Page 153 of To Trap a Soul

Mortified that he’d been watching her have what she thought was a private moment, Lindiwe’s heart nearly burst out of her chest. Even the child within her stomach seemed to bounce around and flutter from the shock.

“Nothing!” she yelled, so glad her flushing ears were obscured by the loose bangs of her hair so he couldn’t see their heated tips.

“It doesn’t look like nothing,”he said, and his rough, decadent voice had her insides twisting into desirous knots.

The man’s vocal cords were a sin, especially as she doubted he lacked any!

“H-how’s Nathair?” she asked, reaching for something, anything, other than the conversation revolving around her.

He gave a hum of thought, likely wanting to press the issue. He must have decided against it, since he said absently,“He’s good. Trying to hide from me.”

Her brows twitched before furrowing. “Is that even possible?”

Weldir laughed, all deep and masculine and right in her damn ear, and she almost wanted to moan like a horny idiot.“No, but I let him believe it is.”

“You must have a lot of souls there now. How do you find him if he slithers off? Or can you just sense him no matter what?” she asked, actually curious about this.

I’ve always wanted to visit Tenebris.Considering that was where Nathair was, and that Weldir spoke of it often, it was the one place she wanted to visit. But the idea of being swallowed whole kind of gave her the heebie-jeebies, so she hadn’t asked.

She didn’t know if she ever would.

“I follow our fate strings, just like how I’m able to determine how far you are from our living offspring.”

Oh. I forgot about those.Actually, she hadn’t, but her mind was too fixated on getting caught freaking out about sex with him, the past, and the potential future, that she was too scrambled to the think properly.

Lindiwe tucked a thick clump of her wayward curls tickling her temple behind her ear. “What do they look like?”

“My side is always black, just like the rest of me. Everyone else’s varies, but it often matches their orb colours. Nathair’s end is orange, and our strings tangle and twist together.”

“What’s mine?”

“It’s multicoloured, with a more reddish-orange hue like your soul flame. The other end reflects the colour of my mana, of me.”

“So we’re literally intertwined?” she asked sweetly, bending her other leg so she could lay her chin across her raised knees. “I always thought so figuratively, but never literally.”

“Yes. I’m also intertwined with all the consumed human souls here in Tenebris, although their strings are all white on the other end.”

The muscled knot in her jaw popped as her lips tightened.What a way to make what could have been special, common.Then again, that was Weldir. He had no sense of coyness, and he didn’t even catch that Lindiwe may have tried to flirt with him.Blergh.

“How do you find a particular soul you are looking for? Or are there too many for you to wade through now?”

“Hmm. That is a rather peculiar question. I do remember many of the humans here by their memories, but that is only if I’ve looked into them. I use those memories to call their string to me. As for those I haven’t... I’m unsure as to why I would ever need to call upon them. I have no care for them beyond making them content here.”

Lindiwe snorted an expressionless, near soundless huff of humour.Such a Weldir answer to give.He cared, but alsodidn’t, for the souls he had trapped in his realm.

Finding that his voice was oddly soothing her, Lindiwe asked him an array of questions surrounding fate strings, the souls of Tenebris, and his realm. Much of it she’d already heard before.

With the late sun beating on her back and the harsh sound of water falling, she just wanted to hear him talk.

She allowed him to fill in the empty space beside her, and for once, she truly enjoyed it.

A time unknown, but within a cave of wonders

Walking through his realm didn’t give Weldir the same sense of satisfaction and relief as it used to. Not when he’d begun itching to explore outside of it more than ever.

With a certain female.

She doesn’t know how much of her world she has shown me,Weldir thought, as he looked over the shelf of water falling into a large ravine below.

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