Chapter 31

When Nathair heard the Demon, he'd hammered within his consciousness to break free. When he scented Linh's fear, everything pushed to the side to let his bloodthirsty rage charge forward.

His fragments quietened, as did his self, and he struck. The Demon, her, he wasn't quite sure.

The moment the Demon's blood filled his maw, and it wriggled against him like squirming prey, his focus became it. He ripped it apart and chased the second as it fled. Its scream of fear and scampering excited the most feral part of him, and his body ached for the hunt.

It escaped halfway down the tunnel before it ran into others. They all shrieked and screamed as he dived, coiling his limbs against each of them like a springing trap. Envenoming and consuming them had been swift.

He gained new claw marks, most situated over the length of his tail, but they did little to stop him. They only pushed him to be more violent and more aggressive, his veins flooding with the need to destroy. Then, once there was nothing but Demon blood infiltrating his senses, everything went quiet besides his own snarls and hisses echoing against the walls.

His rage slowly slipped away.

Nathair choked before he retched. With his shaking hands against the ground, he hacked, and each one broke his orbs until ethereal tears glittered around his skull. Human souls that had attached to the Demons' flesh, to their very essences, clogged in his throat as he tried to vomit them all up. They lingered in his gut, their white-hot flames burning his insides – despite Nathair not truly being able to feel them.

Get out of me! He wanted them out, to not have them attach themselves to him. To not curse him with more fragments when he already couldn't handle what gnawed at him.

Collapsing once he thought they may be all gone, he whined on his stomach. His lengthy body shivered and shuddered in the cold darkness, as wind from further down the tunnel brushed over him. It hurts. Everything hurts. His mind, and how it ached within his skull. His heart that had been racing too hard with all his extensive injuries. His limbs and scales that had been torn, battered, and bruised.

His nose was flooded with blood, much of it his own.

With orbs blue, and still crying, he snarled at a Demon that dared to come near. It skittered outside at his warning.

Linh,he whined.

He wanted to go to her. He wanted that little female like the pillar of salvation she was. He needed her near, to feel her stroking his skull while he dealt with the fact he ached. He craved her soft scent, the warmth of her skin bleeding into him, the way her pretty voice swirled around his throat and skull.

But he'd lost so much blood in the last few hours. He'd torn his own throat out until his spine had been exposed from the inside. All his strength had bled from him. All that remained to get him moving was the adrenaline of rage, which had withered away.

Then, Nathair fell asleep – on his own.

Blackness took him over totally. No Demons came; they would have alerted his lethargic, limp form.

Only when the wounds of his neck healed, a day finally fully passing, was he shoved into full alertness. His other injuries remained, punishing him with their stings. Sunshine glowed as it bounced off the exit tunnel to brighten a spot in the distance, and he assumed that was why nothing came to disturb his rest.

The blood in his nose disappeared when he healed, and his breaths and heart grew stronger. Weakness dissipated, leaving only worry and concern in its place.

Did we hurt her?Shit! Nathair spun, bracing his hands on the wall, before darting up the tunnel.

I haven't scented her blood.If she'd been terribly injured, the smell of it would have called to him. He would have hunted for her and awoken with the taste of her flesh within his maw.

It was all that gave him hope.

She did not follow.He wanted to believe it was because she was wise enough to stay away.

Yet the moment he broke into the main cave, he immediately knew something was wrong. Her lingering scent made it hard to pinpoint where she was. The sound of her was so quiet that it was covered by the constant trickling water.

He checked his nest to find her absent, and it was only when he searched the horizon of his home that he saw her. His heart nearly stopped at her pale form.

Unmoving, and silent like the dead, she lay on the other side of his underwater lake. He slipped inside it, only to breach the surface next to her and discover dried blood tracking down the rocks and into the water.

The whimper that broke from his chest was so hollow, his lungs almost collapsed under the brutal shudder of it. He thumbed next to the two puncture wounds on her right thigh, his heart breaking at the sight of them.

I'm so sorry, little nightingale,he whimpered, while scooping her into his arms when he made his way onto the thin ledge. He cradled the limp female to him, and alongside her weak heart and shallow breathing, she was as cold as ice.

Bumping the side of his snout against her chin, he took her wounds from her as his whimpers grew louder. He hoped she could hear them, and that she could feel when he grabbed her hand to circle it around his chest.

I'm sorry, Linh.

Because, no matter what he did, no matter how he tried, there was one thing he could not save her from: himself.

Healing her strengthened her heartbeat and breaths, but... Nathair was immune to his own venom. He could not envenom himself, and therefore, could not take this from her. She would not heal in a day.

