Page 124 of To Free a Soul
I feel like I’m breaking into a million little pieces.And she kept leaving them behind for Weldir to hold onto, to cherish in his inhuman way.I can’t keep feeling this way.
It’d taken her nearly three hundred years to fall in love with this person, and she feared it would take twice as long to fall out of love with him.
They’d been intimate properly for only a hundred years of that time, and it had been sporadic but intense. Yet, he slept through seventy percent of their relationship, leaving her on her own, and she sat here... waiting for him. Always loyally waiting.
And she experienced every. Single. Second of those long years. Sad, lonely, and filled with longing for him.
For once, she’d like to wake up in his arms and feelallof him, feel warmth, love, affection, like she was the most exquisite woman in existence.
Not nothingness, not cold shadows.
“I want to leave,” Lindiwe eventually stated, uncurling her fists as regretful determination sunk in. “I don’t want to stay here in your realm anymore. I don’t want to be intimate or have sex again.”
“I truly don’t understand what has brought this on. And you’re always so secretive when it comes to your thoughts.”
It was true, and she couldn’t deny that.But I don’t want to tell you I love you, then hear you say it back and not believe it. Or for you not to say it at all. Or try to convince me that this isn’t the best option because, no matter how much I wish it, you will never truly be with me.
Lindiwe cupped her hands together and placed them on her stomach when it rolled with sickly waves.
“I will do as we contractually agreed in the very beginning. I will be your servant, as you asked. If you want more servants, I will grow more Duskwalkers as I promised, but if I’m pregnant from this, I would like to wait a while before having another. We will use tendrils like in the beginning, in a non-invasive, nonsexual way.”
She wanted it to feel like a procedure, and not something that had her clawing for more with mind-numbing rapture.
“You’re the one who asked for this in the first place,” Weldir snapped back with a growl.
Her shoulders lifted self-consciously, and she looked down at her knees. “That’s the thing about consent. I can give it, and I can take it away.” Then she fiddled with the seam of her cloak. “And we both know you won’t keep me here to coerce me otherwise.”
He may have done that in the past when she’d refused to climb down from her cliff of anger and hatred towards him and her situation. But it’d only ever been once.
She’d thought it meant he was selfish and manipulative, but one fault over hundreds of years of the opposite exposed the truth. Weldir was kind and patient, but could react in thoughtless anger, just like anyone.
In a mere few hours, he’d attempted to communicate through it even when she refused.
That was one of Lindiwe’s faults: her anger drove her to hold grudges in silence. Something he’d... accepted and often allowed despite how it annoyed him.
Lindiwe peeked at him, and his lack of response and his stillness informed her he had no idea how to change her mind.
I promised myself I wouldn’t feel this way about him, so where did I go wrong?Why did she mix affection with pleasure? Why did he have to disappear and make her realise how much she needed his presence? And not because he aided her, but because he was a comfort in her life, a safe place to be.
She’d gone through so many metamorphoses over the years. From Lindi to Lindiwe. A raven to an owl. From a human to a Phantom to the Witch Owl. From hating Weldir to loving him.
How much could one person change before they lost themselves entirely?But I don’t want to die inside.She didn’t want this pain to become her new form and change her in the worst way possible.
“Does this mean you will ignore me like before?” Weldir asked darkly.
Her drying tears renewed as she offered him a weak and broken smile. “No. I’ll always answer when you call for me. I may ask you to help me move across the world quicker occasionally, or for one of my belongings I keep here, but my stay will be limited to those things.” Her smile grew more tenuous when itwanted to fall. “Now you can focus entirely on expanding your mist and reach, without worrying about me or my needs.”
His chalky, flaky brows drew together. “Doing so will mean I will likely sleep more to recover what I temporarily lost.”
“I know.” She hated the way the salt in her tears seemed to abrade her swelling cheeks and sting her eyes. “I’d like to leave now. Please.”
A tendril coiled around her ankle. She wanted to tug away from it when it broke her heart a little more, especially as it was likely a sign of his anxiety or sadness.
“At least tell me why, Lindiwe. You were... changing. I’ve known for a while you were growing fond of me, of being here with me.”
“I’m really sorry.” Sincerely, she was sorry, but she also had to protect herself from the one being who could destroy a part of her even he could not heal.
“Why are you telling me all this while crying as if it upsets you?!” he roared, just as his tendril coiled further up her leg. “You are being needlessly confusing, little human!”
