Page 48 of A Soul to Embrace

Zylah chittered nervously. She skittered back at the high pitch of the human’s feminine voice, her parted grin, and the way her eyes had homed in on her rabbit skull. Zylah stomped her hand forward to show confidence and that she wouldn’t so easily back down.

She had to be brave.I must protect our home.

Once they broke through the tree line and walked into the bright sunlight, Zylah turned to them on the small, thin path right next to the mountainside. With her back towards theopening of the cave, and a wall of rock to her left, their scents gently brushed across the dirt to her on the light wind.

There was something familiar about them, but she couldn’t place where or how she knew their smells. Despite how comforting she immediately found them, her settling fur rose on end again when the human stumbled over her hasty footsteps with liquid bubbling in her eyes. A soft warning growl left Zylah’s parted maw, just as the male Mavka grabbed the female around her centre to prevent her from coming too close.

“Careful, Delora,” the Mavka rumbled softly, his voice deep, gruff, and scratchy in comparison to Jabez. It sounded inhuman even to Zylah’s ears – which made her wonder how her own voice was interpreted.

“But it’s Fyodor,” the female, Delora, whined, facing his fox skull. “It’s our baby, Magnar.”

“She may not remember us,” Magnar responded, and his green orbs shifted to a deep blue when his words caused the female’s face to appear crestfallen. “Mavka do not remember the beginning of their life. She’s now an adult and very dangerous.”

Delora brought her gaze to Zylah’s rabbit skull with a beseeching furrow to her brows, while her eyes bowed with sadness. “I know, but... I’m hoping she remembers at leastsomething.” She looked back at him once more. “Our voices, our scents, something.”

Zylah tilted her head in curiosity.They know me?Could they answer questions she’d been missing, like where she’d come from, and why? Who were her parents, and why had they left Zylah alone all this time?

Why did they...abandonher?

Magnar patted Delora’s dark hair before brushing down her cheek. “I know you’re excited, but slow, my pretty raven. Careful.”

The female rolled her eyes while also simultaneously bringing them to Zylah. A soft, caring, and almost welcoming smile curled her lips when she stepped out of her male’s arms.

“Hiya there,” Delora cooed, holding out her hand and presenting the back of her wrist. “I’m not sure if you understand us, but we mean you no harm. We’ve been searching for you.”

Zylah warily stepped closer to the rock wall to her left, blocking their path forward while also evading the human.

“I understand you,”Zylah responded, her voice taking on a monstrous graininess in her more animalistic form.

Delora’s doe-brown eyes widened until the whites of them became stark. Her lips parted, and she rasped, “Y-you spoke!”

Zylah tilted her head at that.“Yes. I can speak.”

Delora turned to Magnar with a frown wrinkling her forehead. “But Emerie and Ingram said she couldn’t speak, and that was only two months ago.”

“Emerie? Ingram?”Zylah asked. She didn’t know these names.

Delora brought her gaze forward once more. “Emerie is the human with red hair who you took to your home. Ingram is the Duskwalker with a raven skull who... took her back. They said you lived in a burrow.”

It didn’t take Zylah long to remember these people.

She hated admitting that her memory of them was... blurry. She remembered the woman’s bright-orange hair, light skin marred with redness, and blue eyes, but nothing else about her features. Not the shape of her nose, eyes, chin, or body, nor could she remember what she wore. The male they spoke of... he was a blob of black fur and a white, bony face that lacked shape.

She knew their scents better than their features, and the female more, as Zylah had spent a few hours with her in comparison to the raven Mavka they spoke of.

Zylah sniffed at the air, wondering why this female smelt so familiar.I... like her scent.It was gentle but had the strangest coolness to it that she appreciated.She reminds me of the green apples Jabez eats.Although she smelt less sour and much sweeter, as if there were different types.It makes me sleepy.

When the dark-haired female stepped closer, the back of her wrist still presented, the fur on Zylah’s neck rose. Delora’s sweet scent may have been oddly comforting, along with her voice as well, and Zylah might have been curious about them, but her protective instincts flared.

She currently had a smaller, weaker being within the home of their shared cave, and his earlier concern hadn’t gone unnoticed. At least, she took it as worry and anxiety. Their presence made him uncomfortable, and therefore, Zylah’s territorial and possessive aggression was heightened.

I must protect him.

She wanted them gone.

She didn’t know or trust them.

Zylah stood, making herself taller, and hopefully more threatening.“I don’t know why you’ve been searching for me, but I want you to leave.”

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