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Her waist was thin, her hips a little wider. There were no true breasts from what she could feel, but there was an impression of a womanly swell beneath her flesh-protruding rib bones.

She seemed pleased to have Emerie in her clutches.

Her eyes darted around the darkness, knowing what surrounded her was lots of dirt and tree roots. When she’d been brought here, there had been just enough light from dusk to show she was being taken into some kind of deep and barely spacious burrow.

The entry was shielded by a large collection of bushes, and the massive tree’s roots above them further covered the entrance.

They weren’t in the Veil. They were somewhere on the surface world, that’s all she knew. The air was stale and cold, but at least the Duskwalker was keeping out the worst of the chill.

Any time Emerie crawled forward to escape, she would clutch her and shove Emerie back against her hard and gangly torso. She wouldn’t hiss, but her orbs would flare red and she’d chitter as though she was trying to speak.

Why could she hear a...caringinflection? Emerie felt like she was an animal that had been captured, and the Duskwalker was a human trying to soothe her.

The Duskwalker almost tore her hair out and poked her in the eye with a claw as she stroked her head again. Her vision grew murky when she thought the skin of her face was about to rip away from bone at the intense swipe.

She’d noted a carcass of a recently deceased fox near the entrance when she was dragged down here. Its body was intact, likely why it hadn’t been eaten, but its neck was obviously broken.

She petted it to death.

Emerie whimpered in uncertainty, and the rabbit Duskwalker tried to say something. Then she smacked her on the top of the head a few times in a different form of pat, and Emerie’s neck kinked each time. At this rate, the creature was going to comfort her by petting her to fucking death as well.

Creepy. This is so creepy.

She searched for the entrance, wishing Ingram would hurry up and come save her.

Emerie flinched when the point of a claw came too close to her eye. The suddenness of her jerking caused those blades to slice her face.

With her hand over her rabbit nose, she didn’t seem to notice until her next swipe was met with wetness. The Duskwalker froze, brought their hand away to look at it, and Emerie thought she was dead. So dead.

Her fear was palpable, and tears welled. Her trembling worsened until she was nothing but a shivering mess. She didn’t even have the mind to crack a joke – which was the most alarming part for her.

I don’t want to be eaten. I don’t want to die.

The Duskwalker whimpered and covered Emerie’s entire face with her large, thin hand. She chittered at her, a frantic edge to her voice.

Emerie stilled when the bleeding wound on her face began to heal as an aqua-coloured magical glow glittered around her. Even the mild throbbing in her right leg from Ingram wounding her dissipated. It was so bright, it illuminated everything within the burrow.

Her hand drifted to her exposed wounds – since she hadn’t bandaged them yet – and she watched her scabs growing smaller until she was left with smooth skin. There was no new scar added to her body.

Within seconds, that bright light dimmed and then disappeared completely.

She healed me...?Her eyes widened as disbelief soared through her.Duskwalkers can fucking heal?!

If she’d known that, she could have helped Ingram figure out how to do that!

Under this new revelation, Emerie’s panicked shivers faded, only for the female Duskwalker to do so instead. Her orbs were bright orange.

She feels bad about hurting me.Her lips tightened.Why did she take me then?She tried to think on why it had grown interested in her, why it was doing this.

One minute Emerie had been crying next to the river, the next this Duskwalker had stood over her like a frightening tree sent straight from hell.

Her gaze drifted to where she knew the fox to be, although she couldn’t see it in the dark. It had been unharmed, other than its fatal death. It was unlikely it would have crawled into this burrow to be in the Duskwalker’s clutches.

Had it been injured?Had it possibly been crying in the forest, as Emerie had been?

She stopped theorising the moment she heard movement outside. The rabbit Duskwalker let out a long and terrifying hiss when someone or somethingdisturbed the bushes at the entrance.

Emerie’s chest tightened. It was either a Demon, or Ingram.