Page 34 of To Trap a Soul

She’d agreed to do this six years ago. It was the main requirement in her second life, and she’d promised it when she gave him her soul. This was the bargain they’d struck. She’d walked into this knowing what was required of her, and backing out now seemed entirely self-centred and unfair.

He could have found another human woman, one that may have said yes and then not denied him.

She didn’t know if she rejected him now, whether he would undo their bond, but... she wanted to continue her mission. Someone else may not have the heart or even the will to hunt occultists. Lindi did, oddly enough, considering her life’s path up until her first death.

I can do this,she thought as she lowered her knees from her chest.I-it’s only sex.Plenty of people did it. Mothers, wives, lovers. It didn’thaveto be a terrible thing; the idea just felt odd doing it with a faceless spirit.

She also didn’t know what she’d give birth to, and that worried her.

I wanted my first time to be with someone I loved.Most of the time she felt nothing for Weldir, and if she did deign to have an emotion for him, it was irritation.

He hadn’t done anything to change her mind or heart in his cold indifference.

“You must spread your thighs if I am to–”

“I know!” she accidentally yelled, before slapping her hands over her mouth again and wincing apologetically. “I’m just... nervous. I’ve never done this before and I’m a little scared it’s going to hurt.”

Ugh, the rumours she’d heard about it had made her want to shut her legs forever! It was one of the reasons she was relieved to wait until marriage to lose her virginity. She hoped they were just overexaggerating, but the fear they weren’t was hard to shake.

One woman had even said she heard someone else gushed blood, and Lindi’s eyes had widened in disbelief. What had the man done, taken an axe to her?! How barbaric!

“I have never done this before either,” he said, and she wished his tone sounded sincere, like he was trying to comfort her. Instead, despite how nice and husky it was, he stated it matter-of-factly.

When Lindi felt just the tiniest pressure on her knee, she looked down to the chalky streak of his inner palm pressing against it. He was trying to push his entire hand against it, but she only perceived that tiny streak. There was strength behind it, strength he could probably wield if he wanted to, but he didn’t.

That relieved her, at least. It didn’t feel forceful, but more like a gentle coax.

She crossed her ankles in defiance when she looked up at the size of him. “C-can you make yourself smaller? You’ll rip me apart like that.”

Right now, he looked too big, too tall. She wanted him smaller, so it would be easier.

A streak lining his forehead moved as if he looked down upon himself. “I do not see why my size would matter.”

“Because your penis will be too big!” Lindi instantly wanted to die of mortification, but how could he be this... idiotic in this moment?

There was a slight pause from Weldir before a chuckle surrounded her. “We will not be fornicating, human. I only intend to insert a tendril inside you, and nothing more. Perhaps I should have explained that.”

The heat, thankfully, bled from her face as her expression dropped, including her mouth. “What? A-a tendril? You really should have told me.”

She’d been stressing for no reason then!

“I already told you I have no intention of ever hurting you.”

Yes, she faintly remembered him telling her that once, but this was different! It would have been an accident, like most first times.

She went to bash on his chest – or shoulder, she wasn’t quite sure – in indignation, but both her hands went through whatever part of his torso was in front of her. Trying to hit a deity was a poor decision on her part, but her heart was so twisted in relief, nervousness, and confusion that she didn’t care right then.

Thankfully it didn’t matter since over ninety percent of him was intangible to her.

I would strangle him if I could.She doubted he’d forgotten to tell her, so he was probably toying with her. That, or he was an absent-minded idiot, and she didn’t think of Weldir that way.

He didn’t know much about their new bond, but he was a very intelligent being. Even if he didn’t intend to, he sometimes made her feel small and inferior. It didn’t help that he could look into the past of the souls he’d eaten. Earth wasn’t a mystery to him, and he knew more about it than she did.

Likely more than she ever would.

Worried his patience was growing thin, and unwilling to learn what the end of that tether looked like, Lindi began to open her legs. She cringed when her thighs peeled apart like they were sticky, and then she was finally revealing herself to him.

When she paused after parting them only an inch, he stated, “More. I will not be able to feel with my tendril, so I will need to properly see what I am doing.”

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