Chapter 3: The Shielding Embrace
The bell chimed again, not distant now.Right outside the thin metal door. A light, teasing sound, like a cat toy.
Morrigan scrambled backward on the bed, her hands instinctively coming up to cup her breasts, not in seduction but in a protective, almost childish gesture of fear. The fierce predator was gone, replaced by the memory of the broken thing in the snow. “She’s here,” she whispered, the words frayed at the edges.
The wind slammed against the camper van, rocking it on its springs. A new scent slithered in through the cracks—wild, musky, overlaid with frost.Marshall moved. The calm that settled over him was the same blanketing silence that descended before kicking in a door during a rescue, a world of noise funneled down to a single, necessary point. He gently pried Morrigan’s hands from his arms where she’d clawed into him.Her body was rigid, trembling.
“I want to be soft for you,” she breathed, her eyes glistening. “I want to be your… your quiet place.But I can’t. Not while she’s out there.” A tear tracked through the faint, lingering blush on her cheek.“I need your fire, Marshall. Not the gentle kind.The other kind.The kind that burns.”
He understood. She needed his strength, not just his life force, but the part of him that ran into burning buildings. The part that was currently very, very angry.
He swung his legs off the bed, the cold of the van’s floor biting his feet. He pulled on his heavy wool coat over his bare chest, the rough material a familiar comfort. Without a word, he reached up and opened the small overhead cabinet above the driver’s seat.Morrigan watched, her fearful eyes widening further.
From the cabinet, he pulled out two long, narrow objects wrapped in oilcloth.He laid them on the bed beside her. Unwrapping the first revealed a sleek katana in a dark lacquered scabbard, a relic from a brief, intense fascination with iaido after his divorce. The second bundle contained a well-worn Marlin 1895 lever-action rifle, its walnut stock scarred and loved.
“You have a sword,” Morrigan said, her voice hollow with surprise.
“Had a lot of time on my hands,” Marshall grunted, working the rifle’s lever. The solid clack-clack was the most reassuring sound he’d heard all day. He checked the chamber, loaded five thick .45-70 Government rounds from a box on the shelf, and slung the rifle over his shoulder by its strap.He picked up the katana. He wasn’t a samurai. He was a guy who’d practiced cuts on saplings for stress relief.But it was sharp, and it was long.
“You’re going out there?” Morrigan’s terror spiked again. She reached for him, her body pressing against his side.The warmth and dampness of her left a mark on his coat. “She’ll tear you apart.She’s not… she’s not a rational creature. She’s a prank with claws.”
“She hurt you,” Marshall said, his voice low and steady. He looked down at Morrigan, at the perfect skin where rotten flesh had been. “She left you for dead in my woods. That makes it my business.”
He saw the conflict in her eyes—the succubus who despised needing protection, and the wounded creature who clung to it.The latter won. She nodded once, a sharp, desperate jerk of her chin.
Marshall turned to the door, his hand on the cold latch. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the camper’s close air—scent of sex, fear, and gun oil.He yanked the door open.
The cold was a physical slap.Wind-driven snow swirled into the van, stinging his eyes. The world was a monochrome blur of white and grey and deep green shadows.
Perched on the roof of his rusting pickup truck, maybe fifteen feet away, was Felicia.
She was exactly as Morrigan had described, yet the description did nothing to prepare him. She was feline energy given humanoid form, wrapped in a ragged fur loincloth and a band of leather across her chest. Blue fur, vibrant even in the dull light, tipped with white. A long, expressive tail swished lazily behind her. Her face was a playful mask, green eyes bright with curiosity, but the claws she casually extended and retracted from her fingertips were ebony sickles.
A small, silver bell was tied to her ankle.
“Ooooh,” Felicia cooed, her voice a melodic purr.“A knight! A grumpy, hairy knight!” She giggled, a sound like bouncing pebbles. “Did my little plague rat find herself a nursemaid?”
“Get down from there,” Marshall said. His voice didn’t carry the force of a command; it was flat, factual, like telling someone the time.Felicia’s grin widened. She ignored him, craning her neck to peer past him into the camper.“Mori? You in there, stinkbug? I brought you a present!” She held up a dead snowshoe hare by its ears.“Thought you might be hungry. Or, you know, mostly dead by now.”
Morrigan appeared behind Marshall, wrapped tightly in the wool blanket.Her mint-green hair whipped in the wind. She said nothing, but her presence was a silent refutation.
