Page 91 of To Trap a Soul

In retort, Furir folded her arms. “Perhaps it has. I tire of watching you fail in the mud.”

Then the short woman lost her focus when a shadow passed over them, causing her to dart her gaze up. Her yellow eyes glimmered, her third one glinting with purple, as she licked at the corner of her mouth. She muttered, not to Lindi but to herself, or to no one.

“Look at it fly.” Her gaze narrowed, perceptive and yet lost, as her neck craned to follow a golden pheasant’s movements, twitching when its large wings flapped like she could hear it when Lindi couldn’t. “One of its wings has only newly healed.The feathers... they’re not streamlined. Wait for its squawk. It will tell me what it seeks.”

She lifted her right hand and her fingers twitched near her jaw, before the other lifted to do the same. Her head jerked in an unnatural way.

Lindi sighed and rubbed her straining neck. “Furir, please. Stay with me.”

The woman’s three eyes widened, and she darted her face back to Lindi. Her cheeks pinkened in embarrassment, but Lindi looked away to pretend she hadn’t noticed her lapse of lucidity.

“Sorry. Please don’t mind me,” Furir grumbled awkwardly.

It was a curse for all animal shifters that their minds be a little chaotic. If they weren’t careful, if they spent too long as a creature and not enough time as a person, they could lose themselves completely.

The eccentric, boisterous, and flamboyant Furir, who was only six and twenty, was already at risk. So young, they feared. She’d been ordered by Seraphina to remain humanoid until the worst of her lack of lucidity faded.

Nobody had prepared Lindi for the messiness of the woman’s mind, and she truly seemed to be part beast despite her small, mostly human appearance.

Unfortunately, the curse had already progressed to the point that she changed into an animal from a stray, intense emotion. Anger, happiness. Sometimes even extreme fatigue could slip her away. Her dreams were pests to all, as she could be heard scampering about in her room – or, rather, destroying it.

Furir brushed back the stray blonde hairs from her dirt-smeared face. She was dirtier than Lindi, who had just kissed the mud. Those hands of hers had messed many books, an avid reader in her downtime, which once surprised Lindi that she had such focus after first meeting her.

Her peculiarities were often startling, and she had a keen eye for others.

Like now, when she peered around Lindi’s still huffing form to cock a brow. Lindi turned to see what Furir was looking at before darting her gaze away and to the ground with her shoulders lifting nervously.

“I think it’s odd that you have captured Evart’s eye,” Furir stated absentmindedly. “He is usually so reserved and pensive, but he makes this as obvious as a weed, rather than a truffle.”

Lindi’s cheeks heated at Furir once again making it known that Evart was watching her. She wouldn’t allow Lindi the ruse that she was oblivious to this annoying attention.

His black curly hair went from longer on top and gradually shortened to the skin just above his ears and at his neckline. The Anzúli called it a low, tapered fade, not that Lindiwe had heard such a term or seen such a style before. His hair on his head was much fuller than the dusting of curling hair on his brown face. His jawline was prominent, chiselled even, and it matched his high cheekbones and thick brows. He had full lips and arresting brown eyes. His body was lean, and a little taller than Lindi’s.

He was a very handsome man, despite the oddity of his third glowing green eye. She’d found her gaze often shying away when he had the top half of his robes folded down around his waist as he worked out with the rest of the Anzúli people in the mornings or evenings.

“I’ve already told you all that I have no such aspirations here.”

Even if she wanted to, she’d made a vow to Weldir to keep herself closed off to other men. Not in friendship, as she made many friends here, but romantically, physically. Even Evart, among a few other attractive men here, was given a more appreciative eye for his form, rather than anything desirous.

Not even her mind could cross that barrier and be playful, but it was also entirely barren when it came to any lust pertaining toWeldir. He had not sowed that seed, and thus, there was nothing to tend to in her special garden of desire.

“Yes, yes. Something about the sanctity of marriage and remaining untouched until then. So unfair on the maidens of this world.” She placed her fists on her hips and shook her head. “Virgins. What an annoying concept. Who cares if she bleeds her first time or not? It does not matter to one’s cock when it hits deep in hot wetness.”

Lindi shuddered at her grossly forward speaking, fearing her ears would disintegrate with the searing heat of embarrassment. It also made her pussy clamp up and tingle, and the fact that Furir’s nose was sharper than anyone else’s was disconcerting.

The woman’s lips curled from the mischief she knew she’d caused. “Be a ripe flower and take his nectar.” She winked. “I’m sure he’d like it, and it smells like you need it.”

“Oh, do fuck off,” Lindi snapped while rolling her eyes.

Furir placed her hands on her hips, threw her head back, and barked out a grating laugh. “You amuse me, Lindiwe. Truly.”

Lindi brushed off the drying, caked mud from her hands and lifted her head nonchalantly. “I think today should be our final lesson. It’s obviously pointless and I won’t be subjugated to this mortifying torture any longer.”

“Yes, I think that’s a good idea.” Furir’s smile went soft, reaching her eyes with fondness. “But I hope that you will continue to converse with me. Uxos knows how much the other Anzúli bother and bore me.”

Lindi smiled in return.

Just as she opened her mouth to accept, liking this mad woman’s company more than most, Weldir’s echoing voice halted her.

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