[private] I couldn't utter my love when it counted; birthing

[adna]

one touch will make you so nervous you might stop breathing
one touch will make you so reckless you might start feeling
one touch will finally show to me what you can't hide

Gospel is bright and strong and Adna does not want to take these things from her. She would never dream of stripping her if her defenses. Would never dream of trying to force her into this world without her scales and her fangs to defend her.

But she is not the only predator in this group

She is not the alpha and Adna will not bend to her child.

Will not raise a child who thinks it is okay to snap at her.

She is patient when she squeals and snaps her jaws. She doesn’t rise to the bait or enter into a snarling match with Gospel. She just watches her steely eyed and fierce, forgetting for a moment that Beth is standing there watching them—watching her.

That he is seeing her like this.

But it doesn’t matter because now, Adna and Gospel are speaking in the language that only they can truly know. Her fangs show slightly as she watches her daughter, feeling a small panic rise in her at the idea of having a daughter that so fiercely dislike what she loves.

“I understand,” she murmurs, gentle again, although her fangs are right there—her venom still barely held in check. “But I do,” she says this quieter and wonders what twist of fate would force her to explain these things to her daughter. To defend her father to him.

“And that needs to matter to you.”

Another breath as she lets her daughter tuck into her side. Another breath as she catches herself and then lets herself pull back to look up again.

“She has her mother’s stubbornness.” 

She laughs and rolls her shoulder, uncomfortable and feeling vulnerable.

“But perhaps she could do with a little less of it.”

ADNA