Page 74 of A Soul to Steal

It was violent as it ran rampant throughout him, flooding his muscles every time he opened his damn mouth. Hot as it seared him where their palms touched until it travelled up his veins. Whenever Gideon said or did something that stroked his essence, he wanted to reach out andsqueezehim until he popped. It tingled his mind so much that all he wanted to do was lay his skull in those soothing little hands and stare at that beautiful, mesmerising face.

And it had to do with how Gideon viewed the world, how he treated it... and Aleron. His mind was open, free of judgement, and accepting. That was how Aleron wanted to be.

He didn’t want to be a menace upon any world, and this human was teaching him how to be better – without even knowing it.

At some point, his sight had shifted to a brighter pink during their walk.He is lovely.

At first, he hadn’t understood how such a fleshy, furless, weak creature could be attractive to his own kind.I understand now, Ingram.He’d needed to see this human’s heart first, and only then did his exterior begin to tantalise him.

The growing longing to be near, to touch until he’d given Gideon his all, to thrust them into one being, was born from adoration. He craved watching him, fascinated by his beauty and emotions, desiring to understand his needs and wants so he could find a way to be relied on.

The more he yearned for these things, the more the sharp clip of Gideon’s jaw drew his gaze, or the subtle point of his nose. His teeth, and the way his tongue brushed over them. His slightly tanned skin looked soft, smooth, and he’d begun wanting to draw the backs of his claws over every inch.

He wanted to see his chest, his stomach, his thighs, so he could learn what lay beneath his clothes. The longer the little human wore them, keeping his body from him, the more they made his hidden flesh more erotic to him.

Then there was his voice. Deep, masculine, yet always filled with compassion. This male could lull him to sleep, and he thought he may now even have the power to pull him from an enraged state if he purred and cooed at him.

I am pleased I asked him to join me.He would never have known Gideon had a temper, had he not. He liked that he wielded it for Aleron’s sake.

Gideon was flawed, just like he was. He’d begun to see him as perfect, placing him into a status of worship within his mind. The fact that he wasn’t only allowed fondness to grow.

Unable to keep his gaze off the top of Gideon’s light-brown hair, he didn’t know they’d arrived at their destination until they were ushered to stop.

Aleron looked around, disappointed he hadn’t taken in more of the Elven central palace.

They stood in front of a set of large double doors. Like the gates they’d entered through into the city, molten ore formed a swirling pattern like a tree. However, the material it had been embedded into was of the white bark of the starfir tree they were in. Raewyn had explained much about the environment when they’d first arrived and walked through the city.

He looked up, noticing pink-and-purple leaves rather than a ceiling. They swayed, occasionally letting cold, yet dappled lightburst through from two moons. One was much larger than the other and round in comparison to the oval one following it.

Awe filled him as he found a gap through the massive branches. A cloudy, star-filled streak far beyond in the navy night sky spanned across the entire horizon. At the centre of that green cloud, a bright-red light sparkled.

Aleron lifted a claw in its direction. “What is that?”

Gideon followed where he pointed, only to shrug. “No clue. There are theories that there are other galaxies, but if I were to take a wild guess, maybe that’s what it is?”

As usual, the human stated something that puzzled him. Just as he turned to him, intending to inquire about this further, the Elf wearing robes halted them.

He began to speak in a different language.

The pale-green clothing he wore lacked any intricate markings, but every time he moved, bronze glittered on his sleeves and skirt. His long, straight white hair had been braided on the sides, but the top and back were left loose.

Bronze markings were painted on his face: two lines coming down from the corners of his dark-brown eyes, as though he’d cried molten tears. His bottom lip had been painted, yet the top one didn’t have a smudge upon it.

“Hey, man,” Gideon said, waving one of his hands, “we don’t understand a word of what you’re saying.”

The Elf’s features hardened, his eyes narrowing, before he sighed. Then his cheek twitched as he gave what Aleron figured was an apologetic cringe.

“Kon, kon,”he said, waving forward as a welcoming smile curled his lips and filled his eyes.

He stamped his bare foot, and a stream of green magic flowed against the ground, following a path like tree roots. It spread against the door, up through where the ores swirled theirpatterns, before metal retreated like water being sucked away from a shore.

“I was wondering why a lot of people don’t wear shoes here, but it must be so they can feel with them,” Gideon stated. “I didn’t realise they could use magic, did you?”

He turned to Aleron, eyes wide and glittering with wonder, and he couldn’t help chuckling at the awed human.

“Have you not noticed all the magic?” Even Aleron had been able to tell the lighting stones within the palace used magic and had noticed the small amounts the people here wielded.

Aleron covered the end of his snout in a poor attempt at hiding his deepening chuckles, when Gideon’s face scrunched.

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