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But I would have to look after them, carry them... birth them. At least now she knew what to expect, but doing it all again sounded just as frightful. What if something different happened, or there were unknown complications?

Looking down at her hands, she picked at her nails. I’m nervous, but... She looked at Weldir through her long, dark lashes. He’s not asking, not really. She’d already agreed to do this.

It was part of their deal.

“Why do you look so concerned?”

Her lips parted, and she looked up in surprise that he would even ask. She shrugged her right shoulder in answer.

“You can choose their animal variations. Perhaps when or if they gain enough intelligence, you can rekindle a bond with them, teach them your ways, and how to act human. One day you may even be able to speak to them.”

She hugged her elbow and hid her face behind her hair, confused as to why, after so many years, she still felt so unsure in his presence. He was the only one who made those innocent feelings arise, even when she tried shedding them. She was older, more mature, even if she was stuck in this body.

“I guess I didn’t consider that.”

“I know you have been lonely in your solitude, Lindiwe. You have not made any lasting companions and only speak to other humans briefly.”

“What is the point in knowing anyone when they grow older and I do not? That seems foolish.”

Weldir came closer until he was less than a foot away from her face, as if he wanted to see it through her curled tresses. “Yes, but from what I’ve seen in humans, such isolation can twist one’s mind.”

“I’m fine.” She tried to laugh it off, even though her lips didn’t smile, nor did her tone indicate anything more than panic for the conversation to end.

“Should I speak to you more?”

I’d rather you didn’t speak to me at all, Lindi’s mind retorted callously, although she’d never utter that.

“Whatever you wish,” she muttered, stifling the urge to curl her upper lip in distaste. “If you want more children, then that’s what we’ll have. That was the deal. In exchange for life and your magic, I would collect souls and make you... servants .”

“That is all very true.”

“Then why bother with the explanation?” Lindi stated coldly. “Just tell me what you want from me, and I’ll do it, rather than making it out as if I have a choice.”

As if her words struck a touchless being, he flittered away from her swiftly with a grunt. “This was your choice to begin with. I told you the requirement.”

“I know,” she bit back in a whisper. “And I’m doing it.”

Doesn’t mean I can’t complain the entire time. She’d grin and bear it because that’s what she had to do. Because Lindi did stupidly make the decision to agree to all this, and that wasn’t his fault, but hers.

She wouldn’t punish him for her own mistakes.

A sigh slipped from him, just as his mist sprayed out from his humanoid form. “So be it. We will do it like before. Do you want to undress, or should I just evaporate your clothing?”

Lindi gasped and lifted her arms to look down at her winter gear. She quickly crossed an arm over her breasts and covered her pubic mound with her other hand, as if to further shield them from him, like he could peer through her clothing. She sincerely hoped he didn’t have that ability!

“What? Now?!”

His head cocked to the side so sharply it didn’t appear like a natural movement, but a forced one. “Why not now?”

Give a girl a chance to wrap her head around the idea of being impregnated! The man, or god, or whatever, had no decorum!

She cringed. “Couldn’t you just give me a few days?”

“What does a few days matter?”

She could ask the same thing!

She shied her gaze away when her cheeks flared with heat. “I’d like some time to process this.”

“The sooner we do this, the sooner we can create another offspring. If their development is the same, then I can begin finding additional mates, knowing this is a tried-and-true process.”

Other than her eyes growing wide, Lindi stilled. She froze to the point that she thought even her hair wisping through this floating realm halted. “What... did you just say?”

“This was never meant to be a lone burden,” Weldir continued, his tone as nondescript and emotionless as ever, like he spoke of nothing more than the weather.

Lindi stared at him, gobsmacked. Surely the words he’d just uttered were a joke! But in the small silence that followed, he didn’t say he was jesting, and the reality sunk in.

“Y-you plan to have other wives, mates?”

Oddly enough, his coalescing form chalked around his face in time for her to see his brow pinched together. “Why do you sound so surprised? I have told you that we deities, and even many Elves, have synergistic bonds. I would have had many fathers and mothers, had they not all been eradicated.”

Lindi vaguely remembered such a topic, but she hadn’t known she was pulled into that type of bond!

