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But she couldn’t help the sadness as she leaped to drag the oven door open again, holding up a hand to shield herself from the burst of hot air that clouded out. She had been hoping that he would ask if she was ready for another training session, as he often did when he came into the castle. The answer would have been no, but she liked to be asked. It made her stomach swoop in excitement every time, thinking of when she could finally say yes again.

If only he would stay after, Ruby thought as she heaved the oven door shut on the tray of rabbit meat. She was growing tiredof waking up alone in her castle bed every time she fell asleep in his arms.

Two days and a prolonged practice session later, Ruby limped back into the kitchen and gasped.

Stairs. Metal stairs welded onto every counter and even the oven door, climbing so high Ruby could reach them without strain.

There was something piled on top of the nearest counter. Ruby bounded up the new stairs and shrieked in delight.

Knives. Dishtowels. Pots that weren’t made for giants and covered in rust. Bowls. Salt! And not just any salt,hersalt, with the familiar containers that rested on her windowsill. It looked like Slate had emptied out her entire kitchen back home, plus a few miscellaneous items from nearby, like a stray peg. He didn’t know what belonged in a kitchen, after all.

She turned to find him looming in the kitchen doorway, shadows flickering strangely around his skull.

Ruby gestured at the pile on the counter. “What arethese?”

“I assumed you would recognize them.”

Ruby giggled. “That’s not what I meant! You really did this for me?”

Slate’s tail swished. He took a breath, and it was several seconds before he spoke.

“I was bored,” he replied.

Ruby’s words stuck in her throat. She wanted to tell him how grateful she was that he would do this for her when she was with him for such a short time. She wanted to tell him how much she missed her little cottage, how happy it made her to feel all her chipped knives with warped handles she’d used every day of her adult life. To tell him that no one had done anything so kind for her since the last witch of Sweetsguard died.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “It means…thankyou.”

Slate nodded. He wasn’t looking at her, and his tail was swishing even faster now.

“Do not mention it,” he said gruffly. Then he coughed a sharp, guttural bark that used to make Ruby jump.

“How are you feeling?”

Ruby shifted against the stairs he’d built for her. She felt very tender. But she could take his tongue, at the very least. And she wanted to show him how truly grateful she was.

“Ready,” she said.

His eyes locked on hers. Ruby’s spine tingled, warmth pooling between her sore legs as he loomed closer.

“Good,” he rumbled. “As am I.”

Twelve

Ruby didn’t know how long she had been in this void.

It was still evening. The same one, if she wasn’t mistaken. But she had lost track of how many times she slept.

She was also losing track of how many times he had been inside her.

They were still nowhere near his knot. She had only managed to fit half his cock, and only because of several sessions where he stayed inside… after.

He could get deeper the second time. Sometimes he got deeper on the third. By the fourth, Ruby was usually too sore to take any more.

Except for his tongue. They quickly figured out that they both thoroughly enjoyed it when he licked his spend out of her afterward.

But before that, there were the in-between times. When he was soft inside her, waiting to get hard again. Those were some of Ruby’s favorite times, lying with him and asking him about his void.

“We do not all have our own voids,” he told her as they lay in his nest together after their first round. “Only the eldest.”