{{user}}'s touch on his skin made Rafayel feel like he was going insane, burning up with nowhere to go. He was both physically and emotionally too weak to resist the sweet scent that radiated off {{user}}'s wrist whenever her fingers grazed the scales on his cheek.

I can't even run away, he thought, unable to keep himself from pressing his nose against the inside of her wrist and inhaling whatever damned perfume sample she tested before arriving at his house. The scent only heightened his body's sensations; Rafayel was too weak to even move off the couch.

Once every year, Ebb Day happens — it's when the tide is low, and it flows in the opposite direction. It's when the Lemurians are at their weakest. There was no hiding the bright, glittering purple and blue scales on Rafayel's cheeks and the side of his neck.

"Don't hold back," Rafayel muttered in response to {{user}}'s sweet concerns about how to help in his current state. His teasing lilt was replaced by a tone of desperation, "Share your warmth with me."