Page 84 of To Free a Soul (Duskwalker Beginnings #2)

Both were fast and outrunning their assailants. They were often cut off, which slowed them down and put them in reach of striking claws, but they were easily able to escape.

So long as they keep running and don’t stop, they should be fine.

That’s what he thought. It was also likely what Lindiwe thought.

The truth was eventually revealed in the form of an expressionless Jabez, who materialised from thin air in front of one of Weldir’s offspring. Leonidas was unprepared and ran straight in his direction.

Jabez jumped, twisted in the air, and grabbed one of his backwards-curving ram horns to hold on when he landed on top of him.

His long hair whipped behind him as he lowered himself for better balance, then grabbed Leonidas’ other horn to make sure he couldn’t be thrown off no matter how much the feline-skulled Mavka bucked.

In the span of those seconds, Weldir snapped his gaze to Lindiwe’s disc.

“Jabez has appeared with Leonidas.”

The determined, alert look in her eyes morphed to shock. “What? Why? I thought he’d come for Orpheus!”

The answer was obvious.

Jabez yanked Leonidas’ skull to the right, making him bash into a tree.

He roared, tripped, and Jabez was thrown from him before sliding across the ground on one knee and a hand.

He was quick to dive for Leonidas before he could find his paws and wrapped his thick thighs around his snout to clamp his fangs shut.

Then, while facing him, he grabbed his horns and pulled in two different directions.

“Orpheus was a diversion. Jabez knew you’d think he’d target him.” It was a cunning trick, one that was obvious now that it was in play.

Jabez released him when trying to pull his skull apart didn’t work and he needed to evade Leonidas’ claws.

He backed off and disappeared. Leonidas quickly rose to his feet, even when a pile of Demons attached themselves to his back and legs.

He spun, bucking at the same time to dislodge most of them, then shot through the forest on all fours once more.

“Take me to him!” she exclaimed, pulling her hood over her head. She turned physical and then hastily turned into an owl.

“Where are you going?!” Reia yelled when Lindiwe not only let herself get left behind, but then lifted off with a flap of her wings to leave them. “What the fuck?!”

Rather than pull Lindiwe to his side, he said, “One moment. I will try to assist.”

Her beak parted with an owlish shriek, likely in confused anger.

He calculated Leonidas’ path and sent a soul there instead. Although his mana resources were already low, as he hadn’t been awake long, he tore the soul in half. Immediately, his mana was depleted by a large amount as a portal opened right before Leonidas.

His offspring, quick and agile, fucking evaded it. Leonidas went around it at the last second and wasted time by going around a collection of trees rather than through the portal to safety.

Weldir shut it before it could do any more damage, but the initial opening of it was chaotic to his power reserves. It weakened him hard and fast, like a giant mouth taking a massive gulp of his shadows.

Jabez reappeared again, this time in motion as he flew sideways through the air to kick Leonidas’ torso from the side. He was flung into the trunk of a thick tree and roared in pain when his body wrapped around it before dropping to the ground.

Jabez teleported above him, grabbed a horn to steady himself, and repeatedly punched the brow of his skull.

There was no grin, nor laughter, just the cold, unfeeling gaze of a male determined on destruction.

The bone was thick and required an unfathomable amount of strength to destroy – strength that, hopefully, Jabez didn’t wield.

Leonidas rotated his feline snout a hundred and eighty degrees. He shoved it forward just as Jabez went to punch and missed biting around his fist by half a second when he disappeared once more.

Weldir pulled Lindiwe to his side. “I opened a portal to Magnar’s ward, but he evaded it,” he told her. “I will try again when the opportunity arises.”

She tilted her feathery owl head questioningly. He offered her a meaningful glance before sending her back to Earth, this time to Leonidas’ side. She flew above him, this form quicker than her human or Phantom forms.

What a waste of mana, Weldir grumbled with annoyance. She probably questioned why I would attempt it.

He yanked another soul from his stomach, from Tenebris, and waited to see if he needed to use it. He didn’t want to, despite being ready and willing. His mana wasn’t recuperated enough, and using a second would likely be too much for him.

If it assists Leonidas, then so be it.

This restlessness from within his shadows, where he was safe and impenetrable, was unbearable. He’d never felt more useless than being forced to witness his offspring and mate in danger, unable to do much about it.

Had I a physical form, I could have ended this easily, he thought, just as Jabez showed himself once more.

He stood no chance as she turned into a human, fell from the air to land on top of him before he could grab Leonidas again, and rolled them both backwards, ending with her on top of him.

As if he was prepared for a random and sudden attack, he rolled forward and threw her off.

As she was flying through the air, Lindiwe twisted and threw a dagger made of shadow in his direction.

He teleported away before it could land.

She chased after Leonidas, returning to her Phantom form to stay safe and be quicker. She was left behind this time, unable to catch up to one of the swiftest Mavka.

