Page 119 of A Soul to Touch

“That’s not what I said.”

His words landed on unlistening ears. Mayumi wasn’t done screaming at him with her eyes closed and her face scrunched up – like she was against speaking the words that fell from her pretty lips.

“Do you know how hard this is for me? I don’t even know what I really feel or why. People all my life have called me cold or cruel because I’ve never been able to give them any piece of me, because I always preferred to be by myself since it was easier. Yet, here I am, trying to give you my soul – right after you just told me that this could tie me to you forever. I didn’t ask you to come here. You’re the one who decided to come to my home, to protect me.” Still holding his wrist, her head fell forward so that her hair would hide her face. “So why are you the one rejecting it?”

Guilt flashed in his orbs as the colour orange, right before they became white.

His emotions, his feelings, everything started boiling over under the power of just this tiny human’s words. He was confused about her, about her feelings towards him, about why she even wanted him in the first place. Shouldn’t she be overjoyed that he wasn’t demanding to take it? Why did she want to give it to him at all?

I don’t know what I’m doing with her.

All this precious time with her felt like some fantastical dream, and he worried that at any point he’d wake up drowning in Jabez’s castle again.

“You can’t even give me the decency of telling me fucking why. It doesn’t matter if you understand humans or not. It’s not an excuse.”

With his fingers splayed and filled with tension, he turned to her with his claws at the ready, wishing there was some foe he could destroy to stop the terrible way he felt in that moment.

He never wanted to be the source of her pain, yet he couldn’t seem to stop hurting her. First, with leaving to get the answers he sought, then his damn hand around her throat. And now this? How was he supposed to carry all these burdens, along with the many others he already wore?

It was too much for something like him. He didn’t know how to handle it, how to cope with it, and the way her face appeared right now was more painful than anything else.

“Being left in the dark about something like this... It’s not fair to me, Faunus. And you trying to leave is worse.”

Those words were the last thing to lodge the invisible arrowhead deeper into his frantic heart until he thought he’d start vomiting up his own purple blood.

“Because I’m dying, Mayumi!” he roared.

Her face paled before it shot up to his. “What?”

He came closer and cupped the base of her skull in both his hands, his fingers and claws tangling into her beautiful hair. He kept his gaze on her wonderful eyes, wishing they’d never look at anyone but him.

“Thatis why I cannot take your soul.” He drew his thumbs over her pale-stricken cheeks. “I won’t take your life along with mine.”

She tried to tug one of his hands free, but he wouldn’t let her.

“What do you mean that you’re dying?” Her eyes flittered down to search for some kind of wound on the body she’d been staring at for weeks.

“The only way to kill a Duskwalker is to destroy our skull.”

“Your skull?”

Her eyes shot up and then widened at the crack running down the left side of his face. He removed one hand so he could brush the back of his fore knuckles across her cheek instead.

“I wish I had come here sooner.”

With every fragment of his being, he wished this.

She’d told him she’d been here for six months... and within those six months, he could have been here with her rather than alone with the memories of his torture.

He could have been learning all these different facets of her, about sex and what curious things his tail and tongue could do, his tentacles and cock. He’d already known she was wonderous, but he hadn’t realised she’d be this stunning, this warm and tender towards him.

“If I had been here sooner, even just a month ago, I could have accepted your soul.” The chuckle that fell from him was humourless and dark. “I came here because I wanted to spend what remained of my life protecting you. I wanted to give away my life for you.”

“But you’re fine now,” she said, covering his snout with her hand and letting her fingertips brush right next to the crack. “As long it doesn’t break further, you’ll be okay.”

“I can feel the end, Mayumi.” He leaned into her touch. “It may not be today, or tomorrow, or even a year from now, but something could happen that will break it further. I am weakened, and I cannot bear knowing that if I bonded with you, I could destroy you along with me. I came here to protect your life, even if it is at the cost of my own. I won’t take even a single second that is meant to be given to you.”

“That’s not your choice to make.”

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