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Rurik was cruel enough to use their loved ones in traps.

“Maybe it is because sex is quite terrible.”

He almost wanted to laugh.I disagree, Witch.

She rolled her eyes at her own thoughts before she said, “Perhaps it was just the stable boy, but it was rather sloppy and unimpressive. It was not very painful, which is what I had been warned of for my first time. Perhaps he was not adequate.”

If he wanted to, he could horrify her by talking back to her. She would realise she had just spoken something he thought she might find embarrassing to say to him.

“His mouth also filled mine with saliva, and it was rude and disgusting!”

That was it! He had to turn away from her before he gave away that he was laughing.

“I plan to release you in the morning.” He hadn’t even known that the sun went down until she said those words. “Your wings should be healed throughout the night. I would stay up and release you, but I want to make sure you will be comfortable in flight. I do not want some hawk taking you down before you return from where you came.”

She leaned over the table to rest on it with one elbow, beginning to stroke him from the top of his head to between his sensitive wings that shuddered lightly from her touch.

Why am I allowing her to touch me like this?It was so pleasant he didn’t feel like running away from it. He didn’t even allow his own kind to touch him like this, didn’t allow them to touch him this... tenderly.

“If you ever need a safe place to return to, you are always welcome to rest here. You do not understand me so you probably will not, but I would not mind seeing you again. Especially since you have stopped biting me. Well... mostly.”

She gave him a small smile, the kind that anyone, creature, human, or Witch, would want to return.A smile that innocent does not belong on the face of a Witch.It was sweet, filled with love and care.

I could stay another day.He didn’t know why that thought came to him, but it might be so that he could see that kind of smile directed at him again.

“To make sure you are not slippery for your flight, though, I will have to bathe you first.”

Never mind! I would rather not endure too many more of those.

She would lift his tail and rub him in places that were rather precarious. No warrior like him deserved that kind of shame.

He would never tell his kind of the days he’d spent in this peasant cottage.

Chapter 5

Rurik was laying in his cage. He’d let himself fall asleep once his wings had fully healed, and he bore no more pain. The next time he left his birdcage, he knew he would be freed and was gaining strength for his flight home.

She’d brought in that cat when it started making the most horrible noises at the door, begging to be let in and fed. He didn’t know why she put up with the creature, especially when she called it a cretin because it would try to trip her or wail some more.

It refused to sleep on the bed with her, instead choosing to lay on one some of her herb racks or squish one of her plotted plants. The cat watched him often.

The only reason Rurik woke was because she started making some groaning noise. When he turned his head to her, he could see Bala smacking her in the face to wake her.

“What do you want, you rude bastard?”

She has quite the tongue for a pretty face.She often swore at him and that cat. The rest of the time, she came across as pure innocence.

The cat jumped down and headed to the door, scratching at it with a whine. With an aggravated sigh, she got up in her nightgown and opened the door for him.

She stood in the doorway and appeared as though she was waiting for him for a long while, yet she eventually came back inside without him. He tilted his head when she laid her back against the closed door with some strange expression on her face. She almost appeared paler.

Then her eyes fell to him. Suddenly she was in motion, rushing to the drawer next to her bed and pulled his key out.

She has changed her mind. She is going to take me apart.He gave her a hiss. It was actually a growl, but he knew it was too quiet to her ears to make out the difference.

He bit her to let him go, harder than he had before when she held him. She trapped his wings beside his body with her hands, his legs dangling as he kicked them.

She took him to the kitchen, and her hand reached out towards a large knife on the counter.