Page 89 of Heart of the Hunted
"Do you want us to turn back for some?" he asked her.
"No, it's okay, I promise,” she assured them both.
"Well, I'll tell you what, we'll pick some up in the next town we pass,” he told her.
"You don't need to," Natalia told him again. "I promise, it's fine."
Taredd thought about it for a minute, then shook his head and said: "No, we'll get some at the next town. This bench will get even more uncomfortable after a long time sitting on it, especially with all the bumps when we travel off a paved road."
"Okay,” she told him.
Natalia didn't see what the problem was until they left the smooth paving onto rough uneven earth and had been traveling that way for an hour. By the time they finally stopped, Natalia had lost all feeling in her ass. Natalia was more than ready to get off the cart to stretch her legs when Taredd pulled the horses to a halt.
"I think we'll stop here for the night,” he said. "It's starting to get dark and we need to get a fire going for Natalia to stay warm."
"It's okay by me," Dain said as he jumped off the back of the cart.
"I don't mind if you want to keep going," Natalia told them.
"No, we should stop for something to eat and to give the horses a rest," Taredd told her. "Plus, you need to sleep at some point."
"Yeah, we definitely need to stop for food. I'm fucking starving," Dain said.
"I could always sleep in the back of the cart if you want to keep going through the night," Natalia offered.
"You'll be sleeping there anyway," Taredd told her. "Just not while we're traveling. It would be too uncomfortable otherwise, and you would wake up in pain, if you managed to get any sleep at all."
"Oh," Natalia said, unsure what else to say to that.
"Don't worry, there's a rolled-up mattress under one of the benches, so it'll be comfy enough," Dain told her.
Natalia instantly panicked about stripping during the night. If it was just like sleeping in a bed, then there was a higher chance she would strip down like she normally did.
Taredd must have read her mind, because he told her: "That's what the cover is for."
Breathing a sigh of relief, she said: "Thank you."
"You're welcome, but it's more for my sake than yours."
"I don't understand," Natalia said, and she really didn't.
"I don't want Dain to see you naked,” he said, making her blush. "If he does, I'm likely to beat the shit out of him. But he's my friend, so I would rather not do that."
"Yeah, I would rather he didn't as well," Dain added.
"Oh, I see," Natalia said, blushing. "Thank you."
Natalia was grateful Taredd had remembered what she did while she was asleep. He didn't judge her for it either, like some of the people in her group had done in the past. He accepted it was just something she did and that she couldn't stop herself from doing it.
That's when it dawned on her... she was falling in love with a Demon... she was falling in love with Taredd.
