Page 110 of To Trap a Soul

He lacked the black cloak from last time, but his attire was similar. A cream long-sleeved tunic was tucked into his brown breeches that looked to be fitted to his long legs. He was still lean, but he did appear to have slightly more muscle than what she remembered.

If it wasn’t for his pointed ears, red eyes, and horns, he almost looked human. Although his height was alarming, as he now stood well over a foot above her.

Wanting to keep her distance, Lindi chose to back up further until a bundle behind him drew her attention.

Shit! My clothing.She was nude, and she doubted she’d be able to grab them before he could stop her. Not that she knew why he’d try to.

Regardless, she’d rather not be physical in his presence after everything Weldir had told her of him. She knew about Jabeziryth, why he’d come here, the portal he’d opened, and how he’d brought the first Demons to Earth. He wasn’t to be trusted. She also knew of the death and chaos he’d instigated on his way out of the Elven city of Lezekos.

To be bare in front of him, and without her animal changing cloak... Lindi wanted to groan.

“I mean you no harm.”

“Says the Demon,” she finally said, staying where she floated partially inside the waterfall.

“Yes, I remember you used that term last time.” His head cocked to the side as he eyed down her body before drawing back up. “I wonder if you know you inadvertently named us all that very day.”

Her arms tightened around her body, wishing her clothing would magically wrap around her. Her knees turned inwards, and she hoped it wasn’t obvious. It alarmed her that she was naked in front of a man, no matterwhathe was.

“What do you mean?”

When he must have noticed where her gaze had drifted to, he looked behind him. He cocked a brow at her clothing and bag and then turned back to her. Her features dropped when he took a few steps towards them instead.

“I looked up what that word meant when I learned your language. I found it to be rather fitting, like what the Elysians call us. Daekura means ‘shadow beasts,’ but your version – ‘something insidious and harmful; an evil spirit or devil’ – sounds more like what we can be when we are not evolved. Cruel and evil. Something from the very pits of hell.” He lifted a single arm to shrug with it before kneeling next to her things. “Then again, I’d rather not be titled anything by the Elysians.”

“You’d rather be called something so offensive?” she couldn’t help asking, watching him slowly reach down.

His shoulders lifted. “Only if we think it’s offensive, which we do not.”

To her horror, he opened up her satchel, and she shunted her ethereal form towards him. She didn’t dare reach forward and uncover herself. “Hey! Don’t touch my things!”

“You know, you can garner a great deal of information about someone by the artefacts they have on their person.”

“I said stop!” she whined, refusing to move her arms and expose her body or turn physical to pull on him.

He reached into her bag and pulled out a pair of black slipper flats. He placed them on the ground since they were the bulkiest items in her bag and then continued his rude delve. He inspected a glass perfume bottle, opening it to smell the sweet osmanthus flowers before putting it back to open her pouches of seeds. Next he inspected her glass vial of precious hair oil, sniffing its contents before giving a hum of approval. Then he carelessly placed it back down, and it rolled so close to the edge of the rock that her heart would have clenched if she wasn’t incorporeal.

“No food or water?” he commented, raising a brow in her direction. “Do you have no need to eat? Your ghostly appearance makes you look dead. You don’t appear to have aged at all, either.”

“I’m a Phantom,” she admitted, hoping that would make him stop. She was the only one she knew of, and she doubted he’d know what it meant.

It didn’t halt his progress, and he dug down further. He pulled out a special ceramic vial that usually held the souls she collected. Worried he’d break it, she kept just enough distance to stay out of his immediate reach and turned physical. Then, while covering herself with her arms, she put up a solid, flat barrier between them, and willed tentacle limbs to shoot out from the ground.

They coiled themselves around his arms and throat, and she pulled him back. He fell off the side of the rocky ledge with a yell, and Lindi dived forward. Panicking and fretting, her hands shook as she quickly shoved her undergarments on, then her clothing.

She just managed to poke her arms through the sleeves of her tunic before he crawled his way to the top ledge she was on. She grabbed her bag and returned her jars and soul-collecting vial, but gave up her shoes since she doubted she had time to shove them back inside. Just as she reached for her cloak, she and Jabeziryth grabbed it at the same time.

“I truly won’t harm you,” he swore, and Lindi didn’t believe him.

She pulled with her right arm, wincing when she heard his nails – or claws, or whatever – tear into her cloak, and she gave it some slack again. She lifted her left hand with her palm facing him. “L-let go, or I’ll use more of my magic.”

She worried if she turned intangible, her cloak wouldn’t come with her since he was holding it. She couldn’t let him have it. Itwas a precious gift, the only thing that allowed her to shift into a raven, and she needed it. If he kept it or ruined it, she’d be heartbroken.

“You’re making me out to be a bad guy here. I only wish to talk to you.”

Then, as if he wanted to prove he was harmless, despite his claws, fangs, and ridiculously tall height, he yielded and let her cloak go. The issue was, Lindi wasn’t expecting him to. She squealed when she stumbled backwards from the lack of resistance and began to go over the ledge of the waterfall.

A massive hand wrapped itself around her wrist, warm and surprisingly gentle, and pulled her back onto solid ground.

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