Page 51 of A Soul to Embrace

“Okay, you’ve done that.” Delora’s features took on a hard edge. “We can take over. We can do the rest.”

Jabez chuckled as he folded his arms. “That would be solely up to Zylah.”

Delora looked upon Zylah, and her lips parted in disbelief, as if what he said was ridiculous.

“She’s just a child! She doesn’t know any better!” She fisted the brown skirt of her dress.

His chuckle evolved into full-blown laughter. “She’s obviously not a child. She is an adult who can consent to with whom she spends her time.”

“She was only born two years ago!”

“And her intelligence already exceeds her parent,” Jabez argued, raising a finger at the male Mavka. “You have no idea who she is or what she is capable of. I’ve seen it, and even I’ve been amazed.”

The fact that Mavka didn’t age like a human or even an Elf, but more like a Demon, made this situation strange. Her age was defined by how many humans she ate, not by her length of life. He imagined for some humans that would be difficult to understand, but this woman was pushing human ideologies onto a magical being that could eat her because it suited her, uncaring of their blood relation.

Everything was upside down and skewed, and even he knew little of it made sense – only that this was just how Mavka were. They were odd creatures that existed outside of normality and logic, which had infuriated him for the last few centuries because they had been his enemy.

Her brows drew impossibly tighter. “But...”

“You are the reason for it,” Jabez cut in. “You, as her mother, have gifted her evolution the others belonging to Lindiwe can’t achieve. It has taken half the number of humans to bring Zylah to this level of humanity, if not less.”

“I don’t understand,” Magnar grumbled as he raised a hand to his snout. Like the idiot he still was, he tapped the point of a claw against the bone.

“Of courseyoudon’t,” Jabez stated with a sigh, rolling his eyes as if that should have been obvious.

“Are you saying that the further they are from the spirit of the void, the quicker their minds develop?” Delora asked with a pensive flattening of her lips.

“From what I’ve seen in her, yes,” he answered. “A Mavka’s age has always been irrelevant. Only their level of humanity matters. I’ve seen Mavka remain mentally younger than those who were bornafterthem. An excellent example of this is Orpheus and the feline-skulled Mavka.”

With the way Delora’s expression turned shy, Jabez gathered she already knew the truth of that. He, however, had known it for a long time.

Orpheus stopped eating humans when he longed to keep one.The feline Mavka, on the other hand, didn’t give a shit. He’d hunted everyone, humans and Demons, and grew indiscriminately and without care.And Orpheus has lived decades longer.

He’d hindered his own development in his pathetic search for a companion.

For a few fleeting moments, Jabez watched as the pair in front of him soaked in the information he willingly offered. Even Zylah had gone pensive.

It gave him time to truly look upon them.

Jabez, admittedly, knew very little about Magnar. He and the twins were the Mavka he’d had little contact with, for various reasons. Magnar had stayed away from the centre of the Veil, and therefore, had been an ignored presence within the forest. He rarely attacked Demons.

The twins, however, were two ruthless creatures and attacked anything out of boredom. Being near them was dangerous, and their intelligence had been so low that having a simple conversation with them resulted in the most humorous example of talking to a pair of moving trees.

From what Jabez could tell of Magnar, he was trying to emulate Orpheus. He stood similarly, spoke similarly, and appeared to even be dressing like him since he wore a nice black dress shirt and pants. There was more of an uncertain stance in his posture in comparison, and it was obvious he let his woman lead in most instances.

His eyes slipped to Delora. She was plump, and it made her appear soft and feminine. Her dark hair waved around her shoulders and framed her delicate, tanned features. She looked healthy, but unlike last time, she lacked any tiredness and instead seemed to shine in a way only a person who had achieved self-worth could.

Like he had the first time he’d met her, he found her beauty rather beguiling.

Then again, Jabez’s perspective on beauty was insanely skewed. He found many Demons attractive as well. For Jabez, attractiveness could be born from the most abstract features. He’d found Katerina lovely for the opposite reasons he found the woman in front of him lovely. They were completely different,from their eye colour, body shape, skin tone, and even gaze strength.

Even Mavka were handsome fellows to him, not that he’d ever let one know he appreciated them platonically. But he’d always admired their strength and peculiar exoticness.

Although he’d been struggling to admit it, he found Zylah beautiful as well.

He didn’t think his glances upon the female Mavka had been desirous – or, rather, he hoped they weren’t – but it was becoming increasingly difficult to deny her sensuality. Sensuality she had no idea she possessed, and something he’d attempted to cover up with a garment that appeared to just make it worse.

It was like it had become a tease of material that was so short he found his eyes following the way it lifted over her furry, thick thighs. Even the way one of the thin straps would slip over her shoulder and lower the material around the top of a breast was eye-catching.

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