Page 227 of A Soul to Guide

There was one last thing he wanted to say to her, something he was truly nervous about. It didn’t matter that she’d already kind of said it to him. The emotions that came with it were so utterly foreign, they were painful in his chest.

He needed to say it, to utter it, before it burned a hole in him.

Her eyes were drooping and falling asleep, like she was content to be with him just as he was with her, so he needed to say it now.

“I love you, Raewyn,” he said, the pink of his orbs brightening as he lifted his head back so he could properly see her reaction.

She was his equal, his polar opposite, his strengths where he was weakest, his vulnerability where he was strongest. She was all that mattered, all that would ever matter.

Her eyelids opened slightly. She parted her lips to say something, but considering she closed them again, he had a funny feeling it was to tease him.

She reached up and dug her fingers into the empty space of one of his bony eye sockets. “Is that what this colour means?”

“Yes,” he grated.

“I saw it not long before we left Earth.”

Merikh’s shoulders turned inward under the weight of his emotions. “It’s because I loved you then.”

A small smile curled her lips, and she used his eye hole to pull him down so she could kiss the side of his sharp fangs.

“I love you, too, and if you don’t know this about me yet, I want you to know that once I set my heart to something, it never fades.”

“It would be unfortunate for you if it did, because I’m never letting you go, my own personal piece of starlight.”

His orbs pink, Merikh petted Raewyn with his snout and tongue until she passed out in his lap. With his arms trapped and both of them in the cool dark, he’d never been happier.

Raewyn knew this conference room like it had, annoyingly, been seared onto the back of her eyelids. She’d spent hours, days, weeks,yearsin it, to the point that it haunted her with the uttermost boring nightmares.

It was pyramid in shape, the walls reaching a centre point in the ceiling where white tree branches allowed sun to filter glass. However, sheets of gold metal could be moved to the left like fanning blades to hide the sun if they wished. From the middle of the blades’ meeting point hung a tapestry flag with the synedrus council’s emblem, the Elysian people’s universal symbol beneath it, and the city’s marking below that.

There were spare spots on the walls where other flags could be placed, had the world not been overrun by Demons and forced them to become one people rather than many.

Like everywhere within the central tree, the walls were white from its bark. In this room, gold mainly filled the spaces, since it was a common material for them. Black obsidian was also common, and they preferred laying it on the ground.

Unlike most rooms within the central tree, which was filled with thousands of them, this was at the very top of its trunk. It was also in the heart of it, the only one of this shape.

They were lucky that this kind of tree often grew in unusual patterns with many pockets, twists, and turns – although they did assist this one in particular. It branched halfway up its trunk and covered the entire city with shade when the sun was at its highest.

The city’s stone walls, which weren’t just for protection from the Demons, protected the Elysian and Delysian people alike from the sun’s heat and radiation.

Rich with hyper fertile soil, this world’s forestry grew dense and had always shielded them. Unfortunately, that magnificent growth gave the Demons the perfect home to thrive in such a sunny environment.

From the warmth she could feel on her left shoulder, the gold blades must have been opened on one side.

That would be for the Delysian councilmembers and their safety, since they still burned in the sunlight. Since becoming a councilmember was a difficult process and they were still fairly new to the city, there were only four of them. It took great strengths and achievements to gain a position, especially in the speciality they chose.

There were three curved sections of solid gold tables, silver branching through their elegant designs. If pushed together, they would have made a perfect circle, but they were usually spread apart to allow people in and out of the middle freely. Each table could only hold six people.

Seventeen of the eighteen chairs were currently occupied, since Raewyn’s was empty.

She stood in the middle with Merikh by her side. He was kneeling to make himself look smaller and less imposing – his idea – while she pleaded his case and translated on his behalf.

The only other person who could speak his language was her father, and despite how much the other councilmembers demanded for him to be his translator, he’d rejected them. Her father had chuckled when she begged him not to accept before they’d even asked him. Of course, he’d sided with his daughter, no matter the reason.

They hadn’t wanted Raewyn, who was obviously biased towards Merikh, translating on his behalf, where she could twist his words to make sure they would benefit him.

Shemayhave been doing that. Okay, she absolutely was doing that, but it was because Merikh could be a little brash in his word choice.

---