Page 224 of A Soul to Guide

Raewyn hadn’t visited him, which left a yawning hole behind his sternum. She also hadn’t returned to him through the bond, which meant she must be close enough to not incite it.

With his sight bleeding blue, he looked around his current home again. It was spotless. There wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen, nothing to distract him as he waited.

It was tall enough that when he’d entered it, the very tips of his horns had clanked against the protruding metal bars. His cell width gave him just enough room to mindlessly pace if he wanted to, had he been free.

It was spacious. Yet every minute he spent in it, alone, trapped with his arms behind his back, the more claustrophobic he became. The cool air was turning thick, strangling him in an anxiety-induced chokehold.It felt like granite had filled his chest and was weighing him down.

He was used to freedom, to wandering a vast and open world.

His sight darted everywhere.Is this where Jabez was kept?

Had his arms been bound like Merikh’s while he sat in this fucking hellhole? Already, it was driving him insane, and he’d only been here a short while.

How long did Raewyn say Jabez had been inside it? Six Elven years, the equivalent of a ninety Earth years?No wonder he went fucking mad.

Each moment he was forced to wait, rage grew like a tornado within the very centre of his being. It was growing so wild, it was beginning to spiral into something physical within his chest. It knocked against the coldness Raewyn’s absence had left in him.

Couldn’t she visit him, even once? Give him something other than the dark walls, ceiling, and nothingness to stare at? Hear something other than his own breaths and anxious heartbeat? Smell something other than metal, stone, and questionable fluids?

He could even smell his own body, the dirt he’d tracked in from outside – that’s how lacking the world around him was.

Only once had he been visited by a person, and they’d attempted to bring him water and food, both of which he rejected since he didn’t need them.

That had been in the beginning.

It was probably a good thing no one returned, since the next person who came in would have been snarled at.

Just as his mind was beginning to wind and twist further, invisible hands working with his agitation to render him enraged, white wavered in his peripheral.

A body formed in the cell next to him, hollow, completely lacking of colour – a Ghost. Curled up on her side, he could tell it was Raewyn by the distinct curls pooling around her head.

She turned solid, and her scent washed over him like a soothing wave, even more so when her slow breaths and heartbeat lulled his mind with their fragile gentleness.

How could he be angry at his female when she was resting?

Why did she come to me now, though?He looked around, wishing he had some form of exterior light to inform him what the hell was going on, what time it was.

For a little while, he just watched her.

All his anger, anxiety, his bubbling panic against the claustrophobia, eased out of him.

So pretty...

Like a strike of heat from a match, he sensed she was his bride all the way to the very essence of his being. Her soul sat between his horns, and he couldn’t wait for the moment he had the freedom to finally, truly look upon it.

He’d been so impatient before, wanting to consume it in case she took it back, that he’d eaten it without giving it a true glance. A mistake.

I wish she was closer.

If she wasn’t in another cell, and his arms had been free, he would have scooped her up into his arms and held her. He would have stroked her cheek, played with her hair while he felt her sprawled across his torso.

“Raewyn,” he gently called.

His light sleeper stirred, but it was the coolness and hardness of stone against her sliding cheek that truly woke her.

She quickly sat up and patted the ground, her appearance frazzled and panicked. A wave of fear burst from her scent, and it did nothing to incite his hunger. It only made him swell with sympathy – she had been suddenly teleported to a new environment without warning, no wonder she was upset.

“Vvereh eam ey? Haou diid ey geht ereh?”

---