Page 105 of To Free a Soul
Releasing the clasp of a special vial, similar to the one she used to collect souls, a tiny, cute puff of shadowy cloud hissed out.
“Thank you,”Weldir said as black glittering sand, so small it was almost invisible to the naked eye, surrounded the portal’s yellow swirl.“This is the last one on this continent. You only have one more to travel to.”
Weariness made her eyes heavy, and she wanted to groan, complain, and stamp her feet. She deserved a break. Lindiwe had been travelling the world, helping him lay down his mist, for nearly a whole year.
To say she was tired was an understatement, and there were things she wanted to do.
I haven’t seen some of our children in over twenty-five years.Weldir had missed out on so much, but so had she.
“I dislike that you cannot see me,”Weldir said, making it known he was right there, but completely invisible.
She offered his cloud a smile with false recognition in her eyes, hoping she was looking in his general direction. “You could take me to your realm for a little while, then I could see you.” She turned slightly, so she was facing the portal more. “I know doing this drains what little magic you have, so maybe we could rest for a short while together? You can place me somewhere closer to the next location so I don’t have to fly such a distance. You did say it was quite far north.”
Greenisland, he’d said it was called.
A decadent chuckle flittered through her mind.“You’re starting to make me think you like being in my realm.”
Her cheeks warmed, and she lifted her gaze to the side. “Maybe a little,” she admitted, placing her hands behind her back and interlacing her fingers coyly. “It’s my... safe place.”
“Safe? You once said you hated being there because you were afraid of being trapped in it.”
A sigh slipped past her lips, and she closed her eyes while dipping her head to the right. “Well yeah, I don’t really want to be stuck there with nothing to do if you aren’t there. I would’ve gone insane had I died and returned to your realm while you were sleeping.” She opened her eyes and shifted them to the general location she believed he was. “But if you’re awake, I find it safe. Nothing can hurt me, and you’ve proven you won’t do that to me again.”
Hearts could change, they could be healed, and trust could be earned – even when it had been severely damaged.
She felt comfortable enough to sleep there peacefully, while knowing he would be awake the entire time. She was content to read her dozens of journals and spellbooks, or re-familiarise herself with all her personal items.
Heart-stuttering and body-quivering naughty things happened in that darkness. Her thighs clenched when her clit and pussy throbbed in longing.
But intimacy is entirely impossible right now.Because she didn’t want his tendrils – she wanted him. His hands, his mouth, his cock, even if he couldn’t feel it. She yearned for him to whisper sinful threats, promises, and compliments in her ears while he watched, which made it all the more perverse and erotic.
Her fingertips itched to claw at his back or barriers for more, or to grab his horn or hair and tug hard as she came. And to be kissed... Lindiwe sometimes had to stifle a moan because she missed his lips more than she cared to admit, and the way they made her own swell.
But his physical body hadn’t grown in the past year.
He was using every drop of power he gained to spread his mist and barricade these portals. He hadn’t even tended to Tenebris or woken Nathair, and only healed and consumed a few dozen souls a day to slowly whittle down the vast number waiting for him.
Lindiwe sighed.I miss sex.She’d missed it for the past sixty-three years, and knowing she’d be going without for even longer was making her have perverse thoughts. Especially now that he was back within reach – but bodiless.
At some point, I’m going to give in and masturbate.
When he’d been slumbering, she’d clenched her eyes and moaned his name, as if the way she called to him with desperate, aching need might wake him.
It never did.
“I’m... glad you finally feel that way about being in my presence,”Weldir eventually said, his words slow and careful.“You have always been welcome in my void.”
The heat in Lindiwe’s cheeks deepened at her less than pure thoughts.
“I don’t think we’ve placed any children in this part of the world,” she said, trying to distract her mind and evade the vulnerability in admitting how she now felt about his realm. “Nor are there any in the next place I’m going. Is that something you are going to want to change soon?”
That had likely been the plan after Fennec was born.
“Is that something you want?”Weldir surprised her by asking.
“I’m more trying to strum up a conversation about your plans for the future.”
“We can now, but I would have to use my tendril to do so.”
