Page 182 of A Soul to Embrace

Her safety... or my vengeance.

His feelings of tenderness he’d only known for a few short weeks, or the weight of his hatred he’d been holding up for years.

At his silence, she chittered and fidgeted by clamping her hands on her lap. “Are they not letting us inside?”

He shook his head, unable to respond.

“Then we can go back to Earth.”

To Earth. To the place he didn’t want to return to ever again. He was done with that realm, and he didn’t think he could bear to face it ever again without good reason – and he couldn’t think of a single one. He’d hated every minute of being there since he arrived, and it never felt right.

He’d never be happy there. He’d done too much to it, he’d been too violent and cruel to want to live in the mess of his failures. He just couldn’t do it.

I don’t want to leave her there either.Unprotected, with swarms of lesser Demons that hunted everything indiscriminately, with Demonslayers, and even with her own kind, should they grow enraged at each other. He knew she could protect herself, but should shehaveto? She didn’t want to harm anything, didn’t want to fight.

She’d just be hurt again and again. Demons and humans alike would try everything in their might to destroy her. Every creature there wasvilein some form.

He once thought he could stomach taking her back there, but the more he lingered on it, the less he wanted to. He’d brought her to this wretched city’s gates because he wanted her somewhere safe, even if it was without his predatory gaze protectively watching her back. A place where she could flourish without fear or worry.

There was nowhere else he could take her to guarantee that peacefulness.

Yet they wouldn’t let her in.

Fuck. Why does my chest hurt so much?!He wished it would stop! It felt like it was on fire, like his damn heart was trying to incinerate him from the inside out.

With his arms shaking, his nails gouged into the dirt around her injured leg. He bowed his head.

“You...” The muscles in his jaw knotted when he clenched his fangs. “You said you wanted to bond with me. Is that still true?”

Her head reared back in surprise, and she squeezed her hands together as her orbs turned reddish pink. “Of course.”

He waited for a sense of foreboding or complete aversion to crest over him. For something, anything, to stop what he was about to offer. Nothing happened, and somewhere inside him said this was therightchoice.

But he wouldn’t do this without being truthful.

“They won’t let you into the city unless you are bonded,” he informed her. “But... I’m choosing to do this because I want to. I want you to understand that.”

If he didn’t want to, if there was even a speck of doubt in him, he wouldn’t be offering his soul to her. He wouldn’t tie himself to someone he didn’t want or hold a deep affection for.

He was making this choice because he cared for Zylah more than he – apparently – cared for himself.

But he wanted her to be informed in case, in the future, the truth of this moment came to light and it cast doubt into her mind. He’d rather rid them of the potential now to save her from mulling over it later and hurting herself. He couldn’t start this on a half-truth, knowing she’d want complete transparency like she had argued with him for in the cave.

So how do I do it?

He looked down at his bare chest, expecting his soul to flow right out of him like it had when he’d witnessed Reia giving her soul to Orpheus.

Something did flicker at the surface, a bluish flame that appeared to break through water, like his skin was liquifying.

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t truly certain, but his mind had yet to tell him this was the wrong decision. He dived his hand into the surface of his flesh, and it surprisingly sank right in without pain or resistance. When his hand met squishy heat, he pulled, and it came out easily.

When he let go, his soul floated between them.

His nose crinkled on one side as he thought,Why is it... aqua?Well, in reality, it was actually a mixture of blue and green, the two different flame colours spiralling all throughout his essence’s form like they were incapable of combining.That human’s was orange, like normal fire.

Could it be because of his Demon and Elvish halves?

He also expected that he’d feel cold without it, but he didn’t.

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