Page 169 of A Soul to Keep

“Is he hurting her?”

He noticed Katerina took in a deep breath through her nose and closed her eyes for a moment, before releasing it and opening them once more. Her face gentled, the barest smile present.

“She has taken my place.”

She raised her hand as though she intended to cup his snout.

He backed up, unsure why she was reaching for him when she never had before. She was being... different.

“Taken your place?”

He tried to step around her again, his sight darting in the direction he wished to go – not that she would be able to notice him doing so.

“I was tricked, Orpheus.” She gave him a face of pain, the corners of her eyelids crinkling as her lips parted. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you. I can come back to you now.”

His eyes turned a dark yellow in curiosity.She didn’t mean to leave me?

“But you told me you did not want to be by my side, Katerina.”

Spirit of the void help him, he had not said her name in eons. He hadn’t even braved uttering it to Reia.

“I had to,” she quickly said, reaching again and managing to cup his snout, holding it with undeniable with care. “He forced me to, said I had to. He tricked me into having to be with him and abandon you, or else I die.”

His heart ached. Orpheus had always wanted this, had alwayslongedfor this. For Katerina to come back to him, to want him as he always did her. To be in his embrace in the home he built for her, decorated for her, spent his time creating a place she would be comfortable and happy in.

Everything he had done, he’d done forher.

“But why now?” Why was this happening now, when he had finally found a human that wanted to be with him?

He felt torn between his past and his present. Katerina was not Reia, and Reia was not Katerina. They were different, but they were important to him.

He’d been with her for five years, and Orpheus had cared deeply about her. For those few short years, Katerina had been his everything. His friend, his lover, his warmth, his light, the person who fought against his loneliness and made him feel undeniably whole.

She had been his bride, even though she hadn’t given him her soul.

He hadn’t minded her wanting and taking from him, because Orpheus had wanted to give. Her smiles, even though had never been directed at him, had been his goal, and they brought him pleasure in a way that didn’t touch his body, but his soul instead, his heart.

And yet, her touch now felt foreign to him. Her hands were just as soft and warm as Reia’s, they felt the same against the bone of his skull, but it forced the waft of her scent into nostrils.

Her spicy scent wasn’t gentle like that of elderberries and red roses.

“Reia offered to take my place so that I don’t have to be with him anymore. She’s very nice.” Katerina gave him another smile. “She said that if I wanted to be back with you so much, that she would be with Jabez.”

Orpheus felt his heart sinking so deep it was like it was moving through his chest to sit painfully in his stomach.

She offered herself to Jabez?He felt the familiar crawl of betrayal beneath his flesh, but it was much worse than what Katerina had done this to him.

He didn’t want to believe this, that Reia would leave him.She said she wanted to stay with me.

A quiet whine rattled his lungs.

“Where is Reia, Katerina?” he asked, wanting to talk to her, to speak with her, for her to tell him herself so he could remember the truth of this just as painfully as he had with Katerina.

It would help him turn away. It would help him leave.

Her eyes suddenly narrowed while her lips thinned tightly.

“Forget about her,” she demanded, pulling his head forward when it was obvious he was trying to search for her. “She is not going with you.” Then she reached for one of his horns to grab a bell dangling from it. “Did she make this for you? How tacky.”

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