Felicia’s playful expression flickered.Her nose twitched.She sniffed the air, deeply. The grin vanished, replaced by genuine confusion.“You… you don’t smell right. You smell like… campfire and man-sweat and… health?” Her tail stopped swishing. “How are you not a puddle of goo?”
“She’s better,” Marshall said, taking a single step forward, putting himself squarely between the two beings. The rifle felt solid, a known quantity in a universe that had just tipped sideways.“Better?” Felicia laughed, but it was edged now. “My scratches don’t get ‘better,’ human.They fester.They curdle. They turn succubi into squeaky toys.” She dropped the hare and leaned forward, her claws digging into the truck’s roof with a squeal of metal. “What did you do?”
“I helped her.”
“You helped her?” Felicia sprang. Not at him, but to the ground in front of the truck, landing in a silent crouch. She straightened up, eyeing him with new, unnerving intensity.“What are you?Some kind of walking antibiotic? A witch?”
“Former firefighter.From Edmonton.”
Felicia stared at him. Then she burst out laughing, a full-bellied, hysterical sound that echoed off the trees.“A firefighter! That’s perfect! You put out her fire!” She wiped a tear from her eye, her mirth suddenly dying.“But you didn’t, did you? You stoked it.” She took a step closer, her head tilted.“You fed her. You let that rotten little sponge drain you.You’re pale, human.Worn thin. Can you feel your heartbeat in your teeth yet?”
Marshall said nothing. He unslung the rifle, holding it loosely at his side, his finger resting along the trigger guard.
Felicia’s eyes darted to the gun, then to the sword still in his other hand. Her playful smirk returned, but it was tighter, more dangerous.“Oh, tools!Cute. You think pointy sticks matter to things like us?”
“They matter to me,” Marshall said.“This is my camp.You’re trespassing. You hurt someone under my protection. Now you’re gonna leave.”
“Under your protection?” Felicia purred, taking another sinuous step forward.The bell on her ankle jingled. “Listen to you.She’s got you wrapped, doesn’t she? All that ‘oh, save me, big strong man’ nonsense.She’s a vampire, you idiot. A fancier, sexier one. She’s playing you for lunch.”
From behind him, Morrigan’s voice came, quiet but clear.“He knows what I am, kitten. The difference is, he likes my game.”
The word ‘kitten’ hit Felicia like a physical blow. Her playful pretense evaporated.Her lips drew back from sharp white teeth. “You’re still poison, Morrigan.Just prettier poison.His energy is just slowing the rot. It’ll come back. And I’ll be here to watch you melt.”
“You won’t be anywhere near here,” Marshall said. He lifted the rifle, not aiming it at her, but bringing it into a ready position.The lever action was a blatant, deliberate threat. “You’re going to turn around, walk back into those trees, and keep walking.”
Felicia looked from the rifle barrel to Marshall’s stony face. She saw no bluster, no fear, just a tired, determined man with a very large gun. The calculus of the wilderness changed.Humans were usually prey, or scenery.This one was an obstacle.
“Or what?” she hissed, her own claws fully extended now.
“Or I introduce you to a concept from my world,” Marshall said, his voice still dangerously calm. “It’s called ‘stopping power.’ This round will take down a grizzly. I’m guessing it’ll ruin your afternoon.”
They stood frozen, the snow settling on their shoulders.The wind moaned through the pines.
Felicia’s eyes flickered past him to Morrigan one last time, pure venom in her gaze.Then she shrugged, the movement unnervingly fluid.“Fine. Keep your rotten pet.She’ll be boring now anyway. All tamed and grateful.” She took a step backward, then another, towards the tree line. “But the fever’s still in her, fireman.Deep down.My gift.It’ll come crawling back out. And when it does, I’ll hear her screaming from miles away.”
With that, she turned and bounded into the forest, a flash of blue and white quickly swallowed by the grey haze of snow and shadow. The faint chime of her bell faded into the wind until there was only silence.
Marshall stood for a full minute, the rifle stock growing cold against his cheek. He listened until his ears ached with the strain, hearing nothing but the natural grieving of the winter woods.Finally, he lowered the gun. His shoulders slumped, the adrenaline bleeding away, leaving the deep fatigue Morrigan had mentioned. He turned.She was still there, framed in the doorway, the blanket held tightly around her. She wasn’t looking at the woods.She was looking at him. Her expression was unreadable—a tumult of relief, shame, and something else.Something like awe.
