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A groan of frustration slipped through clenched teeth, as Lindiwe placed a wave of black glittering magic between her and her own child. Or, rather, between her and the damn village they were trying to attack!

In less than four years, not only had she obtained their skull and horns, but they’d managed to wander into the savanna desert and kill a number of poor humans. Male, large, and very powerful, she was finding Ari to be the most rambunctious and bravehearted of her children.

He also seemed to be enthralled with the hunt from the moment he’d been born.

She’d wanted to take her time with finding his skull, but his constant manoeuvring and scampering away revealed he desired independence.

The moment she’d given up and obtained his lion skull, she regretted it when he became nippy with his newly acquired beastly fangs.

Her forearms had been playfully gnawed on to the point of scarring, and it was likely only the scent-cloaking spell that had stopped them from attempting to eat her.

Although... she did have a few close calls after being chased by her baby in a state of rage from the mere droplet of her blood on their purple tongue.

Like Fenrir, she’d given him a set of impala horns simply because they were one of her favourites.

The moment he obtained them, crimson orbs flared to life, and he immediately began to hunt – her, Demons, other creatures. Humans.

She thought he may have been the quickest to obtain his gender, and it’d been by a hair that he had not been a female, since he’d tried to decimate an entire small village before she intervened. She hated the idea of witnessing human death and only turned a blind eye when she was not with them.

She’d managed to get him to back off, but only due to her picking him up by her raven talons and flying off with his impossibly heavy body.

That had been when he was thin and gangly.

Already he’d begun to fill his furry body out with taut muscle, and she doubted she’d be successful with such a feat a second time.

Since then, on his large rear paws and human hands, he wandered the savannah incessantly, like he was always on the prowl.

The lions immediately sensed danger and spooked, quick to hide, and not even the spotty jaguars were willing to take him on.

The Demons were wary, especially when alone, but they were brave, and stupid enough to try to take him on.

Only to die quickly by his deadly claws and fangs.

“Go away!” Lindiwe yelled, throwing her arms up to put strength behind the wave of her magical barrier.

Ari’s red orbs flared brighter, and he let out a raspy roar as he shoved his shoulder against it with all his might.

His fluffy black lion’s mane glistened with blue highlights under the sun’s heat, showing just how soft and glossy it was.

He could be rather handsome when he didn’t have his maw parted and his fangs on show just to look menacing.

“I said no!” she yelled, before whipping a tentacle forward to block his path. He gave a yelp in surprise at the sudden cracking sound, his hips ducking forward with his thick lion’s tail flicking to the side, and he scrambled back on all fours. “You can’t attack these people. Leave them alone.”

Lindiwe didn’t know them well, but she did know they were already suffering.

The small city currently had a sickness going through it, like many villages and towns across the world that were overpopulated and lacked the tools for medicine.

Normally this wouldn’t be an issue, but one of the two Anzúli recently protecting it died from that same sickness, thinking it was nothing but a harsh bout of hay fever before she grew ill during her sleep.

The other had sent a message through their communication scrying tools, but it took time for people to traverse across this giant continent. And they needed to sleep for some time after spending all their magic on protecting the city and helping them heal their sickness.

They were one person. They could only do so much. She could only do so much, but she hadn’t yet learned how to heal another, although this was something she’d been researching for a long time.

The least she could do was protect them throughout the day from her own violent nuisance of a child!

But Ari wouldn’t relent, no matter how much she drove him back.

“Lindiwe,” Weldir called.

“A little busy here!” she shouted, whipping the ground just before Ari’s paws to halt him once more. She was careful, as she refused to harm him.

He scattered, only to try to run around her.

The Duskwalker was faster than lightning, and she had to half shift her cloak to give her wings so she could quicken her speed.

She managed to curl a black void tentacle around his back ankle and pull until he fell on his front.

Then she dragged him back just enough so she could get between him and the shortening distance of the village.

She made a square of magic and used it to bash at him repeatedly until he retreated backwards with low grunts and high-pitched growls.

“You have been at this for quite some time. I don’t think he is going to give up,” Weldir noted blandly, stating the damn obvious, and tired irritation pinched the back of her neck, causing her right eye to twitch. “Would you like me to try and assist?”

“How?” she yelled, ignoring the bead of sweat that trickled into her eye. She was hot and tired, her insides tight from the exertion while her muscles screamed in protest.

It didn’t help that thick dust had gotten into every nook and cranny on her person, due to Ari’s and her movements, and the harsh, biting wind. She coughed, and her left eyelid flickered in pain when some grit blew into it.

She placed a protective dome around herself when Ari attacked her instead. Just as he dived for her and was barely an inch away, she expanded the dome with a slam, and he went flying back across the dry grass and dirt.

For a short while, nothing happened as she stayed on the defensive with Ari, who prowled back and forth with snarls.

She’d never do anything to actually hurt him, but a part of her was considering cutting off his head.

It was the easy way out. To decapitate him and then fly his light skull as far as she could from humans before his body healed and rematerialised in twenty-four hours.

But Lindiwe had never needed to do that before and would only ever use it as a last resort.

