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He crinkled his spiked brows in thought. She still looked pale and a little shaky, he didn’t want her cooking around fire or walking.

“Wait here. I will return.”

He turned from the room to make his way to the food storage alcove.

He pushed an empty bucket of food around as he tried to collect different fruit with a claw, his paws too large to reach inside. He piled the assorted collection together and then picked the bucket up to take it to her.

“Here, eat.”

He placed it on the bed, making the mattress, and her, bounce. She eagerly reached inside and pulled a red apple from it before taking quick bites.

When she was done, she took a peach, then a plum, a banana, going through each fruit he grabbed – except for the green apples.She does not eat my favourite human food. I am disappointed.

“You are not upset I will not allow you to obtain further power?”

If the rest of her kind discovered this, he feared male Dragons may be tied down and robbed of their seed.

“Hmm?” she said around a mouthful of peach, eating more than he’d ever seen her before. “Not particularly. I do not care for power.” She took a fuzzy fruit next, eating that as she spoke while licking at her lips. “I must admit though, it felt wonderfully exhilarating.” A blush began to redden her face. “I had so much energy that I was, uh, desperate to get rid of it.”

He tried to think of why her face would heat at her words, and then it hit him. A chuckle left his lips.

Perhaps it was to his displeasure that he wouldn’t allow her to obtain it again. She had ridden him with abandon throughout the morning because of it, and he'd thoroughly enjoyed it.

“But,” she added. “I did not like having so much energy inside me. I feared that I was going to explode, and I worried about doing that in your cave, or next to you.”

“Is that why you shielded me?”

She paused to look up at him. Her teeth were sunk into that fuzzy fruit before she removed them with a frown.

“I shielded you?”

He gave a nod. “Yes. I was unable to come to you because you barricaded me in my lair. Lightning tried to strike me but was unable to because of your magic.”

She lowered her fruit with her brows crinkling further. “I do not understand. I keep doing things without intending to. I should not be able to cast shields or forces without chanting. I cannot usually.”

“You appear to do so when you have additional help. You created the force that separated us that day when you cut your hand, adding blood to your magic. This time, it was because of dragoncraft.”

“That still does not answer as to why I am casting spells when I am not thinking about them.”

“Well... perhaps they happen because you are subconsciously doing so. I was too close, and you wanted away, so you separated us. You wanted through my ward, so you got through it. You feared harming me, so you protected me.”

In her shielding him, she had further proved that she wasn’t violent. Even on accident, this Witch didn’t wish to harm others.

“I should not be able to do that.”

“But many of your kind do.” Her brows once again came together, and she looked up to him questioningly. It was strange to him that he often had to teach the Witch about her own kind. “Although many must pull apart creatures to gain such abilities where thought is all that is needed to cast, it is rare, but not unheard of, to do so without them.”

Rurik nodded at his own words, agreeing with himself.

“Yes, that must be it. There are spells I can do that do not require chants. All I have to do is think and they happen. Such as, I can fill my skull with magic and direct it to my eyes, allowing me to change what I see so I can view the tendrils of essence in the air.”

“It is very strange. I do not like not being in control.” Her lips tightened. “I could hurt someone by accident.”

“You have only done so in front of me when you have been stressed, perhaps it is your fears that are the source.”

She fell back to the bed with a disgruntled sigh.

“It does not help to know that. I am often startled and afraid.”