She didn’t flinch when he bent forward and slipped his palm and forearm under her arse so he could lift her all the way up until she was able to bury her face into the side of his firm neck. Still seated on both his knees, his thighs slightly parted, he held her tightly. He gripped the underside of her thigh with her soft backside safely perched on his forearm, while the other hand slipped across her back so he could hold her biceps.
Emerie wrapped her arms over his shoulders while the heels of her feet pressed against his back. He was thankful his narrow and lean waist fit between the space of her thighs, although he was acutely aware his wide hips wouldn’t be gifted such a treat.
She was warm, soft, and light in his strong arms.
He curled his tail around his legs and knees so he could sit back comfortably. She didn’t start crying, which is what he’d been expecting from the last time she’d needed a hug, but she did go all lax and languid in his arms.
“Ingram,” she started. Her lips brushed against the sensitive scales on his neck, sending a thrill through him all the way down to his tail tip. “If I told you I did something bad, and that I regret it, would you believe me?”
“Yes,” he easily stated, tempted to start petting her long, silky hair.
Was she going to share more secrets with him? Maybe not the ones that had made her cry, but deep ones nonetheless? He was ecstatic about this.
Plus, what could this pretty female have done that was so terrible that she needed to be shy about it with him? He was a Mavka. He was sure he’d done plenty of worse things.
“Would you forgive me?” she whispered.
Ingram cocked his head, a little confused by that. The thrill that had torn through him was quickly replaced with a trickle of uncertainty.
“Emerie?” he asked, trying to pull back, but was unable to when she clung tighter with all her limbs. He worried about breaking her, so he didn’t force it.
“How much do you remember of the night you were captured by the guild?”
His tail curled when a bad feeling lifted the spikes down his back and limbs. “My memories are foggy when I am enraged. I only ever remember fragments.”
“Do you remember someone standing on you and tying your beak shut?” she asked with her voice shaking. “And that same person connecting a rope from your neck to your tail so you couldn’t use it properly?”
Ingram tried to think back, but that night was a colliding mess of too many scents, too many people, and far too much hurt to truly remember.
“I remember feeling these things happening,” he admitted solemnly, his orbs turning blue at the memories. “But no, I do not know who did this.”
“If that one person didn’t shut your beak, Ingram, or still your tail, it’s true someone else may have. However, that isn’t certain. There were only five whip bearers, and two had already died by that point. You may have killed everyone and gotten away. You may not have suffered all the pain you went through.”
“I do not like this conversation, Emerie,” Ingram whimpered. “Why are you telling me this?”
He’d been trying to push any lingering thoughts about his time at the Demonslayer stronghold as far down and deep within his memories as he could. He didn’t want to resurface them, didn’t want to dwell on all the pain he’d suffered because of them. Explaining it lightly to Faunus had been hard enough, but Emerie was diving down to the very bottom of the abyss where it all started.
He was not thankful for it, even though it brought her to him, because his pain had not started that night. It had been the byproduct of his insanity and stupidity from Aleron disappearing.
He’d made a terrible mistake. Now, he could no longer sleep without this tiny, feeble female protecting him from his nightmares by being up against him in some form.
So why was she trying to pry open his wounds and dig at them like she didn’t care for his pain?
He saw no point to this.
She clung tighter, like she was trying to crush him, as she whispered, “It was me. I’m so sorry, Ingram, but it was me who captured you.”
For a moment, he thought his spirit had left him.
His reaction was slow at first, as the warm flow of betrayal began to bubble beneath the surface of his hard exterior.
Then, all he could feel, all he could sense, was rage flooding him. His body tightened. He didn’t even realise he’d begun growling until the strength of it forced his beak to separate.
All this time, the person who had inevitably put him in that dungeon and was the cause of all the torture he’d faced… who he’d been protecting, and touching, and wanted to connect with… was his precious, colourful, lying butterfly?
She let out a sharp hitch of breath as he squeezed. The urge to squeeze harder until she was crushed made his flesh tight with the desire to maim. Her soft skin was currently safe from his fingers digging in hard to her thigh and biceps, but soon enough his claws would begin to shred. Already, he smelt pinpricks of copper in her scent as the tips dug deeper and deeper, penetrating through her thick dress until they met yielding skin.
His sight was so red it threatened to spill from his orbs like blood drops.
She didn’t ask or plead for him to stop, but he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing as he registered the lash of betrayal across his entire being.
He didn’t know what to do with it.
He’d trusted her, which hadn’t been an easy feat to begin with, but it had been strong, and, up until this point, unbending. It also didn’t disappear suddenly, and only became confusing and painful.
“I promise I didn’t know what they were going to do to you,” she wheezed out through the crush of her chest. “Otherwise, I never would have agreed to help. I couldn’t bear to watch it, and I’ve felt so guilty from the moment Wren shoved me into that room to watch. It’s why I freed you, Ingram.”
It’s why I freed you.
With short, sharp breaths, his grip loosened when he realised he needed to think on this before he succumbed to his first instinct to maim. To hurt her as he’d been hurt. To slice open her little stomach and show Emerie her own heart before it eventually ceased beating before her very eyes.
Or before he ate her.
He softened his crush. She saved me. And her promise had not gone unheard. She’d taught him the weight of that word, and he’d adhered to it each time he uttered it. He wanted to believe it was true, and that she hadn’t knowingly bound him in a state of suffering.
She saved me. And, since then, had been by his side.
Ingram knew his mind was flawed, knew there were blank spaces where thoughts should be. Yet Emerie’s patience with him was almost unflappable. He’d hurt her, had tried to eat her and kill her – although he hadn’t meant to do any of these things – and she still desired to be in his arms right now.
Arms that, just seconds ago, were intending to squeeze her until she popped.
“Why are you only telling me now?” he grated, his voice dark, hoarse, and vibrating with malice.
Why now? Why tonight?
She’d had weeks to do so. To explain the truth and let him make an informed decision about her. He’d been choosing to trust and care for someone who may not have truly deserved any form of kindness from him.