“I cannot call Ari to me like I can you. Our fate tether is not as rigid.”

“But you already knew that,” she stated while huffing, Ari giving her a moment of reprieve as he paced before her. He was trying to figure out a new avenue to get past her, thinking, rather than just being purely mindless, like most of her other children.

It revealed just how many humans he’d eaten already.

Unfortunately, he was a terrible conversationalist.

“Let... me try something else,” Weldir said with a sense of hesitancy in his tone. “Don’t move from your location.”

She nodded and remained where she was while keeping Ari near her. Then he backed up and leapt, just as a white flame appeared so close to her face her eyes crossed.

Is that a soul of a deceased human? Distracted, she’d almost forgotten about Ari as she backed up... right where he was about to land.

The soul split in two before her very face, and then a sucking sensation whirled around her as a bright-white light flashed. The ends of her elaborate thin braids swayed towards that suction. An oval disc opened up and, just as Ari was about to land on top of her, he disappeared right into it.

It closed quickly behind him, and if it wasn’t for Ari’s disappearance, she may have thought she’d imagined it.

The area grew so quiet that only the rustling of tall grass and the whistle of wind could be heard. If anything, the sound of her pounding heart, desperate to give up from all the exercise, was the loudest thing to her ears.

Her torso heaved as she looked around just to make sure all was safe, her eyes catching on the wall of spears in the close distance protecting this village.

“Now may I have your attention, little human?” The proudness in his tone was unmistakable.

“What did you do?” she asked, brushing back her heavy, sweat-saturated braids from her forehead.

“Opened a portal to my realm and then sent him back to my mist within the forests quite some distance from you.”

Lindiwe nodded absentmindedly. “A portal...” Then what he said truly registered with her. “A portal?! Since when can you create portals?!”

“I may have inspected the runic code of one of Rokul’s portals and imitated it while using a soul. Ingenious, right? He’d be quite angry with me for doing so.”

Lindiwe grumbled incoherently under her breath, but she was very thankful for his quick thinking. He couldn’t have done that sooner?

“What is it you need?” she asked, dusting off her sweaty palms on her orange skirt, having adopted the looser clothing these people wore. They’d also been the ones to braid her hair, as they’d accepted her into their small village, like many others across the world did, with open arms.

Most of them did so selfishly for her protection and aid, but these people were just warm hearted and doted on her because they wished to. They’d also taught her their dialect of language, as Zafrikaan had many.

“I wanted to enquire if you were ready for another offspring?”

How did I know he was going to ask that? she thought with a mean grumble. He’s asked me thrice since Ari was born.

“But it’s still only been four years. And Ari is currently giving me hell.”

And Lindiwe wasn’t quite ready to face him after their last intimacy.

She was more nervous than ever, as she suspected he wanted to make it pleasurable for her.

She’d been giddy about the prospect years ago, but now that it was a possibility, this awkwardly shy fuzzy creature had nestled its way beneath her flesh.

It had a way of thumping around inside her chest cavity like a ball bouncing without rhythm, like it wanted to battle her heart and lungs at the same time.

It constantly made her stomach flutter with nervousness. With want. With desire. And she wasn’t quite sure how to settle it.

She was almost a hundred years old now, for pity’s sake. By this age, I should be well versed in sex. Especially as someone who had been in a very committed relationship for most of it.

At the time of their pleasurable intimacy four years ago, she’d been ninety-five, and bonded to Weldir for seventy-three of those years.

She’d been longing for sex each and every day, then her body had taken her by the reins and made her act out of character when she finally got it.

Horny as it ground on his fingers, needy and bliss filled as she moaned with abandon and scratched at him for more.

She was still embarrassed he’d witnessed that, while getting nothing in return.

She was still rather eaten up by it.

She should have offered something for him, to return the pleasure he’d just given her, but she’d been so gobsmacked at the time she’d fled with her cheeks so hot she thought her skin would melt from her bones.

“Ari is doing what is natural for our offspring. You are interfering with their evolution. Isn’t this what you wanted? One of them to develop enough humanity to converse with them? Stopping them from doing so is only opposing your goal.”

I hate it when he’s right, she thought, then rubbed her eyes with fatigue and to clear them of dust, which was a poor decision, as she was covered in it from head to toe.

But... I just don’t want to be the reason humans die, if I can.

Did Ari really need an entire village for a meal? Surely just a few humans would suffice.

But there was no point in her staying here much longer.

“Fine,” she conceded, before noticing the dirt under her nails. “Can I at least bathe first?”

Time to get these braids taken out. But she did like how they protected her hair in this environment, and the person who did them explained their meaningful significance as they braided them.

I should have learned how to do them myself.

She’d thought she had more time, which wasn’t something she was used to feeling.

“Whatever you wish.”

She looked up at the bright and cloudless sky with a sigh.

I guess it’s time to face him. I can’t run from this, no matter how much I want to.

Thought the person who literally wanted this in the first damn place. Then again, she hadn’t expected it to be that good.

Her insides clenched in anticipation, and her cheeks heated as a groan fell from her. A bath first.

To cleanse her body and her naughty mind.