Page 135 of To Trap a Soul

Lindi’s brows drew together at that.He collected his soul?

Orson’s head reared back as blue flickered in his orbs for just a moment.“No... he returns. Always returns.”

“It has been longer than a day, Orson.” Weldir waved his hand to the side, in the opposite direction from where Lindi cautiously approached, to distract him. “He will not return. You must sense this.”

“No!”Orson roared, as the bottoms of his orbs, flicking between red and blue, wavered and broke. Floating drops leaked from them, and he stamped a hand forward again, smashing it against the ground.“Wrong. You lie!”

“Stop!” Lindi pleaded with a scream, reaching her hand forward as a shuddering sob ripped out of her. “You’re breaking it further!”

Orson let out a gasping whine when he lifted his hand off of the part of Nathair’s skull he’d snapped – one of his thin and delicate jaw bones. He started brushing it all into a pile, as if that would help to put it back together, and his orbs finally held blue.

“Stop touching it! Stop...ruiningit!” Lindi dared to come even closer when her heart yearned to collect it, to prevent Orson’s heavy and destructive hands from doing any more damage.

Orson roared at her, his echidna spines lifting to their highest points. His clawed hands shook as he attempted to tread carefully to ward her back and stand over the pieces, then he brushed them together once more.

“N-no. He is mine,”Orson whined, his claws clacking against the pile of bones.“He come back.”

His behaviour was utterly heartbreaking. As much as she recognised his pain, and felt it all the way to the depths of her soul, her loss was just too great. He was too inhumane and unintelligent to understand what he was doing. He couldn’t be reasoned with.

As cruel as it was, Lindi pushed her hands forward and made black tentacles of magic form. They wrapped around Orson’s body, but the moment she tried to yank him back, his spines tore them apart.

She gasped when the forceful release of magic made her stumble back. That had never happened before.

“Orson,” Weldir warned, his voice deepening to a frightening degree. It was still calm, but rumbled like the beginnings of a storm that had not yet reached the crashing shore. “Let her collect Nathair’s skull.”

“No!”Orson’s orbs, leaking floating tears, flared bright crimson.“He is mine! My Nathair.”

“Move aside, you big silly oaf!” Lindi shouted, shoving her hands forward once more to create more tentacles. “You’ve done enough damage!”

I just need a moment.She wanted this horrible tableau to end.

She enclosed her fists and yanked at the same time, ripping him back just before his spines could tear her magic to shreds. She gave herself the slimmest opening. Pregnant, with her back and ankles sore, she ran as hard as her heavy and uncomfortable body could manage.

But Orson was faster. He rolled across the ground, leapt to his hulking bear legs and humanoid hands, and sprinted forward. Just as she managed to grab a piece, and before she could turn transparent to save herself, he ripped his claws into her.

Lindi choked out a gasp of pain, just as her face, chest, and the side of her rounded belly were gouged into. Her entire body locked up, and her stomach contractedhard.Just as he went to strike her again, she managed to turn incorporeal, and his paw went through her.

But the agony was too great, and she flickered between human and Phantom as she wobbled back. She held her belly as the contraction gripped her, and her legs tried to give out. She choked out another gasp as her knees locked together, and wetness pooled between her thighs – warm and entirely uncomfortable.

“Weldir,” she whispered, her shock snapping through her grief when she thought nothing could. The flared wounds on her face and chest stung so bad, and the blood leaking from them tickled her, but she barely registered them against the pain from her groin. “Weldir, I think I’m going into labour.”

He was by her side in an instant.

She still had a few days left of her pregnancy, but her body and the child couldn’t handle everything – especially with the damage Orson had just done.

Damage she knew Nathair, who was exceptionally gentle with her whenever she’d been pregnant near him, would never have done. Nathair was different – he’d always been different. Kind, despite being monstrous. Playful, despite his wariness with her. Patient and understanding on an instinctual level.

He never would have hurt her like this, not unless he was in a bloodlust or truly enraged – and Orson, despite his red orbs and tears, was not there yet.

“I cannot do anything to help, Lindiwe,” Weldir stated, and she wanted nothing more than to shriek.

She had time before this child came, but she would not leave the other one here – the broken pieces of him – amidst Orson’s chaos.

When she summoned tentacles up through the ground once more, Orson snarled and evaded them. She put up a shield of magic, drew her hands back, and then shoved them forward to smash it into him. She hitched in a sharp breath when her body contracted once more, and her vision flashed a blinding white. The pressure on her cervix was intense, and her legs grew cold, like the strength in them was momentarily suspended. More liquid surged from her, and it was unpleasantly warm down her legs.

She’d already had a scent-cloaking spell in place, but she strengthened it just in case the bloody liquid set him off even more.

“Get him further from Nathair and then put a ward over it,” Weldir offered as advice.

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