The rabbit-skulled Mavka backed up further, putting space between them. Yet Ingram remained where he was.
“Do not smell of fear, and do not allow yourself to come to harm. I will follow your scents from a safe distance.”
“It’s growing dark, Ingram.”
The blade of dread cut deeper. I know.
He knew night would fall soon, and they were closer to the Veil. The direction the Mavka was going was towards the canyon, taking Emerie closer towards danger.
Luck had been on their side. Other than their first night together, they hadn’t come across any other Demons. They were now closer to the Veil, where it was likely they’d come across one in the next few nights.
But there was nothing he could do.
His instincts told him to be patient. That if he wanted to save her, he had to battle against the desire to chase and fight for his prize, his prey, for her. Otherwise, this Mavka would kill her within seconds, or Ingram’s own rage would force him against his friend.
She was caught in the middle of two Mavkas, neither who seemed to want to hurt her right now, but absolutely might.
He watched them shrink into the trees before disappearing out of sight. He waited, even as his flesh tightened in aversion to doing so. He waited, even as the sun began to fade, and the shadows grew longer and crept over him.
His sight never left where he last saw them.
I already lost Aleron… He didn’t know, until this very moment, that he was worried about losing his little butterfly as well.
Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Ohmygod! Sitting in darkness, Emerie tried with all her might to remain unafraid and calm her whirling thoughts, but each time the female Duskwalker patted her hair, terror threatened to bubble over.
The strokes were hard. Starting from her brows, the Duskwalker would run her hands back, pulling on Emerie’s entire face until her eyelids were stretched up. Then she would roughly stroke over her hair, and each time Emerie worried she’d either pull her hair out, or her claws would slice her.
With long, thin legs trapping her in from the sides, the Duskwalker’s torso was hard and lean against her back. At least she was warm, protected from the chill within the dark underground den she’d been dragged to.
Even though she couldn’t see in the pitch dark, Emerie still chanced glancing back and up at the rabbit skull she’d earlier seen, and knew it had additional teeth. There were many fangs on the sides, making her buck teeth not as intense – and even they had seemed shorter than normal.
She chittered to Emerie. Her orbs were the only things she could see, and they were bright yellow as she patted Emerie’s long orange hair. Her nose hole was filled with mud, but her orbs reflected against her free hand wrapping the end of her snout, as though to block out even more scents.
It was like she knew Emerie would be afraid, and was trying not to let the smell of her make her frenzied.
Emerie felt tiny between the towering, angular legs surrounding her. The Duskwalker’s torso wasn’t actually very long, most of her height seeming to be in her legs. The more features Emerie took in through touch, the more she realised that she was actually… small.
Her waist was thin, her hips a little wider. There were no true breasts from what she could feel, but there was an impression of a womanly swell beneath her flesh-protruding rib bones.
She seemed pleased to have Emerie in her clutches.
Her eyes darted around the darkness, knowing what surrounded her was lots of dirt and tree roots. When she’d been brought here, there had been just enough light from dusk to show she was being taken into some kind of deep and barely spacious burrow.
The entry was shielded by a large collection of bushes, and the massive tree’s roots above them further covered the entrance.
They weren’t in the Veil. They were somewhere on the surface world, that’s all she knew. The air was stale and cold, but at least the Duskwalker was keeping out the worst of the chill.
Any time Emerie crawled forward to escape, she would clutch her and shove Emerie back against her hard and gangly torso. She wouldn’t hiss, but her orbs would flare red and she’d chitter as though she was trying to speak.
Why could she hear a… caring inflection? Emerie felt like she was an animal that had been captured, and the Duskwalker was a human trying to soothe her.
The Duskwalker almost tore her hair out and poked her in the eye with a claw as she stroked her head again. Her vision grew murky when she thought the skin of her face was about to rip away from bone at the intense swipe.
She’d noted a carcass of a recently deceased fox near the entrance when she was dragged down here. Its body was intact, likely why it hadn’t been eaten, but its neck was obviously broken.
She petted it to death.
Emerie whimpered in uncertainty, and the rabbit Duskwalker tried to say something. Then she smacked her on the top of the head a few times in a different form of pat, and Emerie’s neck kinked each time. At this rate, the creature was going to comfort her by petting her to fucking death as well.
Creepy. This is so creepy.
She searched for the entrance, wishing Ingram would hurry up and come save her.
Emerie flinched when the point of a claw came too close to her eye. The suddenness of her jerking caused those blades to slice her face.
With her hand over her rabbit nose, she didn’t seem to notice until her next swipe was met with wetness. The Duskwalker froze, brought their hand away to look at it, and Emerie thought she was dead. So dead.
Her fear was palpable, and tears welled. Her trembling worsened until she was nothing but a shivering mess. She didn’t even have the mind to crack a joke – which was the most alarming part for her.
I don’t want to be eaten. I don’t want to die.
The Duskwalker whimpered and covered Emerie’s entire face with her large, thin hand. She chittered at her, a frantic edge to her voice.
Emerie stilled when the bleeding wound on her face began to heal as an aqua-coloured magical glow glittered around her. Even the mild throbbing in her right leg from Ingram wounding her dissipated. It was so bright, it illuminated everything within the burrow.
Her hand drifted to her exposed wounds – since she hadn’t bandaged them yet – and she watched her scabs growing smaller until she was left with smooth skin. There was no new scar added to her body.
Within seconds, that bright light dimmed and then disappeared completely.
She healed me…？ Her eyes widened as disbelief soared through her. Duskwalkers can fucking heal?!
If she’d known that, she could have helped Ingram figure out how to do that!
Under this new revelation, Emerie’s panicked shivers faded, only for the female Duskwalker to do so instead. Her orbs were bright orange.
She feels bad about hurting me. Her lips tightened. Why did she take me then? She tried to think on why it had grown interested in her, why it was doing this.
One minute Emerie had been crying next to the river, the next this Duskwalker had stood over her like a frightening tree sent straight from hell.
Her gaze drifted to where she knew the fox to be, although she couldn’t see it in the dark. It had been unharmed, other than its fatal death. It was unlikely it would have crawled into this burrow to be in the Duskwalker’s clutches.
Had it been injured? Had it possibly been crying in the forest, as Emerie had been?