He trudged back through the snow, climbed the steps into the van, and pulled the door shut against the cold. The sudden quiet was oppressive.He leaned the rifle against the wall and placed the katana on the table. The metallic scent of fear was slowly being replaced by the smell of wet wool and his own sweat.
“You confronted her,” Morrigan whispered. “For me.”
“She was on my truck,” Marshall said, practicality a thin shield for the enormity of what had just happened. “Scratched the paint.”
A startled laugh burst from Morrigan’s lips—a short, wet, desperate sound. Then, to his shock, her face crumpled. The proud succubus, the ancient predator, buried her face in her hands and began to cry. Not delicate tears, but great, heaving sobs that wracked her whole body.Marshall stood there, awkward, exhausted. He had no protocol for this. After a moment, he simply sat on the edge of the bed and put a heavy arm around her shaking shoulders.She collapsed into him, her tears soaking into his coat. “I’m sorry,” she choked out between sobs.“I’m so weak. I’m so… pathetic.”
“You’re alive,” he said, the words gruff.“And you’re not rotting. That’s a win.”
She clutched at him, her fingers digging into the coarse fabric. “She’s right, you know,” she gasped.“The poison is still there.I can feel it… sleeping. You’ve banked the fire, but the embers are still hot. I’ll need… I’ll always need…”
“I know,” he said, cutting her off.He did know. The transaction wasn’t over.It might never be over. He looked at the sword, the rifle, the closed door. His simple life of solitude was gone, replaced by this: a beautiful, dangerous, desperately needy creature and a vengeful wild thing with a bell.
He tilted Morrigan’s chin up.Her eyes were red-rimmed, vulnerable, hauntingly beautiful. “One day at a time,” he said, echoing the divorce support mantra that felt like a lifetime ago. “For now, she’s gone.”
Morrigan searched his face, her sobs subsiding into shaky breaths.The fear was still there, but beneath it, something warmer was kindling. She leaned forward slowly, and this time, her kiss wasn’t about hunger or healing or thanks. It was soft, questioning, a tentative exploration of a strange new territory called trust.
When she pulled back, she rested her forehead against his.“Your fire,” she murmured, her voice ragged. “It’s a different kind of heat now.”
Outside, the wind pushed at the van, testing its seams. Somewhere far off, maybe just in their minds, a bell seemed to chime once, softly, on the edge of hearing.
The sound, real or imagined, severed the fragile moment. Morrigan flinched as if struck, her body going taut against him. The vulnerability snapped shut behind a quick mask of alertness, her wet eyes darting towards the door.
“It’s just the wind,” Marshall said, but the words felt hollow in his own ears.
“Maybe,” she breathed, not believing it either. She wiped her face with the heel of her hand, a strangely human gesture.The crying had stopped, leaving a stark, weary clarity in its wake. She looked from the door to the rifle propped against the wall, then back to his face. “You pointed a gun at a being who considers grizzlies mildly irritating.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
A faint, tired smile touched her lips.“It did.Because you meant it. There was no… performance in it.” She drew a shaky breath, her gaze dropping to her own hands, pale and flawless against the dark wool blanket. “The creature you found in the snow would have found that fascinating.The Morrigan of a week ago would have found it insulting. I just find it…”
She trailed off, searching for the word.“Practical?” he offered.
“Sacred,” she whispered.
The word hung between them, too big for the cramped, humid space.Marshall didn’t know what to do with it, so he focused on the practical. He stood, his knees protesting, and started pulling on his damp jeans over his long johns. “We should move. She knows where we are.”
Morrigan watched him dress, her head cocked.“You’re that concerned?”
“You heard her. She’ll be back.” He zipped his fly, the sound loud in the quiet.“She thinks this is a game. I don’t like being part of the game.”
“She thinks you’re my pet now,” Morrigan said, a sliver of her old pride coloring her tone. “The fireman and his demon. It’s a fun story for her.”
“It’s not a story.It’s my life.” He shrugged into a heavy sweater. “And you’re not a demon. You’re a problem I picked up in the woods.”
Her smile returned, sharper this time. “You’re a terrible liar, Marshall Croft.”
He ignored her, checking the rifle’s safety before placing it back in the cabinet. The katana he left on the table, within easy reach.His movements were methodical, calming. This was a familiar ritual: assessing threat, planning evacuation, securing assets. The asset was currently sitting naked on his bed, watching him with an inscrutable expression.
