Page 186 of A Soul to Guide

His orbs broke as droplets began to float around his skull, and he snarled and snapped his fangs at each one. He hated the evidence of his ethereal tears, that they physically represented the twisted emotions eating him up inside.

Should he return to his old friend, or trust the female who could only give him promises – without actually knowing if she could fulfil them?

Both seemed selfish and yet selfless at the same time.

Merikh didn’t know how long he internally struggled for, but sitting there in the disappearing sun would do nothing. For some reason, all he wanted was to watch Raewyn in the hope it would comfort him.

In the hope it would help him make his decision. What was good or what was right?

Thankful his orbs turned solid again, he finally stood. Every step closer to his home only deepened the hollow pit that had formed in his chest.

I don’t know what to do anymore...

Just as he stepped into the entryway, the smell of clary sage wafting from his home, and a bright light flashed. An immense amount of heat caused him to step back, his fur threatening to singe.

It was too hot, too bright. The pressure was so immense that when he lifted his arm, he saw it shaking as he tried to protect not his orbs, but his face, as his senses were annihilated all at once. There was even asoundcoming from it, like someone had bashed a metal pole against a hard surface, and the vibratingtingof it radiated.

Something red and black shook in his sight, and he realised it was his own arm. Except something strange was happening to it, to him. His arm began to separate, his physical self and his red-spectre self pulling apart, like his body and soul were vibrating in two different directions, on separate wavelengths.

Everything else had gone white, his red spectre leaving him, and he feared the worst. She’d killed them both, and he was about to enter the afterworld.

It only took a few seconds for the light to dim, for the vibration to gentle, and for the heat and pressure to soften.

His body stopped trying to split apart. The world came back to show him the brown and grey of his cave walls, the stone bench that matched it.

He didn’t get the chance to assess what strange thing had just happened to him, how he’d seen the red ghost of his arm, because there Raewyn stood.

Above her palms, a drop of sunlight floated. It lit up everything, threatening to absorb all colour.

The heat was so intense, he was unable to step much closer, or he’d begin to wither away. The radiation that came off it itched his flesh.

He was within its dangerous radius, but just on the fringes of it, where he could survive.

She, however, had a grand smile upon her face, seemingly unaffected by its power. The starburst pupils of her eyes were glowing, multicoloured, as were her floating hair and body markings.

She was utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful.

With just one spell, she’d chased away the constant darkness that had been present in his cave – as well as within the corners of his heart.

He realised what he’d been seeking for years was something to chase away everything that hurt, everything bleak and dark. He’d been seeking his polar opposite so he could finally feel wanted and accepted.

He’d been seeking his own little light, a star to shine in the shroud of darkness and endless void of his life.

I want her.

Whether it was here in the safety of his ward or in her realm filled with all the magnificent things she’d told him of, whether it was by Jabez’s side or by her people’s side, Merikh wanted the one thing that had ever allowed him to feel... hateless.

His orbs turned a bright flamingo pink as he stared at his own personal piece of light – and it wasn’t the one she was holding.

I don’t want to let her go. I want her to be mine.

He thought he could handle being anywhere, in any world, so long as she was there to brighten it for him.

The moment Merikh looked upon Raewyn, he’d made his decision.

Unfortunately for everyone else, it was the most selfish decision he could possibly make.

Whenever she wasn’t looking at him, his orbs couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be bright pink or a deep orange.

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