Otter Creek You would have to be half mad to dream me up

Arielle smiled, and he thought with a fluttering in his belly that he could be more bold with his dares, but Aventus also felt the way her muscles tensed. Was she uncomfortable? He wanted to wilt away into nothingness at the thought that he had made her feel that way. He couldn't dare her for a kiss if she was already uncomfortable with him saying she smelled nice. Obviously he was misreading what few signals were getting through his thick skull.

It took him a moment to cast around for something both chaste and risky to dare her. I dare you, he said, elongating the last syllable for suspense, to tell me your deepest, darkest fear. Even that made Aventus' pulse race. To be privy to someone else's greatest fears involved a great deal of trust, but he thought they at least had that. She wouldn't be here with him, crammed into this little hole, prepared to risk her life for Ursus, if she did not trust him.

Still. He would struggle with sharing his fears with anyone, so he assumed it wouldn't be easy for her. That was the whole point of a dare, though, right?