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Although he didn’t have an issue walking around naked in his own lair, he was aware that she most likely wouldn’t approach him if he did.

He constantly readjusted his pants until they eventually sat right, which were tight around his muscular calves and then were looser around his thighs.I do not like wearing trousers.And yet, he often did when he travelled around the humans.

So, barefoot and shirtless, he made his way down the tunnel, tossing his captured prey, the green apple, into the air as he thought.

She does not feel desire for me.He hadn’t seen it or scented it from her, and that had started to bother him over the two weeks she’d been in his home.

It had been bothering him because even though she didn’t feel this way, he did. He didn’t appreciate the unrequited desire.

Rurik found this woman, an enemy, alluring and felt insulted that she didn’t think the same of him. Realisation dawned on him that she saw him as a creature when she’d been sitting next to him one day and started petting his side like a dog.

She treats me like I am a mindless animal.

He thought it may be because he hadn’t spoken to her or spent any time with her as a human, something that is the same shape as her.

Today, he decided he would rectify that and start showing this side of himself more in hopes it might pique her interest.

It wasn’t to bed her.No, I would never bed a Witch.It was just because he hadn’t appreciated it when he’d felt desire for her, apparently, so easily.Pretty little thing.

He wanted them on the same level so they could suffer together, by themselves.

However, he thought his desire may not be just because of the way she looked. There was something else about her that drew his attention.

Sometimes he was mean to her, he often growled and snarled. They bickered a small amount because she wasn’t afraid of him, and therefore, she was willing to use her acid tongue and call him all manner of names. Her reaction would anger him, and he’d storm off in a huff.

Yet, this female already seemed to know how to handle him.

When he was truly angry and he hadn’t done anything to upset her, she didn’t argue back. Instead, she would try to redirect his thoughts from his anger by distracting him. He could tell it was because she truly didn’t want to fight with him.

Perhaps it is her kindness that draws me to her?

The reason he and many Dragonesses didn’t get along was because when he showed anger or irritation, they would mirror him. He was short-tempered, and they would fight. It would start with words and then, being the beasts they were, it would sometimes get physical. It annoyed him, and he’d be thankful when the Dragonesses would storm from his home – and generally never return.

Instead of arguing with him, Amalia would leave it be.

She would lash out when she thought he deserved it, but she didn’t fight for fighting’s sake. She wasn’t some pushover, either - even though he indeed pushed her over a few times with the back of his claws because he could.

She was caring and soft, radiating an innocence that he didn’t see in most. Whether it be her own kind, his, or humans.

An innocence he’d seen when she had cried in his arms.

Rurik often thought about that moment. The delicate broken woman who desperately needed someone to hold.

Not once had they spoken about it, and he knew that was because she was ashamed of herself for it.

But what had been a simple attraction to her had grown into something darker inside of him because of it. Her emotions had been strong, powerful.

He realised she had passion inside her.

Sometimes when he thought back on that tender moment, he would remember what had happened. Then, other times, his mind would twist it into some sort of image. A dark fantasy.

An image of a woman whose cries of pain turned into cries of sex. A woman whose struggle for breath from a sob was a struggle for breath from a thrust. A woman whose desperately clinging fingertips turned into nails scoring across his back in deep strokes, and whose shuddering from heaving breaths of sadness became trembles of a woman lost in the throes.

It burned hot in his mind, especially when it would end with her giving him that beguiling smile that made his chest feel tight.

His desire deepened with every moment he spent around her, and he wouldn’t have it! He wouldn’t allow himself to be the only one who felt this way.

Rurik came to the main room of his lair, the one with the tapestries that depicted the histories of his kind, and picked up one of the many claymore swords he’d brought in here earlier while he was large and could do so in one go.