Page 137 of A Soul to Touch

Having Phantom abilities would be so useful.

He’d further explained it to her, and Mayumi was absolutely one hundred percent on board with the idea of turning intangible.

Imagine all the Demons I could sneak up on and kill.

Faunus would turn her into the ultimate Demonslayer.

Her eyes fell to the side to look at him, knowing he was slowing his pace for her.Spending whatever time I have with him sounds... pretty good, too.

So what if he was destined to die sooner than eternity? With the way she lived, she only had a few good years left anyway.

Her arms fell from being crossed behind her head as her heart gave an uncomfortable throb. Her lips pursed as her brows crinkled into a tight frown.

I thought I could convince him if the glue worked, but his body heat literally melted it off his face.

She’d used animal glue, as she hadn’t been able to obtain casein. Everything else she’d found within Colt’s Outpost would have stung his constantly open wound. It had been her only shot, and it failed.

I can’t strap his horns because he said pushing the crack back together was excruciating.

She didn’t mind staring at leather over his face or even the yucky yellow of the glue on him if it helped to keep him alive for longer. She just wanted to make him feel confident enough to take her soul.

I’ve tried the glue twice in the past week just to make sure.She wasn’t about to give up just because of a failed attempt.What else can I do?

Being a Phantom was just a bonus, but bonding with this big guy was what her mind had stubbornly grabbed hold of. Like her mother, she was foolishly determined.

Call it love or infatuation, but sheknewFaunus was the one person in all of existence that she could picture being... happy with.

It wouldn’t be easy. Already they had their difficulties, but this was the first time she ever wanted to persevere through those challenges instead of salmon diving out the window to freedom.

Why couldn’t that be enough?

“You have that look on your face,” he eventually said after some time of them walking.

She snorted half-heartedly. “The one where I’m up to something?”

“I believe your face is permanently like that,” he chuckled, making her jaw drop in disbelief. The audacity of this Duskwalker! “No. The other one. The one where something is bothering you.”

That made her jaw instantly shut. The corner muscle knot of it ticked when she clenched her back molars.

“You’re also quiet,” he stated casually. “You’re rarely quiet. You’re usually bothering me and harassing me. It worries me when you don’t.”

With a false huff and a very real eye roll, Mayumi picked up her pace. Which meant nothing because he just matched her as she tried to trudge through the thick and dense snow.

“I’m usually a pretty quiet person. It just depends on my mood and who I’m with,” she said.

Ahh, misdirection at its... lamest.Her internal cringe had to be snuffed so it didn’t twitch her cheek.

“I’m just getting my mind ready for tonight,” she added. “You must be in the right frame of mind when hunting creatures who tend to think of you as prey.”

The lie was bittersweet as it was partly true.

She just didn’t want to talk to Faunus about her feelings, how deep they were, or how much she wanted to give him her soul.

I’m not a poet.She didn’t know how to be soft and gentle with her words, didn’t know how to formulate them almost musically.

She had half a mind to pry his jaws apart while he was asleep and shove her soul down his throat so he couldn’t stop her. There. A solution. Then they could argue about it together for eternity, or however long they’d have left together.

Currently, she saw any dialogue on the subject not going her way, and she wasn’t the type of person to fight a losing battle. She’d rather delay the fight until she came up with a strategy where she knew she would be the victor.

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