“The poison,” she said after a moment, her voice losing its edge.“It’s not a metaphor.It’s a… a resonant sickness. Felicia’s essence, discordant and animalistic, vibrating inside me.Your energy quiets it. Smothers the resonance.”
He paused, a packet of dried coffee in his hand. “So what’s the long-term play here? I just keep you… tuned?”
“For now,” she admitted, the honesty seeming to cost her something. “Until I can heal the damage on a level you can’t see. Or until I can fight her on even terms and force the resonance out.” She drew her knees up to her chest.“I’m a sensor, remember? Right now, all I can sense is the cold knot of her chaos inside me, and the… the warmth of your life beside it.It’s very simple. It’s also infuriating.”
He lit the small propane stove, set a battered kettle on the flame.The mundane action was an anchor. “And if I stop?”
“The dissonance returns.The fever. The rot.” She said it plainly, no drama.“It would be slower now, probably.I’m stronger. But it would finish the job.”
The water began to hiss. He spooned coffee into two tin mugs. “So I’m stuck with you.”
“And I,” she said softly, “am utterly dependent on you.The predator becomes the passenger. It’s the oldest story there is, isn’t it?”
He poured the boiling water, the rich smell of coffee cutting through the van’s other odors. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn this into a story.” He handed her a mug.“This is just today. This is just a man, a… woman, and a cat-creature in the woods.We’re moving camp. That’s the next beat.”
She took the mug, her fingers wrapping around the warmth. She studied him over the steam.“Where?”
“North.Further up the forestry road. My map shows an old ranger cabin near a lake. Might be collapsed, but it’s a place to start.”
“You have a map.” She said it like it was a revelation.
“I’m a camper. Of course I have a map.” He sipped his coffee, wincing at the heat. "Do you need clothes?"
She glanced down at herself, at the blanket slipping from her shoulders. “The cold won't do more than stiffen my nipples." She offered him a coy smile. "Would it distract you?”
"It would," Marshall said, not looking at her as he drained his mug. "But frostbite would slow us down more." He rummaged in a plastic tub under the bed, coming up with a pair of his own grey sweatpants and a thick, cable-knit sweater. "These'll swim on you, but they're warm."
He tossed them onto the bed. Morrigan set her coffee aside and stood, letting the blanket fall. She held the sweater up against herself; it would be enormous. A faint, genuine smile touched her lips. "It smells like you," she observed, her voice quiet.
"Smells like campfire and cheap detergent," he corrected, turning to pack the stove.
"Exactly."
She dressed quickly, the fabric swallowing her frame, the sweater's hem hanging to mid-thigh. She rolled the sleeves back several times. The casual domesticity of the moment felt more surreal than the magic or the monsters. Marshall moved through the small space with practiced efficiency, stowing gear, checking supplies. His movements were economical, tired, but thorough.
"You've done this before," Morrigan said, watching him secure the katana in a long canvas bag.
"Packed in a hurry? Yeah. Usually when there's a fire behind me." He zipped his duffel shut. "This is just a different kind of fire."
He opened the camper door again. The light was flat, the sky a sheet of low, grey cloud. The wind had died, leaving an eerie stillness. The only tracks in the fresh snow were Felicia's retreating paw-prints and his own boot prints from the confrontation. He scanned the tree line, his eyes narrowed. Nothing moved.
"Get in the truck," he said, his voice low. "Passenger side. Keep your head down."
Morrigan didn't argue. She pulled the sweater's collar over her nose and scurried across the ten feet of open ground, moving with a surprising, liquid grace even in the bulky clothes. She slid onto the cracked vinyl seat and ducked below the window level. Marshall followed, throwing their bags behind the seats. He cranked the engine; it roared to life, the sound violently loud in the silent forest.
He didn't bother warming it up. He put it in gear, the tires crunching through the crust of snow, and pulled back onto the narrow forestry road. The camper van, his home for the past three weeks, grew smaller in the rearview mirror. He felt a pang—not for the van, but for the solitude it represented. That was gone.
For twenty minutes, they drove in silence. The road was a tunnel of frosted spruce, potholes hidden beneath snow making the truck lurch. Morrigan eventually sat up, peering out at the endless, monotonous green and white.
"You're angry," she said, not looking at him.
"Tired."
"It's more than tired. Your energy is... spiked. Jagged." She finally turned her head. "You risked your life. For me. And now you're fleeing. That doesn't sit well with the man who runs into fires."
He gripped the wheel tighter. "I didn't run. I made a tactical retreat. The location was compromised."
