GAR
There was no time. The others might be pursuing them, though he prayed they either couldn't, or wouldn't in the dark.
Tarkyn was also out here somewhere. If he caught her scent…
But she was falling apart, trembling in his arms like a leaf in the wind, and he couldn't focus on anything else.
He'd seen her panic before. Seen fury overtake fear in her. And that first time they'd met, she'd even suspected him. But nothing like this.
Seeing him fight for her had triggered something in her.
He'd seen it before, though not quite so badly. Disformed who came from families who couldn't love someone different. Friends who'd been harmed by the very Anima that should have loved them most.
And he'd felt his own fear, waiting for the hammer to drop from his father, certain at different times in his life that he was on the verge of being rejected by his own family. Yet, it had never come.
