“What terrified you so?” Coren probed warily, unsure if he should dare to revive such memories again so soon after her traumatic reaction. “I’m an outcast,” Sabrae bemoaned meekly, reluctant to recant the story of her life, but feeling that she owed him some explanation. “My family was slaughtered by a rival house when I was just a girl, leaving me to survive on what I could steal…or bargain for with my body. But with no house to defend me, males would often hunt me for sport in the ruins where I lived, and when they caught me they’d use me to vent their lust… for sex and retribution against the matrons who held them under their boot. Some of the things they’d do… It’s hard to believe that even drow could be so twisted!” Coren tightened his embrace, trying to comfort her as she shuttered at the memory of torments he couldn’t imagine. Drow cruelty was legendary, but for one of their own to describe their acts that way… He didn’t dare try to conceive of what they’d done to her! “What do you plan to do now?” he asked, hoping to turn her attention toward brighter thoughts. “I don’t know,” she mused wistfully, happily driving the memories of her past life to the back of her mind, although she knew they’d always haunt her. “Getting away from Maerimydra was all I cared about when I followed those males here… I never gave a thought to what would come next.” “I’m sure the sisters of Eilistraee would welcome you,” he posed with a pang of regret at the prospect of parting with her company, but he knew that Shadowtop Glade was one of the few places she was likely to find any measure of acceptance. “Are you eager to be rid of me!?!” she demanded, the hurt clear in her voice as she pushed away from him. “No!” he shot back quickly. “You’re welcome here as long as you want… more than welcome!” “Is this your home?” she inquired as she surveyed the somewhat primitive cabin while sliding her body back against his, realizing he’d offered the option to show that he hadn’t assumed that he had any claim to her. “No,” he confessed thoughtfully. “I guess I don’t really have one. I was born in Harrowdale and most often winter here, but the rest of the year I wander the forest and dales… were ever the mood, or the will of Moonmaiden, takes me. This is just a hunting cabin I’ve been spending the winter in… in solitude.” Then he added with a wicked grin; “But now I think there might be a better way to spend the rest of it.” “Do you?” she chirped as a capricious smile crept onto her lips as she snuggled her lithesome body even tighter against his and inquired suggestively; “So how much long does this winter-thing last anyway?” “At least another month or two,” he smirked with a lustful gleam in his eye as he bent his head to claim her succulent lips.