know why, but it meant I was not compelled to eat her once a month. I was very curious about her.”

She didn’t bleed? She must have been infertile.

Once more, that reddish-pink flashed, and he looked away from Reia with his fingers digging into her leg. He sheathed his claws when he realised he was digging them into her.

“She let me do whatever I wanted to with her as long as I did for things for her. She told me she hated my cave and missed living in a house, so I built one for her. She needed human food, so I scavenged for it before I found seeds, and she grew the garden. I was already able to produce my protection spell, and it was the size of the clearing this house is in now. She said she didn’t want the trees, hated being in the dark, so I cut them down until she could see and feel the sun. She never left the protections, didn’t try to run away. She stayed, and I thought it was because she liked me as much as I became attached to her. She... She was the one who gave me my name.”

He fell silent, and she could feel his body tensing, that he was shuddering in aversion to his own story.

She was the one that named him?

“It’s okay,” she said, giving him a small smile of reassurance as she placed her hand around his ankle that was next to her.

He whined in response instead, fidgeting further.

She brought her lips into her mouth and bit down on them. This is really hurting him. She couldn’t force him to continue, not when she could see how much it was.

“It’s alright, you don’t have to tell me anymore.”

“I want to, Reia. It’s just... I wanted her soul, and she said no. That she wasn’t ready. That I hadn’t done enough to earn it. She said she would consider it if I took her to the Demon village. I had left to go there a few times for supplies and I explained what was there. She liked the pretty things that you humans wear, and I traded for them. I let her have whatever she wanted because it made her happy, and I

liked seeing her that way. I shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t have taken her there. She was seen. And although no one tried to take her from me there, someone else discovered I had a human because of it.”

“Who?”

“The Demon King,” he answered darkly. “He doesn’t like Mavka. We are strong and difficult to kill. He doesn’t like that he can’t control us.”

“He killed her?”

Orpheus shook his head, and she watched as one of his hands came up to dig at his chest, his claws gouging into where his heart was.

“No. He offered to her a way to leave me, and she went with him. She... She told me she hated me, hated every moment with me.” He gouged deeper, and she noticed the water began to have drops of purple blood in it that eventually faded. She had never seen his eyes this dark before, and her heart stung for him. “She said she had been trying to figure out a way she could escape for the entire five years she had stayed with me.”

Reia crawled forward so she could slip her arms around his shoulders and hug him tightly.

“I’m sorry,” she said, burying her face into the fur of his neck. “That must have been so hurtful.”

He wrapped his arms around her and pressed the underneath of his jaw across her back. “What did I do wrong, Reia? Why did she not want to stay with me?”

Tears welled in her eyes for him.

“I-I don’t know. I can’t answer that for you.”

But she wished she could.

Orpheus had done everything within his capabilities to make this woman happy, more than he had for Reia, and she couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t have wanted to be with him. I do... and I’ve only been here for a month and a half. This woman had apparently spent five years with him!

She clutched the long fur on his back, her tear-filled eyes narrowing with spite, and perhaps a little jealousy.

This woman had been the one to show Orpheus what touch and sex were, and she was a little jealous she had and didn’t seem to appreciate him. After one night, she was lost.

Well, I’m glad she’s gone, then. Gone and dead. She was two hundred years in the past and she could rot wherever she died, but she hoped it was in the belly of a Demon. It would be deserved if she went with the Demon King and was eaten instead of ‘saved’.

“Are...” he started, digging his fingertips into the skin of her back. “Are you going to leave me too?”

Her heart nearly shattered into a million fragments in her chest.

“No, Orpheus.” She turned her head and pressed her lips to the side of his bony jaw. “I want to stay with you.”

“I like you, Reia. You are special and different to every human I have brought here. You want my touch, let me hold you because you want it. You are beautiful, and strong, and brave enough to face me, even when I am crazed. You protected me when all the others would have let me be eaten. I do not want you to go away. I don’t want another human if you disappear.”

He doesn’t want another human? Does... Does that mean he wouldn’t replace me if I died or left? Her tears finally slipped down her cheeks, not understanding what this meant.

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She is upset with me, Orpheus thought as he paced around the living area, walking restlessly between the chairs and in front of the fireplace. Like a mindless dog, he was doing laps as if he was chasing his tail.

A small whine left his chest. What did I do wrong?

It had been five days since the night they’d shared their bodies for the first time and he told her of the woman from centuries ago.

Each day, she did different tasks, whether that was tending to the garden or making herself clothing that he was enthralled in watching her make. He liked the clothing she made for herself, never having seeing this kind before, and she looked pretty in them. They were colourful as she used the dyes that were much more effective than the food dyes she’d been using originally.

However, he didn’t like it when she pricked her finger on the sewing needle. She’d make a noise of pain, and he’d become distressed that she was hurting herself, only for her to laugh at him like he was being silly.

She made new ornaments for him to hang up. Slowly she was replacing the ones he’d put up centuries ago for the woman who originally wanted them. She seemed very set on this task, wanting to make sure they were gone. Reia

would destroy them by pulling them apart so she could use them for new ones.

The house smelled of strange food he’d never smelt before, like pastries and cookies. She used the honey he’d gotten for her in many different things. He’d learned not to eat any of it as it was too sweet and hurt his stomach.

But Orpheus wanted to learn everything she was doing, even if he didn’t like the smells and tastes, and she was happy to teach and allow him to spend that time with her.

He didn’t stop her from doing anything.

So, he tried to reflect on what he could have done to make Reia upset with him. She had gone to sleep in her bed when she’d spent every night in his since that day.

He’d gone to do a final lap of the yard, making sure there were no cracks in the salt circle and that the withering trinkets were still good for another day or two before needing replacement.

She’d been reading to him before he went outside, each night going through one of the tales in that book the Witch Owl guided her to take.

He had thought all was well and fine – only to discover when he came back inside that she’d gone to sleep, and it hadn’t been in his bed.

Scratching at his chest, he tried to figure out why she didn’t want to embrace him. He couldn’t. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong.

As the night grew later and Orpheus found himself too restless to even try to sleep, he snuck into her room while crouching, using one of his hands to steady himself.