"A tactical retreat," she repeated, tasting the words. "And I am the compromised asset."
"Something like that."
She was quiet for another mile. The road began a gradual descent. "You could have left me in the snow," she said, her voice barely above the rumble of the engine. "It would have been the rational choice. Still would be."
He didn't answer. He knew she was right. Every logical circuit in his brain, the ones built by years of assessing risk and triaging casualties, screamed that she was a catastrophic liability. But logic had checked out the moment he'd seen the raw terror in her eyes, the moment her skin had smoothed under his touch, the moment she'd cried against his coat—real, helpless tears.
"I'm not in the habit of leaving helpless women to die," he said finally.
"But you are in the habit of taking them with you?" She gestured at the cramped cab of the truck, at the wilderness scrolling past. "This is a poor rescue, Marshall. You've just moved the problem."
"Got a better idea?"
"Several. All of them involve cities. Crowds. Places where I could feed without draining you to a husk." She looked out the window again. "Places with walls."
"The nearest city is eight hours south on roads that might be closed. You said the poison's still in you. You need steady fuel. My fuel." He said it bluntly. "You start feeding on a crowd, what happens? You lose control? You drain someone dry on accident?"
She flinched, a tiny motion. "I am not a novice."
"You were a novice against Felicia." He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. It was a low blow.
Morrigan went very still. The air in the cab grew cold, and not from the draft through the window seals. "Yes," she said, her voice frigid. "I was. My weakness has been thoroughly documented. Thank you for the reminder."
He sighed, the anger bleeding out of him, leaving only the deep fatigue. "That's not what I meant."
"Isn't it?" She pulled her knees up onto the seat, wrapping the huge sweater around them. She looked young, bundled in his clothes. "You are my life support system. A grudging one. I understand the reality. You don't need to keep outlining it."
They fell into a heavier silence. Marshall focused on the road, spotting the small, faded sign he was looking for: Lac Noir Access - 2 km. He turned onto an even narrower track, the truck's branches scraping against the truck's sides. The promised lake appeared through the trees, a vast, flat plate of ice and snow under the grey sky. Near its shore, half-collapsed and shrouded in drifts, was a small log structure.
The cabin wasn't much. One window was broken. The roof sagged on one side. But the door was intact, and when Marshall shouldered it open, the single room inside was dry and empty, save for some old mouse droppings and a rusted wood stove. It smelled of dust, old pine, and abandonment.
"Home sweet home," he muttered, dropping the duffel just inside.
Morrigan stepped in behind him, her nose wrinkling. "It's a hovel."
"It's defensible. One door. One window to watch." He walked to the glassless back window, which framed a view of the frozen lake and the dense forest beyond. "Nothing can sneak up on us here unless it comes across the ice."
She came to stand beside him, following his gaze. "She won't come across the ice. She hates the cold. And the open space. It's why she attacked me in the deep woods." Morrigan hugged herself. "But she'll find another way. She's tracking the dissonance inside me. It's a beacon to her."
Marshall started unpacking, laying out sleeping bags, the rifle, the box of ammunition. "Then we make sure I'm close. We keep the beacon quiet."
A complicated expression crossed her face—gratitude warring with profound irritation. "This proximity... this constant feeding. It creates a bond, Marshall. A tie. It's not just physical. The more you give, the more you... anchor me. To you."
He stopped, a can of beans in his hand. "What does that mean?"
"It means my senses will start to tune to your frequency. Your emotions will bleed into my awareness. Your pain will be my discomfort." She looked at him, her green eyes serious. "I will know when you are afraid, or angry, or aroused. And you... you may start to feel echoes of me. It's a side effect of sustained, intimate energy transfer."
He absorbed that, placing the can carefully on the dusty floor. "You're saying we're going to be... connected."
"Tethered," she said. "Like two instruments sharing a resonance. It's how my kind form covens. How we... bond with long-term consorts." The word 'consort' hung in the air, heavy with implication.
Marshall ran a hand over his beard. "No going back?"
"Not unless we sever the connection. Which, given my condition, would be... fatal for me." She gave a small, helpless shrug. "I did not choose this. But I am explaining the cost."
He thought of the emptiness after his divorce, the hollow quiet of his apartment, the way he'd come to the woods to feel nothing at all. Now he was tethering his soul to a centuries-old succubus to keep her from rotting. The irony was so dark it was almost funny.
"Okay," he said, simply.
"Okay?" She blinked. "That's all you have to say?"
