Where she had come from, and how she’d fallen from the sky, Emerie didn’t know. Nor did she care right then.
Please, she inwardly cried. Please tell me she didn’t see me jerk him off.
She stumbled to the side to get away from her, from the monster she’d freed. To get away from the insanity of what she’d just done to the Duskwalker, and from the many, many moments – days – leading up to all of this.
“Are you okay?” the woman asked as she approached Emerie. “If you’re injured–”
Emerie smacked her hand away when she placed a caring touch on the back of her shoulder. “I can’t breathe.” She choked as her throat threatened to close. She clutched it, and the wetness of the Duskwalker’s cock lubricant smeared across it, which made everything worse. “I can’t breathe.”
The woman ran in front of her and gripped her shoulders tightly, forcing her to look at her.
“What colour are my eyes?” the woman asked, and Emerie took them in, her blue ones darting back and forth between them.
Somehow, Emerie found their sparkling depths comforting.
“B-brown,” she gasped out.
“The sky?”
She looked up. “B-black.”
“What time of day is it?”
“Night.”
“What is your name?”
“It’s…” She sighed when she was able to take a proper breath. “It’s Emerie.”
With every question and answer, Emerie’s chest loosened a little more.
She chased her breaths, focusing on the woman’s face and how her brown skin was smooth, porcelain, and clean – when she thought it’d be stained in blood. Her brows were high, but gentle in their arches, and her cheeks were strong but feminine. Emerie took in the way the wind made her dark, loose-corkscrew curls dance around her dainty yet commanding features.
Her full lips, with a small amount of pink lightness at the seam, took her attention when the woman tried to breathe with her, for her – to give her a rhythm to match. Emerie appreciated that so much, for someone to just help her exist when she thought she was about to truly give out.
Even the smell of her was calming, heady, and delicate.
She would have blushed, but the woman’s gaze held not an ounce of judgement. It wasn’t often Emerie was clutched by a panic attack, but her mind hadn’t been able to handle how she’d just batted off a monster.
She couldn’t even look at him, shame prickling at her nape.
“Are you hurt?” she asked Emerie when her shoulders relaxed.
“Yes. I think I fractured a rib.”
With a nod, the woman closed her eyes. Black sand and mist glittered between them, but she wouldn’t let Emerie escape when she tried to back up in surprise.
“There,” the woman said once the flutter of magic disappeared. “Is that better?”
Emerie finally took in a breath that didn’t radiate agony around her side. Even the weakness in her arms from holding onto Ingram faded, and she looked her over with a puzzled expression.
She healed me?
“My name is Lindiwe. Thank you for helping us.” Then Lindiwe turned to Ingram. “I’m glad to see you are okay.”
It was only then that Emerie realised the woman’s clothing was covered in splatters of blood, and yet the Duskwalker wasn’t reacting to it. Then again, the weird smell cascading off her was undeniably strong – and inhuman.
Lindiwe’s brows drew together as she frowned deeply, and when Emerie followed her gaze, her own brows crinkled.
Ingram’s orbs were a bright reddish pink, and he was obviously staring at Emerie with the way his raven skull was pointed. Crouching, with one of his hands upon the ground for balance, the other was clutching at his lower stomach.
An absurd amount of heat flared in her face to the point she thought her hair might spontaneously combust. Averting her gaze, she winced when she realised Lindiwe had been barely an inch from stepping, bare-footed, into his dirt-soaked puddle of freaking jizz.
Hopefully that meant she hadn’t seen Emerie give him a quick handshake with his dick. Greetings, Duskwalker. It’s a pleasure to release you.
She snorted a laugh at herself, needing to use humour as a coping mechanism right now or she’d flip back into hyperventilating.
They both gave her their attention, heads tilted.
Her back stiffened. Oops.
With his sight still a reddish pink, unsure if it was embarrassment at not understanding what she’d just done to him, or shame due to her reaction afterwards, Ingram couldn’t pull away from staring at her.
Did I do something wrong?
He’d never experienced anything like what she’d done with her hands. He’d never been gifted with something so… astoundingly pleasurable that his entire body tingled from the crown of his skull all the way to the very tip of his long tail.
He, at the time, thought his entire being was about to jet out of the purple jutting part of him she’d been stroking. It had felt so good right before he released that it bordered on pain, and he thought he was about to pass out. He had mindlessly ground into her hands to achieve whatever crescendo he was climbing.
He’d spilled – and his spirit had soared.
Then, as she’d promised, she’d freed him.
He’d been a lump laying in the dirt and sticks of the forest, huffing wildly to release his strained lungs. That was until she’d gotten up, faced away from him, and began… breathing erratically.
She hadn’t smelled of fear, but even he, who wasn’t used to being around humans, could tell something was wrong.
Was I not supposed to release that white liquid? His sight flickered to the puddle on the ground. What came from me? She avoided it like it was a dangerous fire. But she was the one who brought it forth.
Ingram clutched his stomach tighter, just above where the jutting rod had come from.
She wouldn’t look upon his skull now, although she’d had no issue doing so within the dungeon. He didn’t like that she was averting her gaze. It only deepened his worries that he’d truly done something wrong.
He was so distracted with his thoughts he hadn’t noticed the Witch Owl come up to him. So, when she gently cupped the top and bottom of his beak to force his skull to her, he flinched.
Then she pressed her hand near his neck and he flinched again, this time from the pain.
“Do you want me to take the arrows out, or leave them?” she asked, and he couldn’t help noticing the warmth and care in her dark eyes.
“Leave them,” he grated. “I will heal them away later.”
She nodded as she stepped back, but not before giving the top of his beak a caring stroke. She’d never touched him so openly and affectionately before.
No one other than Aleron had.
“I’m sorry you had to endure so much.” Her voice held such genuine remorse that his sight inadvertently shifted to a dark, gloomy blue. “I wish I could have come sooner.”
“I should not have come here.”
“It’s okay,” she cooed. “We all make mistakes.”
Her reassurance soothed the worst of his self-loathing. Has she made mistakes? She often appeared infallible.
Emerie, with her fist over her mouth, cleared her throat. His skull lifted, as the Witch Owl’s head turned.