Page 80 of To Free a Soul
He gently cupped one of her hands and brushed his clawed thumb over her bruises. “Do you want me to heal you now?”
Lindiwe pulled her arm from him before he could even try. “No. I’d rather you didn’t.”
His head cocked, making pieces of his face break off and collect in his wisping hair. “I... don’t understand, but as you wish.”
Peeking at each of the viewing discs, she pulled up the falling cloak and then looked around. “Where are my underwear? I’d like to put them on.”
“Your panties?” He looked forward into the disc before him. “I’ve lost them.”
Her curling lips flattened with humour. “That’s entirely impossible, Weldir.”
His lips parted, revealing straight teeth and canine fangs, as he let out a sinfully deep chuckle. “Very true.” A tendril pulled from below them, and on the very tip floated her pale-green underwear, half untied. “I considered keeping them.”
Lindiwe reached out, slipped them up one leg, and then tied the loosened side at her left hip. “Alright, and now my dress?”
“I lost that too.” He dipped his head to the side at her pretend pout, and he chuckled once more. Another tendril formed, this time with her altered Anzúli dress bundled in it. “You know, I think I should implement a new rule within my realm.”
She reached out for it. “Oh? And what’s that?”
He ducked it out of her reach. “Along with remaining as a Phantom in my realm, you should also be naked in it.” He waved the garment side to side. “It would make things easier, as I’mhoping you’ll be here for more erotic reasons in the future. You did promise me.”
“I don’t remember promising anything,” she answered with a grin.
He yanked her dress further from her. “Little female, you know I can keep you naked here until you agree, and can strip you of your clothing with nothing but a thought in the future.”
“I’ll think about it,” she lied.
Weldir tsked, just as the bridge of his nose wrinkled lightly. He handed her dress to her. “That’s your way of saying no.”
She raised it above her head so she could slip her arms through the sleeves and shimmy it down her body. “You can’t just make up rules and expect me to adhere to all of them.”
“Not to boast,” he hummed with mirth, “but I am a god, and this is my realm. I may do as I like.”
Lindiwe rolled her eyes at his harmless arrogance before shifting her cloak over her shoulders and doing up the ties. “I think I’d like to return to Siran. I haven’t seen Anubis since before I went to Unerica.”
Anubis had tightly spiralling markhor horns. She’d given them that name since they bore a jackal skull, and it had reminded her of one of the Hygyptian gods.
Admittedly, with everything that had happened with Orpheus, she’d struggled to stray from Austrális for too long. Many of their newer children, like the two in the Sing Empire and the one in Pyrssia, she hadn’t visited since. She tended to give them space in their adulthood – after spending an initial year with them to help them through the beginning trials of their lives.
It was time to return now.
She cupped low on her pelvis.Especially if I end up becoming pregnant again.
Considering the amount of seed he’d used to ‘lubricate’ her, enough to leave its evidence all over her thighs, it was doubtful it wouldn’t take.
“You could stay here for a little while longer,” he said softly.
Warmth flared in her cheeks again, and she averted her gaze when her stomach fluttered with a strange tenderness. As tempted as she was, as much as she’d like to...I don’t belong here.Her presence could only be fleeting, as it’d always been.I can’t live in this realm with him.
When she brought her gaze back to his carefully blank expression, the giveaway was his eyes, which were so focused on her that her chest squeezed.
“Maybe I can stay for a little while,” she conceded. A few hours wouldn’t hurt, surely. “I want to check up on those I haven’t seen in person since giving them their skulls and horns before I stay in Austrális again.”
“You plan to go there again? Why?”
“Because if we have another child, I don’t want to be too far from Orpheus... who may need me.”
Because things revolving around him still concerned Lindiwe, and she was hoping that she could do more to ease his distress and loss. There had to be some way she could help, maybe by giving him a new companion who may, one day, love him for all the goodness inside his heart.
