Ayla didn't answer for a little too long. When she did, it was soft enough I had to strain my ears to hear.

"Will you sit with me again?"

"Always," Kanik promised, "but this time shouldn't be nearly as bad. Then again, maybe we should use the couch? I mean, just in case it is."

"Okay."

"Go sit," he told her. "I'll make the dose."

Make. Putting a drop of venom in water wasn't exactly hard. Leaning over the counter in the bathroom, I tried to push that away. My annoyance wasn't really because he was "making" her dose of venom. No, my problem was how Ayla had sounded when she'd asked for Kanik's help.

I wasn't used to women like her. The ones I knew were loud, independent, and much too confident. They had opinions and weren't ashamed to share them. Ayla? Too many times, she'd looked up at me with fear in her pretty blue eyes. It bothered me, and not in the way I'd expected.

I wanted to push that fear away. I wanted to help her become stronger. I longed for the day she'd scream at me, letting me know exactly what she thought without fear of any punishment. Because every time she pulled into herself, it made me so fucking angry I could barely control it.

Moles had done this to her. All my life, I'd thought of Moles as killers. I'd assumed murder was the worst crime in the world. In my head, I'd been so sure I knew the bounds of their evil - and then I'd met Ayla.

Seeing her made me realize there were things much worse than death. The girl was twenty years old, and she'd never really had a childhood. She hadn't been allowed to experience joy. For two entire decades, she'd been systematically tortured - and couldn't imagine anything else.

They'd hit her, they'd twisted her thoughts to always make her be the one at fault, and they'd terrorized her. Anything she liked - such as books - had been off-limits. Her only recourse was to become fragile and submissive. Her only option to survive had been to learn the system well enough that she now believed far too much of it.

But I'd watched her kill.

I'd seen the look on her face when she swung the butt end of that gun at a man's head. Rage. Deep inside, this woman was filled with more anger than even I could carry, and she always hid it with her eyes turned to the ground and a soft voice for her questions.

A snarl burst from my lips and my tail lashed behind me. Yeah, Kanik was better for her with this. He'd be able to stay calm when she got scared. He'd make it all about her, not how badly he wanted to rip apart the fuckers who'd made something as innocent as friendship into yet another threat.

It took a moment, but when I finally came out of the bathroom, I found Kanik and Ayla sitting side by side on the couch. He turned back to look at me, then offered a weak smile. Beside him, Ayla was staring at the floor, breathing hard. Sitting on the coffee table was an empty glass of what must've had her daily dose of venom.

"How are you doing, Ayla?" I asked. "Hanging in there?"

She jiggled her head, but didn't answer. Instead, Kanik did. "Naomi was right. The venom hits Ayla harder than we expected, but she's pushing through it."

"You're doing good," I told her as I claimed the chair beside Kanik. "It'll get easier every day. Just keep breathing, Ayla. That's all you need to worry about right now."

She bobbed her head again, but something about her body relaxed. That pale skin of hers was flushed, turning it very pink. The color did not go well with the grey dress she had on today. It made her look sunburned again.

"It's a neurotoxin," I said, knowing she liked information. "The molecules in our venom attack your nervous system, sending confusing signals to the brain. That makes your body think you're being attacked in many ways. Your skin is probably hot. It might be tingling. Your fingers and toes are probably numb. Your heart should be racing out of control, yet your lungs are too tight to take a full breath. That's because the venom affects all those systems. It's how we kill Moles."

Her eyes jumped up. That lifted her head enough for me to see her lips were parted and she was panting hard. She also had her fingers curled into little fists. Tight ones that pressed her ring hard into her skin.

"Kanik, hold her hand," I told him. "That will help her body remember she can still feel."

He reached over, and Ayla clasped his scaled palm desperately. She didn't lean into him, though. He also didn't try to get closer. Well, little steps. She was touching him, so she wasn't avoiding him. For now, that would have to be enough.

"You see," I went on, hoping that listening to me would help her relax, "a lethal dose of venom numbs the injection site. The barbs on our tails aren't small. About the size of a small dagger."

"Or kitchen knife," Kanik offered.

"Probably a better analogy," I agreed. "Getting stabbed by something that size usually hurts, but Moles never react to the sting because the venom numbs it. Then, after a few seconds, it burns. Why? Because the nerves around the puncture are being over-stimulated. They fry themselves, burning up in the process. If a man was fast enough to cut off the limb, he might survive." I chuckled. "Might."

"Yeah?" she breathed.

"Because the neurotoxin spreads fast," I explained. "It gets in the bloodstream and courses through the body. Within a few minutes, it's all over. And, just like how it fries the nerves around the puncture, it also destroys the ones that tell your lungs to work. A man - or animal - will stop breathing. The heart will pound so hard it seizes, like a heart attack. The body temperature increases, making a fever in a weak attempt to burn the venom away, but by then it's already too late."

"Is it sticky?" she asked, finally pulling in a full breath. That meant she was almost over it.

"Is what sticky?"

"The venom."

My brow creased as I thought about that. "More oily. Like cooking oil, but thicker."

Pushing out a heavy breath, Ayla flopped back onto the couch and let her eyes close. For a moment, she just breathed, her chest rising and falling as her lungs filled and emptied easily.

Then, without lifting her lids, she said, "You should put it on the arrows."

My entire body went still. Kanik's head snapped around to look at her. We both stared as we tried to process her idea. Fuck, it was a good one too!

"Poisoned arrows," I breathed.

"Wouldn't really be hard," Kanik said.

"No, it wouldn't, and it'd take down a lot more of them. We'd just have to get enough venom to be able to dunk the tips."

"Have everyone expel into a bucket?" Kanik suggested. "Even the non-combatants could help with that. Hell, even the kids. It'd make them feel like a part of the defense."

"Yeah. Why didn't we think of this before?" I asked.

Kanik chuckled. "Because we thought we needed our venom to defend ourselves. Why put it on arrows when we use it from our tails?"

"Because you're so used to being a Dragon you forgot that not everyone is," Ayla said. "But if you share, then people like me could be as strong as a Dragon."

"And because you're used to thinking about how to get around things," I said. "It makes you very smart, Ayla. Smarter than all the rest of us, I think." But I leaned forward. "How are you feeling now?"

"Better," she admitted. "Tired, but better."

"Too tired to walk up the stairs yet?" I asked.

Her eyes jumped to Kanik, then back to me. "To the men's area?"

Kanik huffed a laugh. "It's just the second floor."

"But it's the place you sleep," she countered.

"Mhm," I agreed. "Although I slept where you're sitting last night. Upstairs, Rymar and Kanik have rooms just like the one you've been using at night. There's also an office and an area where we repair our weapons and arrows." I smiled. "And a calendar."

"The one I have for school?" Kanik asked.