Jade Fern Grove chafa

She knew.

Partial relief flooded him—for how could she not have seen he would have burned the world for her, if she so desired it? That the flame he carried for her to even do so could never burn an inferno for another—and yet the same defiance remained rooted in his grizzled features, for he would have given Eshe what she had wanted… if only she had been able to give him what he had wanted.

Just a tiny bit of fucking reassurance.

But he didn’t care to argue this—Eshe had torn his trust in so many ways—but his heartache was not for her. Not truly.

He braced himself from her demand—his eyes closing for a moment, his breath hissing out. But then they were open, knowing the intricacies of this moment and knowing he would have no more regrets—not when it came to the beautiful woman before him.

“Wouldn’t give, mo ghràdh,” he spoke, his tone quieting, then. “Not when your heart belongs to Crowfeather.”

The name was almost bitter on his tongue—his disgust of an otherwise kind soul only from the way she looked to him—as if the sun and moon rose and set upon him.

His gaze heatedly searched her rounding sides—the swell of life stirring a primal urge within him to pull her to a warm embrace—to soothe her. An urge he had to temper with logic—the right had never been his even before, and especially not now.

“I foolishly chose not to wait for you to see what I see. I chose a simpler path—one where it wasn’t supposed to matter to me the way you looked to him.” A path he wouldn’t have felt the guilt pull at him when Wren told him, again and again, that she was in love with the Sharpfang, also. A path where Eshe had looked to him as he had wanted—

An idiot’s path.

He inhaled sharply, trailing his muzzle down, never enough to truly graze her—and yet the very memory of her, still knowing exactly how she would feel and taste. And everything within him screaming that he shouldn't be here. Not if self preservation meant anything to him.