Page 173 of A Soul to Embrace

Jabez then carefully dug his thumbnail around the man’s eye and stole that, too, so he could replace the one Zylah had taken from him. It burned, as doing this kind of transplant always did, and it wasn’t for the faint of heart nor those weak to suffering.

Heaving and needing a small break tobreathe, Jabez rested back against the column while holding tightly to his victim. The eye he’d transplanted remained sightless, and likely would for a few hours, but he’d know if it had taken when he began to see cloudiness from it. If so, it would clear. If not, he would need to obtain another.

How many times in my life have I done this now?Countless. The number of times he’d needed to heal such wounds was far too many, and his swiftness in dealing with them proved just how normalised it was for him.None of this should be normal.

He shouldn’t have needed to live his life like this.

No one should.

But the world had been consistently unkind to him, and he’d found a way to fight back against the universe trying to snuff out his existence.

Once his shaking managed to calm, and he’d grown used to the new additions to himself, he bit into the man’s arm, took a chunk, and then spat it out into his palm. He placed it over his own bite wound and groaned as pain forked up his arm.

He only had one wound left, and to be honest, he wasn’t looking forward to it. He’d liked having Zylah’s claws marring his back from pleasure, but knowing these came from a violent battle left him only with throbs.

He turned the dead male Demon over, ripped open his tunic, and skinned his back. Once he was done, he carelessly kicked the corpse off the edge, and it landed against the ground with a wet splat.

Zylah dived for the corpse of the significantly evolved Demon and immediately began eating him. Jabez doubted he couldhave gotten Zylah to eat another person willingly, so at least something good had come from this.This will only add to her humanity, and it will make her stronger.

Listening to her eat her meat, Jabez removed his own shirt. He placed the Demon’s back skin over his open wounds while bent forward to ensure it fully laid over him, then concentrated on his healing mana.

Once more, the excess skin melted around his own, but he didn’t have the tools nor the means to take only what he needed. Then he focused on removing his blood from his direct vicinity by sizzling it until it dried and disappeared. He didn’t need to touch it, as it was his own essence, but there was little he could do with the smears of it on the ground behind Zylah. He wasn’t close enough.

With all his wounds tended to as best as he could, Jabez rested back against the column supporting the ceiling. He let a scent cloak roll off his flesh like an invisible cloud that would slowly fill up the area.

That should calm her down soon.

Tiredness squinted and drooped his eyelids, but the fracture in his skull was taking longer to heal than he would like, despite his ingestion of fresh blood. There was nothing else he could do to fix it except for a bone transplant, but filling or fixing broken bones was not an agony he thought he could handle right now.

He’d rather just let his healing magic slowly fix it, and likely leave him with another raised scar on the back of his head. He was fine with that, as his hair would hide it and he really didn’t care about something as vain as his appearance right now. Not that he’d truly cared about that in the first place.

Transplanting body parts was just a much faster way to heal.

With an enraged Mavka below him, Jabez lifted his face to the cracked stone ceiling. Shards of crystals reflecting the glowing dome glittered to create some kind of heavenly sky, but theywere too broken and chipped to make out what the true image was. Everything here was covered in the grimy smears of time slowly rotting it all away.

Damnit. I came here too late.

Had he gone to the village sooner, he could have prevented the death of those who had been peacefully occupying it. He knew they hunted other Demons in a desperate bid to stave off starvation, but they did so sparingly. They’d been peaceful people who had tried to welcome Jabez – an unknown man – with open arms.

Those who had taken over... they were obviously a violent tribe who now used the knowledge of the village as a trap. A trap he’d fucking walked Zylah into.

I only visited four months ago.In that time, much had changed. He was annoyed he’d missed out on this opportunity.

Worse still, his secret was likely out. Word would spread, and Jabez and Zylah would be hunted until the Demons here got their claws in him.All that damn planning has gone to waste.He could still try to achieve his goal, but it would be far more dangerous than he’d been hoping for.

He’d constantly have to watch his own back, and he’d given away his weakness this day.

He covered his face in annoyance.The moment she was in danger, I acted like an idiot.But something sharp had been twisting his chest at her distress. Allowing her to be in pain or afraid while hecalmlyeased the situation just hadn’t been at the forefront of his mind.

His usual self would have...

He would have ignored her cries to get what he wanted. Lueka must have been a ruthless male to become a leader of such a barbaric group of Demons – cunning, too, since he likely set up the trap.

He would have been the perfect person to work with.

Had Jabez been given the opportunity to speak with Lueka, he would have explained why he was there. He would have done it while he was upside down and hanging from whatever they’d tied him to, his arms folded arrogantly, with a snide grin marring his face. Given that he’d seen himself in Lueka, he figured the large male would have jumped at the opportunity to get his claws in the Elysians. They probably would have made a formidable team, and Jabez could have used Lueka’s people to spread the word to other tribes and factions.

The perfect opportunity had been presented to him, and it could have quickened the pace in comparison to working with Szala, the elder leader from before.

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