Page 216 of A Soul to Guide

Not really the warm welcome she’d promised him.

He knew the problem.

He was a strange creature in their home. In their eyes, he was a monster who had trespassed, and they didn’t know if he was safe or not.

Worse still, they couldn’t communicate. The soldiers back at his home had spoken another language. They hadn’t understood him then. He needed Raewyn to translate.

He was moving too fast. How was she supposed to come to him when he couldn’t stop for even a moment before being swarmed? Finding her seemed impossible.

There were too many people. Too many houses to check. Too many scents on top of each other for him to even pick up a thread.

He kept his sight on the tree.What if she’s in there?

He couldn’t move through it.

Fuck. What am I supposed to do?

There was an open area between two overarching tree roots, a clear path to safety – or so he thought.

A net burst from the side and wrapped around three of his limbs. His quills were quick to free him, but he still crashed against the ground, his left shoulder and skull first. By the time he was back on all fours, he was surrounded.

Seeing no other alternative, he leapt over the top of them and their long polearms. A vine with two stones on each end wrapped one of his arms against his torso, and he hit the ground with his chest when he landed.

Anoomphburst from him.

Fighting to free himself, he was surrounded once more, this time by twice the number of soldiers. As he stood on two legs so he could free his arm, they jabbed upwards to keep him from attacking.

He backed up and yelped when someone poked him in the arse with a sharp tip. Merikh roared, his quills standing on their ends, puffing him out and doubling his size.

Shouts rang as they kept him locked in. They gave him just enough space to move back and forth as he searched for an escape, for a space to leap, anything.

There were too many now. He’d be impaled if he moved back down to the ground.

“Stop being afraid!”he roared, wishing the smell of their fear would cease. His voice was distorted in his monstrous form, a treble to his usual bass.

His sight deepened into crimson, and he was forced to shove two fingers into his nose hole to shield himself from it.

Someone stepped forward and jabbed their blade at him when he got too close.

“Fuck off,”he snarled, growing more agitated by the second.

His chest was tight in anger, in fear of what could happen. He spun in a circle, but there was no way out unless he fought them.

I can’t. She’ll never forgive me.

They wouldn’t accept him. He would fall into a killing spree. Shedding the blood of just one person would start something he wouldn’t be able to control in such a dense population of people.

Currently, they were jabbing at a bomb of claws, fangs, and insatiable hunger, and they were moments from setting him off.

If she tries to stop me, I’ll kill her.His sight momentarily shifted to white at the thought, panic skittering through him.

It didn’t matter how he felt towards her. In that state, he wouldn’t see the difference between friend or foe, food or companion. She’d be nothing but meat.

Merikh paced the length of their polearms on three limbs, two fingers still lodged in his nose hole, as he tried to figure a way past, tried to thinkrationally.

He sat back on his haunches and raised a hand to wave down, hoping the sign for calm the fuck down was universal. The person he’d done it towards, although random, had only seen him threaten with claws.

A man came forward and used his hands to speak. A person next to him translated on his behalf.

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