~ HARTH ~
"You really want me to believe you've never burned for another female?" she asked, unimpressed. "I may be inexperienced, Tarkyn, but I've been around males. I'm not an idiot. The joke in the Chimera is that males are so quick to choose mates purely because they burn."
But Tarkyn just shook his head. "Not like this, Harth. Watching you outside—when you'd seen those flowers, and then we were gathering the firewood… it was a battle within me not to pick you up and carry you back here instead of the wood."
"Because you burn?" she asked breathlessly. Was that what had been bothering him?