Page 121 of A Soul to Embrace

He had a feeling with the way Rook was attending to Zylah, he’d keep a part of their trade to remember her fondly.

His eyelids drooped, the stationary position and the safety within this hidden-away store allowing the fog of exhaustion to crest over his brow. No one would come here.

Hopefully she doesn’t want to take the whole store.

After being in the store for quite some time, Zylah flicked through some kind of horror novel, finding it lacked any scary qualities. It spoke of monsters, and it was hard to be frightened of something she could easily rip apart with her claws.

She carefully placed it on her discard pile when Rook leaned over to show her the inside of a mystery novel.

“The writing for this one is unique. You don’t know who the murderer is until the end, and I can tell you now, you’ll never guess who it is!” he exclaimed with exhilaration, his feline ears darting back as he laughed.

She took his offering and skimmed through it briefly. “I don’t think this interests me,” she answered, hoping the apology in her tone sounded sincere. “I am... new to reading. I like books about adventures to strange places I’ve never heard about. I don’t understand society well, so I don’t like things with complicated interactions with others.”

Although, that may change after tonight.Witnessing what she had in this village filled in the missing pieces she’d lacked when reading anything pertaining to cities or towns.

“I have plenty of fiction books,” Rook said, his puffy cat mouth curling into a fanged smile. “Depends on the adventures you’re after. There are fabled tales of dragons, wars, the chosen one off to defeat the evil sorcerer. Or there are romances about people falling in love.”

Zylah cocked her head at that. “I’ve never read a book about love.”

Although Fayren’s books had very briefly and confusingly detailed it, she still didn’t fully understand this concept.

Rook’s eyes lit up like she’d just presented him with the finest piece of treasure.

“If this is new to you, then I may have just the books for you!” He sprung up to stand, and hastily disappeared behind a shelf like his tail was on fire.

She peered through one of the craft books she’d picked earlier, flicking the pages with her clawed thumb to get a brief understanding of what it contained. Although it interested her, much of it required tools she lacked. She put it to the side, but would remember it in case she ever obtained those tools.

She picked a book about herbs next, but her shoulders lifted sheepishly due to the reason she’d taken it.

Jabez smells like bergamot and sandalwood,she thought, flicking through the pages in hopes of finding more about those plants.

The store selling herbs had revealed this to her, and she’d liked the way they smelt so much she’d considered eating them just to taste his scent. She’d been overjoyed to learn their names, and she hadn’t been able to contain the way her heart had nearly wept at the time.

Remembering someone was missing from beside her, she looked to the left to find Jabez. She felt bad that she’d completely disregarded him from the moment she entered the bookstore.

Like they had been the entire night, she expected to find his eyes upon her and for their gazes to meet. They didn’t. She dipped lower on a bent arm to see past his hood, noting his eyelids were shut and his mouth was slightly parted.

His knees had been propped up earlier. Now, they both fell to the right as if his body had gone lax.

He fell asleep?she wondered.

She regarded him more closely, and his skin did look rather ashen. The dark smudges under his eyes had grown from when they’d first entered Spiral Haven. As they were walking through the village, she’d noticed the occasional dots of perspiration, but she’d assumed that was normal for his magic use.

Perhaps it wasn’t.

Had she missed his deteriorating wellbeing over the course of the night due to her awe? If so, she felt rather guilty about that, and her orbs shifted to bright orange as the emotion sat queasily in her gut.

Should I let him rest, or wake him so we may leave?Did he know he’d been falling asleep, or was it an accident? He was such a cautious male that she didn’t think he’d leave himself vulnerable in a place he considered unsafe.

It had taken her weeks to be able to approach him from behind, and even longer to get near him while he slept without waking him. She bet if she got in his direct vicinity while they were in this place, he’d spook and wake in an instant.

I should leave him.She was enjoying herself, and she was here to protect him while he rested. Some sleep may do him some good.

She absolutely wasn’t thinking that just so she could be surrounded by books for longer.

Zylah continued to flick through the herb book’s pages. She grumbled when it had nothing on bergamot and only had a small passage on sandalwood.

In the distance, a chime rang from somewhere deeper within the village, its high-pitched sound soft and quiet. She lifted her gaze to the front window just above Jabez’s head.

---