Page 100 of A Soul to Touch

“But you should’ve told me. This could have been avoided if I’d known what that crack on your skull meant for you. I wouldn’t have touched it while you were having a nightmare.”

A gasp was rendered out of her when the burning sensation around her throat dissipated within the span of a breath. She touched her neck.

“I’m sorry.” The blue had faded to a different colour, one she hadn’t seen before. They were a bright orange. “I have taken your wound so that you don’t have to suffer it, but I should not have needed to.” He squeezed her tighter. “Perhaps... I should sleep outside from now on.”

“No,” she snapped while pointing her index finger at his face. “I like waking up to you surrounding me.”

He tenderly caressed her cheekbone with the fore knuckle of his index finger. “Are you sure?”

With how quickly he’d changed his mind, she figured he’d never really wanted to sleep outside by himself.

“Yes. Only if you tell me who did this to you.”

His hand stilled. She thought he was going to avoid answering, but then he sighed and brushed his claws into her hair.

His voice was sorrowful as he said, “His name is Jabez, and he is the Demon King.”

Faunus’ snout drifted across the clearing in front of Mayumi’s home as his sight moved over the surrounding forest, the blanket of snow, and the brightening sky above. He was sitting on her porch, one leg crossed under him while the other lay down the steps with the backs of his hand limp in his lap.

It was midmorning, which was relatively early for them.

Mayumi tended to stay up past the middle of the night and into the early morning, even before they’d begun to become entangled during it. For Faunus, who didn’t sleep many hours, this was a benefit.

He’d only needed to adjust his own sleeping habits minutely to match hers.

When he’d asked her why she did this, she explained the way of life for a Demonslayer was to be active when their prey was moving and out in the open.

Usually, Faunus woke when she did, allowing her movements to jolt him awake, but on this day, he’d risen by himself with his orbs a deep blue. He hadn’t slept. The heavy weight in his chest felt even more crushing than usual, and laying by her side had not eased him.

I told her what happened to me.

He’d never wanted to.

Regardless of what she said and how she’d attempted to reassure and comfort him, he’d felt no better about it.

He was thankful that the newer memories he’d acquired were of her. Her little cries of pleasure and her brutish laugh. Her enrapturing, crinkling brows and her humour-filled grin. The raking of her nails down his back and her soft touch against his large hands.

Her laughter was as enchanting as the magic he could produce, seeming almost impossible and yet real. Her scent was a dozy aroma, one that had his mind lulling but also had his body stirring – he was truly enthralled by it.

None of this erased what had happened to him.

He still remembered his lungs filling with water, burning him from the inside out in a cold wetness before his mind faded from this world. Only to expel that water suddenly and wake the following day still immersed below the suffocating liquid, breathing it in again, watching his own bubbling breaths hit some untouchable surface from below and make it ripple.

The way dirt had filled his mouth and nose hole was a different kind of agony. To beblockedfrom the places he needed freedom the most was haunting. To eat dirt just so he could uselessly take another breath and fail – only to wake up again, healed and instantly choke.

Her touch couldn’t remove the echoing linger of the blade that stabbed through his flesh while he was awake or his dense and difficult bones being broken, just for Jabez to show him his own beating heart.

But the worst of all... the one memory that was just as searing as he remembered it were the flames. To feel his fur singe his own flesh before the fire truly took hold. To feel his muscles and blood boiling before he began to burn and melt.

They were the freshest, and they were the most damaging to his mind. He couldn’t forget the agony of it, no matter how he tried.

Those memories of fire were the ones he dreamed of the most. They were the ones that caused him to hurt her.

His apology didnothingto erase the shame, guilt, and disappointment at realising his own clawed hand had been clasping her small and delicate throat. He’d been squeezing her, her face blistering red – and although not pleading, it had been filled with a glare.

A new nightmare to have.

He’d explained things further since she’d asked him to, but he’d never intended to share these things with her.

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