"Don't be foolish, Seth," Nedra hissed to the male in front of her. "If you wish to be a father, the first thing you must learn is to put your children before yourself. You may wish to know them, but you cannot do that with the risk we face."
"Perhaps love is worth the risk," he quipped.
"Love?" she scoffed. "You know so much of it?"
He crossed the room so quickly to stand before her again that she found herself backing up against the counter. "Yes, I know of it," he said a breath away from her. "I know of it," he repeated, looking now at her lips and thinking of all the ways he had risked for her. All the things she wasn't even aware of that he had done to prove to the other males here that she was not to be touched or even looked at the wrong way.
"Then… you know of patience," she said quietly, for now he was so close. "Because I did not even know how you felt until now. You have kept it from me."
