaking day felt like eternity, and Linh had feared she couldn’t survive the next as she promised to. That she couldn’t bear it if her hellish life continued the way it did.

She knew no one was going to be able to save her. They hadn’t managed to stop her from being taken in the first damn place. What chance did they have running into the belly of the beast – Bragg’s camp – where there were more men, more weapons, and the potential for more Demons to sniff out the bloodshed?

Linh thought she could bear to share all this with Nathair, but doing so was really fucking hard. It felt easier to just stay quiet, and hope everything slipped from her memories permanently.

The rest? She didn’t think she’d ever be able to explain the way Bragg didn’t want to mark her face and body, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t been unkind. He’d just found many other ways to be horrible. Violent in ways that didn’t leave marks, and he was emotionally abusive until her spirit was crushed.

I was so scared I’d never want to be intimate with anyone ever again.She took in the towering, oppressive shadow of Nathair, and only felt calmness in his foreboding shade. The fact she’d found someone already who was constricting those anxieties away was a miracle.If he’d been a man...Linh would have never let him within ten feet of her.

Yet, with Nathair, part of her desire was intrigue. He was so different that it put her at ease. It made it less daunting and became erotic instead. Like her own virile, sinful god coming to shine his dark light on her.

Checking to make sure the melastoma affine berries had all broken from their pods, she tucked them away. She nibbled on a few, hoping to ease her queasy gut.

But he offered it, and I really do want to touch him.She wanted to see what it was like when Nathair let his unbending control slip under her power, rather than Linh be a shaking, needy mess.

Her inner walls gave a tentative pulse at remembering his big finger inside her. She’d been so soft around it. She didn’t think she’d ever come through penetration before, and if she had, she’d completely locked those memories in a‘do not fucking open this’hellish box because she knew she wouldn’t be able to handle it. She’d dissociated herself from those scenarios to escape, and that came with memory slips.

She’d rather keep it that way.

Honestly, those two months had been a nightmarish blur, and she absolutely did not want to wade through any of her recollections for clarity.I wish he had the power to make me forget.

Linh had asked him if it was possible, and he said no. She knew he wasn’t lying.

Once she was done eating until she was full, she turned to the Duskwalker, who had been staring at her back with his arms folded.

She tucked a few strands behind her ear, since her hair was a single braid swinging down the side of her neck.

I adore how sweet he is.In everything he did for her, he showed utter care and consideration. He appeared to be completely devoted to her needs, her comfort, while disregarding his own – often making her wish she could take the leap and meet him halfway.But he’s also... funny.

Nathair was charming, but a little creepy at times with the way he stared at her, not to mention his intense mannerisms whenever she sat in his nest by herself. He’d stopped entering it when she’d tried to get out of it the first night they’d gone to sleep after the rain.

She’d wanted to sleep alone and put space between them, but he’d been very,verydispleased by this. He’d literally carted her to his nest and then coiled around the outside of it like an additional wall.