“You cut me,” she whined, her brows drawing inward.
Shying back, he cradled the hand that had harmed her in his other, his sight shifting to an orange. Guilt swirled around his heart, especially since he hadn’t meant to hurt her further.
“I am sorry,” he offered, clasping his hand to his chest as his tail curled around his feet nervously.
“You have to be gentle with me, Ingram,” she stated firmly, shaking her head at him. “I’m not a Duskwalker. My skin is soft, and your claws are so sharp I’ve seen them nearly split a person in half with just one swipe.”
“But I was being gentle,” he argued, turning his gaze down to the claws glinting at the tips of his fingers. They were so sharp that the ends were nearly invisible to even his eye.
“Gentler, then.” She brought her hand away from her face, and already the bleeding had stopped. The scratch wasn’t deep. “You can’t just pull my hair or reach out to me so carelessly. You can’t just grab me and throw me around. I can be hurt very easily.”
His shoulders slumped in defeat as he continued to cup the back of his hand. But I liked touching her hair and face.
The meagre contact he had with her skin had greeted his fingertips with undeniable softness. It had been smooth like silk on one part of his hand, and textured in a way that tingled his finger pads on the other. Her hair, pretty as it was, had been so hot from the sun in his palm that it threatened to singe him – and he’d been hoping it would score him to the bone.
Ingram stepped back from her to put space between them.
Something is wrong with me. He’d never had these desires to touch or look at a human before. Their hair had never dazzled him like a shiny rock, nor had their eyes.
So why now? Why her?
Yet, he couldn’t deny that he wasn’t completely opposed to it. It was a new thing forming within him.
“I will be more careful.”
His gaze drifted around until he found what he wanted. Then, to demonstrate that he would do better, he dragged his claws down a large boulder.
He did internally wince when he gouged into it and created ten deep grooves. He did it a second time, just to make sure, before assessing his claws.
He came over hesitantly and presented them to her.
“Is this better?”
Emerie’s full pink lips pulled to the side as she held the back of one of his hands in her left palm and tapped his index finger claw with her right. Her lips curled upward, and she turned a smile to him.
“That is much safer, thank you.” She closed his hand for him, and the softness of her flesh brushed over the backs of his knuckles. “But still be gentle. Okay? No more sudden grabbing.”
Her smile and touch, as well as the acceptance of his idea, made his tail swish back and forth across the ground. I am smart. That was a smart idea. His tail swished faster when she didn’t immediately pull away from him, instead patting the hand she was holding. She is pleased with me.
However, Ingram didn’t promise that he wouldn’t grab her again, unsure if he could stick to it.
His resolve weakened further when he looked down to their touching hands and remembered, vividly, hers stroking him into bliss. His scales and small amount of fur lifted at the memory, as a strange stirring sensation tingled his groin.
He wanted her to do it again, already obsessed with the idea.
Especially since he’d never experienced anything like it in his life, and he was growing more curious about it the longer it was since he’d experienced it. He wanted to know what it was, and why the strange thing had sprung from him.
Emerie stared at the raven-skulled Duskwalker before her, unsure of what to do with him.
Already her short amount of time with him was… odd.
His sniffing of her had not gone unnoticed, although she’d chosen to ignore it. If he wanted to be curious for his own sense of security, she would accept it.
She wasn’t the one who had been captured, tortured, and afraid as she ran away. He wasn’t the one who had purposefully put her in harm’s way or betrayed her without knowing what that would mean later.
It was hard to deny that he might have a sweet side, which, considering what he was, was hard to accept. She’d always heard of Duskwalkers being monsters. Cruel and frightening. A nightmare that could walk in the day and night, and sometimes a child’s worst fear, even in the bright sun.
An omen of death.
So, to have one pet her hair, or even try to brush her face was hard to take in. He’d also steadied her once on their walk when a loose rock had slipped underfoot, forcing his shoulder up to catch her from falling flat on her face.
All this, from a creature she was supposed to hate, only twisted the knife of guilt in her gut. Deeper and deeper it cut, until she thought it would make a permanent hole.
Even more so when she took in his bright-yellow orbs, and they came across as warm, and almost… joyful in response to her touch and reassurance.
I don’t know how to make up for how much I’ve wronged him. Was freeing him from the confines she herself had put on him enough?
It couldn’t be, not with everything he endured afterwards.
She tried to smile for him but knew it didn’t go past her lips. Emerie let him go and turned so she could continue to lead the way – and, more importantly, give him her back to hide her pained expression.
She hadn’t offered to travel with him just to make it up to him, although that had been a big factor in her decision. Her reasons for being here were self-serving.
I joined the guild with a purpose… She rubbed her nape as uncertainty laced with her determined resolve. But his cause seems even more important.
Kill the Demon King – the centre of power for all the Demons – in the hopes that it could put an end to the worst of their chaos? She wondered if it would be the equivalent of killing a bee queen and watching her workers buzz around without rhyme or reason. Or would the Demons quickly establish a new leader before they perished?
Regardless of her musings, it was a thread of hope for her people, for herself.
Lifting her face towards the rising sun, she closed her eyes as she basked in its light and heat. I know I’m doing the right thing, even if no one else will see it.
“Emerie,” he called, breaking her from her musing as the dark, bass rumble of his voice reverberated through her. The tiny hairs on her body stood on end as it tingled her brain in the most disconcerting way.
She couldn’t even remember telling him her name. She guessed he must have overheard it within Zagros Fortress.
“Yes?” she croaked out, unable to look at him due to her weird reaction. Even her cheeks had heated a little in embarrassment, likely making her facial scarring more noticeable – and she hated it when that happened.
Smoothness rubbed down the back of her forearm until it slid into her relaxed palm. The movement in her peripheral told her it was his beak.
“Will you do what you did to me before?” He seemed to almost groan out his question, each word slow and hoarse.
Her eyelids snapped open, and she jerked away. She crossed her arms as she faced him, shaking her head since she knew exactly what he was talking about.
His purple orbs appeared a little darker than the orchid hue she’d seen them turn, but she put it down to a trick of the sunlight hitting them for the first time.