Instead, every minute that passed, every hour, she would only grow weaker. His hunger was insatiable, and he could not ease it, not deepen it by stealing hers. He did not thirst, so he could not ease this for her. It wasn't possible to empty a well that was already barren.

Within a few days, unable to eat, unable to drink, she would naturally wither away.

This is why I could not kiss you when I had venom in my mouth.He didn't know what would happen if she ingested it, if it would matter or not, but he hadn't wanted to risk it.

I do not always bite.

Nathair only used his venom when he had many enemies to contend with. Swallowing paralysed bodies often immobilised him for a short period of time, so he preferred to excitedly rip apart his prey while they still kicked.

So, his fears of this, of envenoming her, had been small.

If she had given me her soul...Although morbid, he could have gently taken her life, and awaited for her to return to him in the same state as when he'd first taken it.

She would not be able to die permanently, forever tied to him. She would not grow old, or wither from sickness or hunger.

I would take it now to save you...but he worried that if he did, she would only return to him in this state. Then he would curse them both, and Nathair didn't have the will to survive in a life with a female that lay sleeping forever.

His whines never ceasing, he looked around his home.

He took in all the pieces she'd unwittingly left behind. Her bag nestled next to a dead campfire. Her seashells sitting on the ledge of his nest. Her purple dress and pants lying out to dry. Linh's scent clung to the earth and rock, and was strongest in his bed. The evidence of this woman being here was everywhere, and he knew he'd immediately evict himself once she was gone.

Turning his sight down to her, he brushed his forefinger against her soft cheek. Why?

Why did this have to happen? They were so close; he could feel it. She'd accepted him fully, had accepted his affection and touch. Why could his ill mind not have waited a little longer to break apart? Why did her gift of quiet have to come with such horrible consequences?

You are the heart that beats outside my chest.

And it was dying.

Not now, but she would. In a few days, this female's body would give up without sustenance.

He'd seen it before in many of his other victims. When he realised what he'd done when slipping out of a rage or fragment, he healed them and watched to see if they'd awaken from his venom. They never did, and he'd slit their throat and eat them to spare them of any pain their passing may cause.

To take their humanity and physical growth as a parting gift, only to spew up their soul.

I don't want to do that to her.

Hands trembling, his heart beat with agony from the loss already drowning him.

Staring down at her cold, dulled face, he hissed at her. How dare you steal my heart, only to fucking die on me!

He didn't even remember biting her! Only lancing the Demon before tackling it with its blood in his mouth. Flooding another creature with venom felt euphoric, so he wasn't even able to sit in the morbid triumph of feeling her warm flesh around his fangs.

Anger, spite, and hatred burned in his chest. At her, at himself, at how sickening his heartache felt. He'd chosen this female to be his damn bride, after years of telling himself he wasn't supposed to have one! He'd convinced himself that being alone was better, safer, quieter, only to fall for a pretty canary that would no longer sing.

I want you,he whimpered, nudging her with his skull in hopes of stirring her, unsure of what to do, how to fix this. I want you within my tail coils at night. I want your warm body caressing me in your hold. He wanted something to protect.

He knew of an answer, but unless Weldir was watching this very second, there was nothing Nathair could do to call him. His voice was lost, his ability to call his creator for aid non-existent. He was alone and had no one he could turn to. No one with magic who could undo his own.

He paused. Her singing lulls me to sleep. He leaned back to stare down at her beautiful face. She's only partially human. If she was part Anzúli, as were her ancestors, that meant... There are more in her village.

Could they aid him? The bigger question was: would they?

He soaked in her light breathing, the soft features of her face, the way she lay lifeless in his arms. They will help her. Not him, but this little human who was gentle, kind, and radiant. A female who constantly thought of her people's wellbeing – enough to plead for it from something as despicable as him.

Nathair slipped into the lake slowly, and carefully laid her on the surface. She didn't even tense up to the cold. When the water was to her neck, he tugged her low enough that it touched her lips.

His venom had left her body asleep, but her eyelids flickered in mild alertness. He covered her mouth and nose, pulling her under, only to bring her back to the surface. The moment she took some form of deeper breath, despite it still being rather shallow, he covered her mouth and nose again.

Nathair dived and bolted for his underwater tunnel.

Stopping halfway, he uncovered her face in an air pocket so she could breathe, then rubbed the side of her face and pushed damp hair from her blueish lips. The water in his lungs became stifling as he adjusted more slowly to breathing through his gills after healing her messed with his system. Once her breaths were strong, he dived again to head to the clearing of his pond, only stopping once more at another air pocket.

She will be okay.

She had to be. He could not take it otherwise.