"What else is there to say?" He began gathering wood splinters from a broken chair for kindling. "The choices are let you die, which I'm not doing, or let you feed on strangers, which I'm not doing. So we're stuck. We're tethered. Fine."
He said it with the same flat acceptance he'd used for overtime shifts or a leaking roof. It seemed to disarm her more than any protest would have. She watched him pile the kindling into the stove, his movements steady and mundane.
"You are a very strange man," she said softly.
"Yeah," he agreed, striking a match. "I've been getting that a lot lately."
The fire caught, painting the dusty walls in flickering orange light. As the cold began to recede from the small space, Morrigan sat on the sleeping bag he'd unrolled, drawing her knees up. The borrowed sweater swamped her. The predatory glint was gone from her eyes, replaced by a watchful, uncertain exhaustion.
"The bond works both ways," she said, staring into the growing flames. "I will be... more sensitive to you. But you may also find yourself more aware of me. Of my needs. My hunger. It will pull at you."
Marshall sat back on his heels, warming his hands. The heat felt good on his skin. "I already feel it," he admitted, the words quiet in the crackling silence. "Like a... a low battery warning. In my gut."
She nodded. "That's the tether. A gentle tug. It will get stronger." She looked at him across the small space, her face half in shadow. "You should rest. You've given too much today already."
"So have you," he said. "Healing takes energy, too."
A faint, sad smile. "A different kind. Mine is coming back. Yours is depleting." She lay down on the sleeping bag, curling on her side toward the fire. "Sleep, Marshall. I'll watch the door. I don't need as much rest as you do. Not anymore."
He wanted to argue, but the weight of the day crashed down on him. The fatigue was a physical thing, a thick syrup in his veins. He lay down on his own bag, his back to hers, facing the broken window and the darkening lake beyond. The rifle was within arm's reach.
He expected sleep to be impossible, but his body betrayed him, pulling him under almost immediately. His dreams were fragmented, chaotic: the sound of a bell, the feel of oatmeal-soft skin under his hands, the green flash of Felicia's eyes.
He didn't know how long he slept. He was pulled awake not by a sound, but by a feeling. A deep, resonant ache that was not his own. A hollow, yearning emptiness that originated in the center of his chest but felt foreign. It was accompanied by a scent—warm, dark, intoxicating—like amber and night-blooming flowers.
He opened his eyes. The fire had died to embers. The cabin was dark and cold. Morrigan was no longer lying behind him.
She was standing at the broken window, her silhouette a cutout against the lesser darkness outside. She was perfectly still, her head bowed. The ache, the desperate hunger, was coming from her in silent, palpable waves. She was holding herself tightly, arms wrapped around her torso, as if physically containing a need.
She wasn't watching for danger. She was fighting herself.
"Mori," he said, his voice rough with sleep.
She didn't turn. "Go back to sleep. It's nothing."
"It's not nothing." He sat up. The tug in his gut was a taut wire now. "It's the poison. Or the hunger. Or both."
"It's manageable." Her voice was strained. "I will not take from you while you sleep. That is a line."
"Come here."
She shook her head, a sharp movement. "No. The bond... it makes it harder to control the volume. If I touch you now, I might not be able to stop at a sip. I could hurt you."
The honesty in her words, the raw fear of her own power, cut through the last of his sleepiness. He stood up. The wooden floor was icy under his socks. He walked to her, stopping an arm's length away. He could feel the energy radiating from her, a desperate, pulling vacuum.
"You guided me before," he said. "With the focus. The pinpoint."
"That was different. You were awake. You were directing the flow."
"So direct it now." He reached out, not touching her, his hand hovering near her arm. "You said it's a tool. So use it. Take what you need to quiet the noise. Just what you need."
She finally turned her head. In the dim light, her eyes were wells of black need, but a thread of green determination shone through. "You trust me that much?"
He hesitated, one hand on her hip. "I honestly don't know," he said at last. "But I know it hurts and I know I don't want you to hurt."
The demon woman's breath caught in her throat, and she turned to fully face him. The hugely oversized sweatshirt dropped off one shoulder and slipped far enough down her shoulder to expose on full, plump breast. The sudden touch of cool evening air caused her nipple to stiffen, but she paid it no mind. She looked up at him with a steady gaze, her large, liquid green eyes shining in the flickering firelight.
"You offered yourself to me when you were weak and defenseless," he said quietly. "I told you I like submissive women and you trusted me with your life. The least I can do is return that trust."