Weldir left his realm to put himself at Leonidas’ side.

“Go through the portal,” Weldir said, knowing that, even if he couldn’t be seen, he could be heard. “It will take you to Magnar’s ward.”

Leonidas turned his feline skull and white orbs in his direction, following the sound of his voice. White condensation came from his nose hole when he gave a huff in answer.

Weldir threw the second soul in front of them, tore it apart, and conjured another portal. Leonidas’ muscles bunched, his shoulders up and his head lowered in determination as he sprinted harder and headed straight for it.

He was choosing to trust the unseen voice.

Jabez materialised in front of it, and the comforting yellow of the portal suddenly glowed menacingly from behind him. His red eyes were alight with cold malice and bloodthirst. Wind gusted his hair and pants to the right, while his fingers were rigid and ready to strike with sharp claw-like nails.

Leonidas snapped out a snarl and stepped to the right, bypassing Jabez – and consequently, the portal. He was cut off by three Demons, who lunged and forced him to halt and back up.

“Fuck,” Weldir bit out, closing the portal and retreating back to his realm.

Jabez won’t let him go through them now. Their only opportune moment for that avenue was the first time. I now lack the power to help. In fact, he could feel his consciousness trying to fade, but he forced back the darkness closing in on his sight so he could at least be a set of eyes for Lindiwe.

She caught up just in time to create three tentacles and wrap them around the Demons, who darted at Leonidas one at a time to confuse him.

Lindiwe was like a beacon in the shade, her dress and cloak stark against the shadows. Her brown hair flicked behind her, and she was swift despite being a little female.

“Run!” she screamed, throwing one Demon to the side while yanking another from his leg.

He bolted, leaving her behind.

Jabez materialised behind her, grabbed her long hair, and went to slice open her neck. He missed, clawing across part of her face until she turned incorporeal to evade the end of the slash.

Every time she caught up to help, the moment she turned physical, she was forced to turn ghostly to evade Jabez. When she used shadowy tentacles or a blade, she took a little more of Weldir’s power. His vision blurred before he forced it to sharpen again.

Then the Demons turned on her instead, managing to gouge their claws into her bit by bit. Her ability to time when to protect herself or to be human to attack was overshadowed by the chaos of the moment.

It put unwanted space between her and Leonidas.

He assisted by calling her back to his realm and then shoving her back to Earth without warning. She saved Leonidas once from Jabez before she was tackled by a Demon, who bit into the back of her neck.

But rather than lance her flesh, they took something instead.

“No!” she yelled, lunging forward with her hand out, when the attacker stole one of their infant offspring. She screamed when a Demon got its claws into her chest from behind and ripped back.

Weldir was unsure of why she was so frightened. Their offspring were indestructible when they weren’t fully formed, and he experienced no worry when they were swallowed whole.

He just waited for the inevitable: the little feral Mavka would eat the Demon from the inside out.

As expected, they eventually burst through the roaring Demon’s stomach in a spray of blood, intestines, and carnage. They began to eat it entirely as she fought to get to their side, then more Demons came to eat their own kind like cannibalistic nightmares.

Or perhaps she’d never been worried about this, and it was the aftermath. How, once its head was consumed, their offspring began to grow an odd skull – and then worse, roared at her and darted into the forest.

“Weldir! Grab them!”

Perhaps she should’ve left them with him to begin with, but he knew why she hadn’t thought of it. They were with her all the time, and this had never happened before. There was also another reason, and it was why he couldn’t take them now.

“I cannot,” he answered quietly. “I’ll trap them here.”

“What?” she whispered while chasing after them.

“If I take them now, you won’t get them back until I return.”

That fear was likely why she’d never left them with him in the first place.

It’d never been an unfounded worry. He’d disappeared suddenly many times over the course of their bond.

Their children were indestructible when little, so why worry too much in battle when they weren’t able to come to harm?

The biggest issue was if they were temporarily lost, but she’d be able to find them eventually, or Weldir would.

In another viewing disc, he missed seeing the impact that caused Leonidas to roar, or when Jabez managed to crack his skull.

He only witnessed the result, where Leonidas went berserk and turned feral.

His movements became too erratic for even Weldir to follow, then he leapt and vaulted from a tree trunk to the ground, zig-zagging through the forest as he encroached on Magnar’s ward.

He was getting closer to safety, but the purple blood dripping from the crack in his skull was stark against the whiteness of bone. In that moment, Weldir didn’t know how to tell his mate that their offspring’s death was imminent.

Maybe not now, or even soon, but his skull was no longer sturdy. Even if he escaped now, it would, in time, break.

He also didn’t wish to distract her as she chased after their infant offspring, while his sight blurred from enfeeblement, pushing his mind under the waves of unconsciousness.

A useless god indeed.