Page 25 of A Soul to Guide

He’d been hoping to play on that in the future.

Instead, now he was being forced to take a new approach.

She would talk, whether she wanted to or not, and he’d promise it would all be okay, when, in fact, it would not be. She had too much magic, something he hunted for whenever he visited human towns – with them none the wiser about the monster walking among them.

Raewyn would just be another person added to the list of faces he couldn’t remember he’d eaten.

Merikh continued to follow her, his naturally red orbs brightening from hunger, when he saw her between the gaps in the trees.

His new future could be within his grasp – all he had to do was grab the potential key trying to escape.

Merikh launched forward and tackled her to the ground, being careless of both of their bodies. He wrapped his arm around her thin torso and lifted it as he knelt above her.

Her little shoves were cute, holding strength, but not enough to part them.

“Let go of me!” she screamed through gritted teeth.

“Let’s see what you’ve been hiding,” he growled as he grabbed her cloak and hair wrappings. He even had his claws curled underneath the strip of cloth covering her eyes, and he pulled all three back to finally reveal her.

Merikh’s aggression swiftly deflated out of him.

Long, white hair freely fell as two big braids down her back. Even her eyelashes and high arching eyebrows were white, and they were stark against her complexion.

Her skin was a smooth, dark, taupe-brown, but it had the strangest grey undertone to it, rather than pink or olive. Dark spots dotted her button nose and sharp cheekbones as freckles, with an even darker beauty mark beneath her right eye.

Both her cheeks and jaw were rounded, rather than being sharp, and they made her look sweet. Her full, pouty lips were twisted as she fought against his hold, but they were ignored.

Her eyes drew his attention.

With a near-black ring encasing a tawny brown, it was herglowingpupils that struck him. Rather than being black, her pupils glimmered like white starbursts that forked through her irises, and he realised she was truly sightless because of them.

Holy shit.She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and he’d seen almost everything in his long life.

It took him longer than it should have for him to notice her long, pointed ears, or the strange black symbols that followed her hairline.

For a long moment, he was stuck staring at her ridiculously mesmerising face. He’d never seen someone so pretty.

When he did notice the combination of her hair and ears, the familiarity of them dawned on him.

“Holy shit,” he rasped out. “You’re a fucking Elf.”

Her eyelids, tipped with long, full, white eyelashes, widened in shock. “Let go of me!”

Her sage scent intensified – after having been soft since they left Clawhaven – and the strange symbols in her hairline glowed grey. Then, they pulsated with green.

Merikh grunted when vines made of long grass, spun to be rope-like, wound around his limbs, including his throat. He was yanked back like he was nothing but a rag doll.

He was unprepared for it; he lost his grip on her and slammed against a tree. A yell ripped from him when his spine cracked as he wrapped around the somewhat thin trunk.

She turned to her hands and knees, about to spring to her feet, but Merikh roared and leapt for her. Before she could get away, he grabbed her ankle and pulled.

Raewyn let out a pained cry when she didn’t fully come with him, and he looked up to see she had wound more grass vines around her forearm to keep herself away. Then she kicked him underneath the jaw, shoving his fangs together before his head went back.

The kick had been strong, far more powerful than a human, and it’d almost sent him hurling to his back. Fortunately, he remained on his knees, but she’d managed to get out of his hold.

With her scent ripe with fear, the only thing that was saving her from Merikh going into a frenzy was the special cloth resting over the nose hole of his bony bear snout. He could smell through it, but it was heavily diluted.

He was going to lose control, her squirming and struggling exciting a dark part within him he’d embraced for far too long. His hunger, his desire to increase his humanity.

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