Lion Head Mesa after while, crocodile

There’s a rapid, indrawn breath, a heat in her veins. His gift around her neck enlists this of her body, to pulse with an echo of something before. A look moves down to her paws as she digests what she’s been told.

“Yes,” she answers stiffly, for Toula, mouth pleasant but in a way that had to be for the sake of politeness. She’d have tried to put an end to it, some attempt to protect her in the way she did with Naberius, if it hadn’t been what Inji wanted.

The look in her eyes flush in envy, and also disgust with herself for it.

Because there was desire there- in that part of her that was not her mother’s.