The Ugly Duckling Of The Tiger Tribe-Chapter 142: I don’t want a savior... But I can be your savior

Damar looked at me, stunned and emotional. His emotions were showing so much on his face that I wondered if this was because he felt he was at death’s door.

I thought that Damar—even at death’s door—would have only a cold expression on, but to think he would feel this emotional. Regret and pain were breaking him gently.

He didn’t want to leave my side. He wanted to spend more time with me. That regret he had was what made him show his emotions so vividly that he felt like a completely different person.

That was the expression of a man in love.

"Damar, what I need to heal the wound in my heart isn’t your heart," I said.

"Then?" Fenric asked, once again trying to partake in the conversation. "What is it? You just pointed at his heart."

"Yes, but it’s the warmth in your heart that I need," I said, and turned back to Damar. "It’s the love and affection you guys have to give. That’s what I need, not your heart itself. If you suddenly rip your heart out of your chest, that will kill you and I..." I clenched my fists, trembling at the thought and pressing my lips tightly together. "I don’t want either of you to die."

The silence that followed was different. It wasn’t the heavy, suffocating silence of a tomb, but the ringing quiet that comes after a scream.

Damar’s hand began to tremble. His claws didn’t just retract; they seemed to shiver back into his skin as the adrenaline slowly died away, replaced by a cold, jarring realization.

He had been so ready to die for me that he hadn’t realized he was breaking my heart in the process.

His willingness to die so easily broke me more.

"I would never," my voice choked but I forced them out. "I would never ask you to die for me."

If they did, I would be alone again.

And missing every moment we spent together will tear me apart from the inside and that would be the end of me.

"So, just stay with me. Please. Don’t go anywhere, both of you." I pleaded with tear-filled eyes that I hid by lowering my head.

"You... want us to stay?" Damar whispered, his voice cracking.

It was the sound of a man who had spent his entire life believing he was only as valuable as he made himself feel, even while knowing that in this world, he would never be accepted and each of his actions would be taken as a threat.

A man who has never gotten the approval of another.

Meeting me was the best thing that had ever happened to him, just as he said.

And for me too, meeting him was the best thing that ever happened in my boring and invincible life.

My throat was tight, making it impossible for me to utter an answer right away.

Instead, I reached out, my fingers sliding over the damp, feverish skin of his shoulders and locking firmly behind the back of his neck, pulling him toward me until our foreheads touched. I could feel the frantic, thundering rhythm of his heart—the one he had been so willing to discard.

It made my heart heavy but I looked firmly into his eyes.

"I don’t want a savior, Damar," I choked out, a single tear finally escaping. "But I can be your savior." I smiled.

I want you, Damar. I want the snake beastman that scared me shitless the first time I came into this world—I reached my hand for Fenric’s and interlocked my fingers in his—I want the beastman who holds my hand when the cave is too dark.

If either of you leaves, there’s no warmth left to heal me. So please stay...

I turned my head to look into Fenric’s confused eyes.

I couldn’t say these words no matter how confident I was, but I wished my heart would reach them.

Fenric let out a low and ragged sound from his throat. It wasn’t a growl. It was a sob that he tried to swallow, turning it into a choked gasp.

He collapsed forward, burying his face in the crook of my neck. His large frame, usually so solid and intimidating, felt like a house of cards leaning against me.

His hands gripped my waist—not with the strength of a hunter, but with the desperation of a child clinging to the only solid thing in a storm.

"I thought..." Fenric’s voice was muffled against my skin, thick with a raw, unshielded pain. "I thought if he gave his heart, you would be whole. I was going to let him do it despite how much I know you like him, because I didn’t know how else to stop you from hurting. I’m sorry, Arinya. I’m so sorry."

His hand clung to mine firmly.

I let out a little breath, relieved, and then released my hand from his grip.

I reached for the back of his head, pulling him closer even as I kept Damar anchored to me. We were a tangled mess of limbs and bruised spirits on the cold cave floor. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"Look at me," I said softly.

They both shifted, eyes red-rimmed and wide, looking at me as if I were something fragile and holy.

"The wounds from the outside... they’ll scar. That’s fine. I can live with scars," I said, looking from Fenric’s red eyes to Damar’s dark, soulful ones. "But the wound inside only stops hurting when I know I’m not alone. When you almost... when you almost did that..." I looked at Damar’s chest. "The world went gray. That’s not healing. That’s just more hurting. I hope you understand. I would never ask you to do something like that. Never!"

I gave them my word, hoping that one day, if something happens to me and I can no longer be myself, and I’m controlled by the will of someone else, trying to hurt them, they would immediately spot that it’s not real.

I might just be acting out of paranoia but something like that did happen.

There is an arc in my carefree novel where the female lead gets possessed in order to turn the male leads away from her.

And because of that, both the female lead trapped in her own body, and the male leads went through a period of heartbreaking exchanges.