Page 108 of A Soul to Embrace

The burly Demon wiped the sweat away from his brow with his thick, hairy forearm, smudging charcoal up to his blond hair, then wiped his palm on his stained white apron. He threw four skewers onto his coal grill next to the many others already cooking, then slapped wooden tokens down on the counter. Three of them indicated beef, while the fourth represented chicken. Then he nodded his head for Jabez to move to the side.

A knowing smile curled Jabez’s lips as he took the tokens.

Had I come here with my usual glamour, he may have been more welcoming.The one Jabez currently wore was new, ensuring he wouldn’t have someone pull him into a conversation and push Zylah to the side by accident. To Ansel, he was just another nobody; a fresh face among the thousands who came here.

“Why did he look unhappy with your payment?” Zylah asked as she huddled between him and the stall’s corner.

“He prefers spices,” Jabez muttered quietly, watching as Ansel cooked. His stomach grumbled at the idea of proper food after fuckingmonthsof eating raw meat, fruit, and vegetables. “It’s always best to trade with what they are interested in. Food market stalls prefer anything that helps them continue cooking, whereas craftsmen prefer certain stones and crystals.”

“But he took it anyway? Was that a human coin?” she asked, causing him to cock his brow in surprise that she knew that. “I read about them in one of my books. Money, they call it?”

“They’ll take what they can get and will later trade those items with others for what they need. Jewellers will always take some form of coin because they can melt them down or make charms out of them.”

“Can I try paying for something next time?” she asked, her skull twitching side to side in bashfulness.

“Sure. Next time I’ll make sure it’s the appropriate trade.”

She nodded, her orbs flaring bright yellow in joy, before darkening into curiosity – the colour they had been since they’d begun adventuring through the village. Zylah constantly watched everyone passing by, occasionally rudely staring at those with distinct features.

He couldn’t tell if she was more curious about those who looked more human, or those with obvious snouts. Someone with a piggish nose and tusks snorted laughter, gaining her focus until they looked upon her like they felt her stare. She didn’t pull away from them, and almost rotated her head a hundred and eighty degrees as she walked past them.

A loud grunt called his attention. Jabez pulled away from his leaning post to place the tokens down on the counter while taking the offered skewers.

His mouth watered further at them in both his hands, and he immediately devoured one of the beef skewers drizzled in some kind of peppery sauce. He threw the wooden stick into the bin next to the stall – something Ansel had set up to help with waste management.

Zylah watched him intently as he chewed the last piece, then he held the single skewer in his left hand out to her.

“Want one?” he offered.

She tilted her head, then shook it. “No. I don’t want to go into a rage.”

Jabez rolled his eyes and waved it in the air at her again. “You won’t. Since the smell of it is hidden, and it isn’t raw, it’ll do little more than make you a bit hungrier.”

“Then why would I want to eat it?”

“Because it’s fucking delicious?” When she still didn’t take it, he sighed. “Just trust me. I wouldn’t tell you to try it if I wasn’t certain of your reaction.”

She tentatively took it, allowing him freedom to steal the chicken skewer from his other hand and begin devouring it. Shewas hesitant to take a bite, as if she thought it was poisoned, and grew annoyed when sauce dribbled onto her fingers.

Since she didn’t often open her mouth, it allowed him to watch how her maw parted. The large holes in her rabbit jawbone split apart alongside the black jagged teeth that filled in those gaps, but her ability to chew was stilted by the fact that she didn’t have cheeks to contain her food. He wondered if he should, at some point, explain to her why she had such a function.

Her kind look like little blobs as younglings.They remained featureless, black, and almost gooey in nature until they ate their first creature. But he’d learned something peculiar about them as adults by fearlessly poking around inside of Merikh’s mouth in curiosity.

Their featureless baby heads fitted inside their adult skulls, helping to fill in the gaps and crevices so their drool didn’t leak and their tongues didn’t dry out. It also kept their jaws together by sinew and tendons, and filled in their empty eye sockets, so what lay deeper within their craniums remained hidden.

Their skulls were merely exterior.

Her rabbit teeth and black jagged Mavka fangs parted in surprise as she sniffed the first chunk of meat, and she threw it across her tongue to fully taste it. As he thought they would, her orbs turned red, but she hummed in enjoyment. She was quick to swallow and consume the rest, although her fur puffed a little in aversion when she ate them too quickly.

“It tastes amazing, but it hurts my stomach after a little while,” she stated, throwing her stick away when he did.

“That’s the only problem for your kind. You may like how it tastes, but it doesn’t curb your hunger, and if it isn’t fresh meat, it doesn’t sit well.”

“If you knew that, why did you let me eat it?”

Answering around a cheek full of food, he said, “Didn’t it feel nice to experience something everyone else can?” He pointed hislast half-eaten beef skewer at another person, who was scoffing their food down like their life depended on it. “Experiencing sensations is the joy of life. Food is a big one for most, and the better it tastes, the more enjoyable it is.”

She cupped the end of her snout in deep thought, lingering on what he said, before nodding. “Thank you. I guess it was nice, and I’ve never done that before. I didn’t even think to try.”

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