She didn’t understand why her chest felt like it’d been lashed with a whip of betrayal, but it branded her all the same. Anger and hurt mingled together until it all rolled around in her stomach like a sickening wave.

“Then no,” she bit out spitefully. “I won’t do it.”

“What do you mean, you won’t do it? This is what we agreed upon.”

“Marriage to me is valued differently. Under my beliefs, under the god I grew up with, only two people could be married.”

“But that is not how it is done–”

“I don’t care!” she yelled, clenching her eyes shut and fisting her hands.

“I wouldn’t have agreed to any of this had I known!

If that is what you plan to do, then I don’t want any more involvement.

I will not live a second life bonded to someone who has many others.

I’d rather go to hell, or disappear forever, or whatever fucking happens afterwards. ”

“Lindiwe, this was always what was planned. You were merely meant to be the first, especially now that there are many lands that my mist, and therefore servants, can occupy.”

“I was the first, but I don’t have to keep doing this if I don’t want to.” Lindi turned physical so he couldn’t touch her even if he wanted to, then gave him a glare so foul she wished it would burn him to smithereens. “And you can’t make me, even if you try.”

His tone darkened as he said, “I can leave you by yourself forever.”

“I’m always alone because of you! I’ve lived in solitude for the last twenty-one years, and not once did you care enough to fill the void. I’d rather rot here and go mad than let you touch me while you have other women.”

She hated that tears welled in her eyes, but she couldn’t stem them even if she tried. Her bottom lip trembled as her sinuses tingled, and she had to hold back a shuddering sob when the dam of her emotions threatened to give way.

She was tired and already felt hollow inside. His ‘plan’ just made her feel all the worse.

“I don’t care that you’re a demi-god from a different realm, or if it’s done differently there.

I don’t want this anymore. This life, this power, you can have it back.

I’d rather you kill me than be subjugated to a pain I know I cannot handle, even if your absent presence already leaves me with sorrow. ”

I’ve already sacrificed so much. Years, in fact, for a selfish Elven god that likely didn’t even know how his words could hurt.

She was thankful he wasn’t physical. It allowed a barrier between them where Lindi had the control over her body, her will, and there was nothing Weldir could do about it. All of this, even if it left her annoyed or irritable, was her choice.

Lindi didn’t have to keep doing this anymore.

The suffering, dying, wandering, and sadness. She didn’t need to hold onto such a pitiful life.

She hadn’t realised she had such power, such control, until this very moment.

That, in reality, she really did have a choice, just one she’d never wielded before, nor cared to.

Somewhere in her heart and in the back of her mind, she’d always been okay with their shaky companionship and her duties, but she was also fine without it all, even if it meant her eventual true death.

I hope when he truly eats my soul, he stares at it with regret.

The dark world around her rumbled, wobbling and warping as if shadows of light just beyond her periphery had always been present and could be skewed. A growl reverberated from everywhere, and it spread across her skin like the tickling threat of razor claws.

It was his growl.

A snarl, a warning, so terrifying it could spread the ice of fear into one’s veins. Something that demanded wordlessly that one should bow their head and obey.

Lindi, on the other hand, sneered. He could bark as much as he wanted to, but he’d never be able to bite.

Within the span of a heartbeat, Weldir disappeared into thin air and materialised in front of her. Lindi gasped in surprise and reared her head back, especially as he’d blinked into the space less than an inch from her nose.

With the back of his skull missing, his entire face was visible for the very first time and, in such proximity, it was as handsome as it was frightful. Behind a chiselled jaw, high cheekbones, an attractive eyebrow arch, and a slightly rounded nose tip, was the sneer seething with anger.

His pitch-black eyes, lacking in any white sclera, were like pools of glossy voids, endlessly deeper than the ether in which she floated.

His lips, with the bottom one fuller and poutier than the thinner top, were curled back to reveal a set of sharp canine fangs on the top and bottom. A set of smooth, although segmented, horns pushed back over the top of his two-inch-long hair, making him look like a devil.

“Not once have you ever tried to erase the barriers between us either, little human,” Weldir snarled.

“The only cold I have experienced is in your gaze, and your reach for me is as barren and vast as the deserts you once crossed. Yet you throw my lack of attempts at me when you make yourself impossible to court?”