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“I... did something really silly. I was young, though, which I don’t think excuses me, but it at least explainswhyI acted like a hormonal idiot.” She gave a humourless laugh, doubting he understood all of that, but she wasn’t going to explain it. “I was nineteen, had a boyfriend, and thought I was invincible. I’d never seen a Demon before, so I just did whatever I wanted. Well... one night, I decided to sneak out in the middle of the night, knowing my parents wouldn’t approve of me going out in the dark. It seems so foolish now, but I wanted to go to my boyfriend’s house and then come back. Maybe he was stupid for letting me leave, or didn’t truly care enough about my wellbeing to convince me otherwise. It wasn’t the first time I’d done it.”

“What is a boyfriend?” Ingram asked.

“It’s a boy you’re dating to see if you have a future together. Someone you hope you will form a bond with, and maybe marry and have a family with.”

“Have you had... many of theseboyfriends?”

Emerie blushed a little, especially since his tone was somewhat... darker than usual. She peeked at his face before staring completely.

His orbs are green. I’ve never seen that colour before.

“I’ve had a few,” she grumbled honestly.

“Are these like those special people you said were allowed to see and touch you?” His tone was even darker than before, with an obvious growl radiating from his chest. It even vibrated him, as his orbs brightened in their green hue.

“Yeah, I guess you can say that.” When his growl worsened, she narrowed her eyes into a glare. “Do you want me to tell you my secrets, or would you rather continue a conversation that is upsetting you? Because pick one, and I’ll never speak of the other willingly again.”

His beak opened, just so he could clack it in annoyance. He turned his skull partially away from her.

“Continue,” he bit out.

Good boy,she thought with mirth.

“Like I said, I was nineteen and had never seen a Demon before. I had it in my mind that we couldn’t be infiltrated.” She lowered her gaze to her fidgeting hands. “I was walking home with an oil lamp, and when I got there, Gideon was waiting for me. Since he often went outside the walls to cut down timber with the other workers, he was more aware of the dangers. He started arguing with me right out front of the house, but I didn’t want to listen to him. I wanted him to be quiet because our parents were sleeping and I didn’t want them to know what I was doing.”

She could still vividly remember her and Gideon whisper-arguing out front of their home.

She’d been too stupid to realise he was just trying to protect her as her older brother. She’d thrown it in his face that he had his own partner, and it wasn’t fair to intervene in her relationships. She’d just wanted to hurt him because he was overprotective and annoying her.

“One minute I was telling him to ‘get fucked,’ and the next I was being lifted off the ground.” She cringed when the sound of her oil lamp shattering against the dirt still rung in her ears after all these years. “When we both realised a flying Demon was trying to take me, Gideon grabbed my legs to keep me on the ground and was instead carried off with me.”

How her scream hadn’t been heard by her parents, she would never know; especially since others came out to investigate before hiding back inside their homes.

Sudden flickering images flashed every time she blinked, and she fluttered her eyelids in a desperate attempt to fast-forward through them...

There was darkness all around her. A small blaze ignited below her feet as she looked down at Gideon’s scrunched-up face of determination while he climbed her body. His tanned features were fixed on the winged Demon who was slowly taking them higher and higher. With Gideon, their combined weight was too heavy for it to fly off properly.

It released one of its three-toed, clawed feet from her shoulders to kick at him, so Gideon jumped to its leg. The silver glint of his dagger was a cold white in the moonlight, and yet reflected the growing flames below.

She never forgot the way terror had set its fangs in her gut, or how her frantic heart thought it would give out. Nor could she forget Gideon’s grunts, or the Demon’s disgusting snarls, let alone the hair-raising sound of its voice as it demanded Gideon let go.

And when she looked up, the image of its feathery, flapping wings was seared into her mind’s eye to further haunt her every dream. Its red eyes glowed in her nightmares, filled with blood – her blood, as it hungered for every drop. Its white fangs were like a wolf’s, yet somehow bigger, sharper, and more frightening.

Then Gideon had pulled his dagger out, but it didn’t have enough time to stop him from stabbing it in the leg that gripped her.

Her scream rung out like a hollow echo even now, and she cringed and twisted as if that would help rid her of it.

Her breaths turned shallow and sharp, whereas Ingram’s chest had stilled completely, likely to avoid the scent of her fear.

“The Demon dropped me to grab ahold of Gideon, and I fell.” Emerie’s bottom lip trembled. The images, her memories, didn’t stop, and the longer she tried to remove them, the more liquid spilled from her eyes, saturating her long lashes. “When I landed, it was right near where I had dropped my oil lamp.”

Fuck,she gasped with a flinch, her eyes clenching shut.

She still remembered the snap she’d heard from how she landed on her arm when she threw it over her head to protect it. She’d felt the heat of bright flames coming closer until she landed in them on her left side.

After recovering from being momentarily stunned by the fall, the first thing she tried to do was escape it as liquid fire clung to her skin, her clothing, her hair. Her scream was ear-piercing, even to her own eardrums, and the disgusting, charred smell of her own skin singed the inside of her nostrils.

She barely heard the yell from above, but a copious amount of liquid falling on her head snuffed out the worst of the flames covering it before someone threw a blanket over her.