Behind me, the homeland of my people, of my family, stretches like a yawning void, from which I can all but hear their pleas to turn toward such solitude. Toward freedom. I can hear them, but anything they might have said of consequence was drowned out by the frantic thrumming of my heart and the way my blood pulsed so loudly in my ears that I could scarcely hear my own thoughts.

We stand diametrically opposed, foes, at least on the surface. But there is a deeper truth here that I cannot deny, no matter how much I know that I should. Why else would the gods constantly put him in my path? Why else would he make my heart race as if I'd run across a thousand dunes by doing nothing more than looking at me?

This is not about what I want, is it? He challenges, and a scowl takes shape on my face, replacing the wide-eyed blankness of before. Of course it was... wasn't it? I've made my choice, time and time again. He continued and my tail thrashed angrily as I shook my head in denial, despite the ring of truth in his words. He had chosen to cage me, to keep others from gaining me, but he had not chosen me.

And the one time he had had nearly cost me everything.

Why then was I so desperate for him to do it again?

"You think I have not chosen?" I choke out with a toss of my muzzle and an incredulous, furious chuckle. "That I have not spent days waiting for any sign that you feel the same? That you feel anything?" And though it is childish of me, though it is silly of me, though I know better than to expect that he will ever hold me in the same regard that I want to hold him, the next words tumble out on their own.

"I would have stayed, delusional though I might be, but I met the one that you did choose." Her arrogance had nearly broken me, though I do not want to tell him as much. His anger and brutality and violence were one thing. I could handle that. But to see her wield his affection over my head as if it weighed nothing, as if he belonged to her? It cut me deeply.

"And I will not keep wasting my time on someone who cannot even stand the sight of me," I continue, my voice losing some of the strength I sorely wished it held as tears gathered on my lashes. It grew weaker still as I continued, the tremor that wracked my body becoming audible in my words. "Even if it means breaking my own heart."

As if Iblis himself were guiding my hooves, I closed the rest of the distance between us, peering up at him with the ocean still dripping from my paling coat. "I can't live like this." I murmur quietly, the words barely audible to even my own ears. "I need you to show me, even a little. To show me I am not the only one who feels like there is something between us. Something that defies any reason that I can find, but something that is real."

"I need you to want me."

As much as my pride had been beaten down by Druna's place in his life, I could not bring myself to demand her place. I was afraid that I would be asking too much, pushing him too far. I wasn't even certain that he felt anything at all for me, save for perhaps the guilt of going too far.

But I knew what I felt, and those words I'd uttered held no less meaning for me now than they had that night.

The masculine scent of him is overpowering this close and I'd nearly forgotten what it was like to be dwarfed by his height and strength. It made me want to curl against him as much as it made me want to dash for the nearest dune. My ears ticked forward, back, and forward again before I reached out, one eye still on him as my lips sought the forbidden expanse of his shoulder, parting to press teeth to skin if he allowed it.

Assuming he did not stop me, I would ease another step forward, still trembling, and rest my forehead against him, my voice curling into the small space therein, a plea written in heart's blood. "Please."