Page 75 of To Trap a Soul

Lindi listened in, soaking up as much information as was being unwittingly offered. Later she’d ask Weldir about it all. Now that she was learning about that world, she thought it may be useful to know more.

I should have asked Weldir years ago about what is really happening.She knew a Demon had opened a portal to Earth, and that Weldir guarded it, stopping them from returning, butwhyhad one been opened here? And why was Weldir stopping them from returning home?

Why was Weldir here at all, requiring all that he did from her?

Lindi placed a hand on her swelling stomach as unease settled in her chest. There was so much she didn’t know. So much she’d hadn’twantedto know.

I have to ask from now on.

If she was going to do his bidding, be his eyes, ears, and hands in this world, then she couldn’t cover her ears and hide under the blanket like a child anymore. And the moment one question came, she knew she had hundreds for him.

“You are far from home, female,” someone said right behind Lindi.

Holding in a scream, it came out as a sharp gasp that clumped in her chest. She spun around and came face to face with Jabeziryth.

Standing over her by at least a foot and a half, his dark-red eyes bore into her brown ones. His head and gaze followed her when she stepped back and to the side in an eerily watchful way, as if silent cunning simmered beneath the surface. He was so tall his lean body appeared stretched, which made him look just as inhuman as his horns, and he smelt oddly of herbs.

His very presence was daunting, given Lindi’s five-foot-seven height.

“S-stay back, Demon,” Lindi demanded, putting her hands out to ward him away.

His head tilted to the side, causing the very short hair on top of it to catch a stray of sunlight. His ear twitched in the light before he hissed and drew his head away from it.

“De... mon?”he mimicked in English, only to continue speaking the foreign language from before – and it was stranger up close to see how his lips didn’t meet his words. “I’ve heard this term a few times. I can’t quite remember what it means.”

“I’m going to call you back to me,”Weldir warned.

She’d gotten him to agree to asking before he just plucked her out of thin air.

“N-no. Don’t,” Lindi said, slyly taking a step back while refusing to disconnect her gaze from his. When he followed, she shoved her hands up. “Stay back, or else.”

It was only when he grinned, which pulled his lips apart, that she noted what monstrous fangs he had. All of them were sharp and pointed, and revealed he had a bite that could kill in an instant.

He easily looked away before nodding in the direction of the others. “You’re not the female from before, so I wonder what you’re doing here. You don’t smell like the other sentient creatures of Earth.”

Did he find me because of my scent?Damnit. Had she known that, she would have spied on them while being incorporeal.

As he continued to approach, Lindi had two options: attack with her magic and reveal all her powers, or...

When Jabeziryth reached out with sharp nails, Lindi turned incorporeal. He halted, as did she, and he tilted his head with a white brow cocking.

“Interesting.” He waved his hand through her form and then pulled back to inspect the lack of her on his fingers when he rubbed his thumb against them. “I didn’t know there were magical beings here.”

Once more, he wriggled his fingers through her before leaning back to stare at her with a dull expression.

He didn’t offer her any more words, as if he thought she wouldn’t be able to understand. She didn’t speak either, instead slowly letting her intangible body sink further and further away from him.

Now that she’d been detected, she wanted nothing more than to escape.

“Jabez?” Lettie called from within the forest, the name shorter than what Weldir had told her. Her footsteps were loud andcrunching across the leaves as she pushed rattling branches out of her way. “I still scent you. I thought you were leaving.”

“Come here, Lettie,” Jabeziryth said, lifting his gaze up and away to the other Demon. He waved her closer. “I found something odd.”

While he was looking away, Lindi shunted back into the tree right behind her. She peeked one eye out just enough to see that when he looked back to where she’d been, his features twitched. His long, pointed ears flicked back as his eyes darted around in search of her.

“She disappeared.”

“Who disappeared?” Lettie asked, breaking through the brush to occupy the space Lindi was just standing in.

---