Can you still love the devil

He replied. He hadn’t. She closed her eyes. She honestly didn’t know what to do, what to feel. All she knew was that it hurt. It felt like he was discarding her. In the same breath, he would tell her he loved her and that she wouldn’t carry any more of his children. She couldn’t figure out why it hurt so much. Was it jealousy? Did he really believe this was the only way? In another breath, he would tell her that he also wouldn’t be denied her body if he chose to.

She heard him shuffling about. Picking things up. She felt the cover of the book in her paws. She hated this feeling—this feeling of… betrayal.

She thought back to those days when she was taking the tea to defy him. To control when she could get pregnant herself. He saw it as a betrayal. She saw it as a means to take hold of herself. A playful banter between them. Was this the same? She thought of their children. Three of them she could already see reach those dire heights. Citadel, larger than life no doubt would come close to his father's height. Selene... A precious runt of the litter. What if her littlest fell in love with someone as large as her father? Then this sort of arrangement would save the girl's life.

There. She found it, a tether to hold herself on, a way to explain it, a way to get comfortable with it. She could be a model for her littlest daughter. To be flexible.

She sighed audibly and sank into the furs.

"Bas?" She called him softly, a tone that denoted she was ready to chat, she had done her thinking, and she was ready to come back to the table. It felt odd to call him by name, instead of Love.

As he would come closer she would reach out to his face. She would hold his large head between her paws and gaze into his deep azure eyes.

"Why did you let me fall in love with you?" She asked softly, whether it was rhetorical or now was not clear.

"Basilisk" | "Ignita"