The next morning I awoke with Fraza curled up next to me. She looked so tiny and fragile; I smiled as I stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. She stirred slightly but was still sound asleep. Deciding she needed her sleep, I got up and went for a shower. The hot water felt great on my body and the steam cleared my mind.

I shrieked as I suddenly felt two hands around my waist and a pair of lips on my neck. Fraza’s horns poked me in the back of my head. “Please stay here with me today,” she whispered as she kissed me down my neck and onto my shoulders, her tail wrapping itself around my leg.

“I can’t, Fraza, I have to go.”

Her hands reached round to my front and massaged my chest. “I know, I know. City to protect, people to save. But I need you too.”

I sighed deeply, feeling her hands all over me as her lips kissed my neck again. “I wish I could. Just leave the city with you, Didymus and maybe even Rikku and just go into the wilderness; a nice log cabin near the Sea of Everwas and just stay there till we both grow ancient until one day a group of scientists would find our cabin with us two as skeletons hugging each other lovingly on the bed ... and the picture of that would go on to be called The Eternal Embrace.”

She had stopped kissing me and was now looking at me. “Well then, why not do that? There is almost nothing left here for either of us anymore.” She turned me around and kissed me.

I broke the kiss and brushed her wet hair behind her ears as I shook my head. “Tell you what, after this case we will go there, just the two of us; a vacation at the Sea of Everwas.”

She nodded. “That’s a deal, then.”

I stepped out of the shower before I would be enticed to spend the day with her. I knew I couldn’t: I had to save this seventh girl.

Next Chapter: The first piece of the puzzle