A Soul to Keep

Days into her captivity, Reia¹ asks Orpheus² to bathe her without his gloves so the scent-cloaking spell lasts longer. He hesitates, then reveals dark-grey hands with protruding white knuckle bones. When he oil-slicked fingertips touch her bare skin for the first time, he is enraptured by her softness and she by the tingling scrape of his claws.

His ministrations grow slower, more attentive. That night, he wakes her, sniffing a strange scent he cannot name: her arousal. She lies still as he parts her thighs and swipes his long purple tongue between her folds, circling her clit until she shatters.

He pushes his tongue inside and inadvertently breaks her hymen; the taste of blood flares his hunger, but he regains control. Reia,¹ horrified by her body's betrayal yet unable to deny the pleasure, begins to panic. Before dawn, she flees.

While Orpheus² fetches water, Reia¹ takes a dagger and bolts through the Veil. Her flight ends when sticky webbing ensnares her ankle. A towering arachnid Demon scuttles forward, its human torso twisted backward, multiple red eyes gleaming.

It does not kill immediately; instead, it projects images of her dead mother, father, and baby brother Caleb, contorting their faces to accuse her of bringing the Demons that slaughtered them. The Demon's power reaches into her deepest guilt, and Reia¹ sobs. Orpheus,² having tracked her scent, crashes through the trees in his monstrous form and grapples with the creature.

The Demon taunts him with memories of every human he has lost, but he rips her in two. Weakened by a venomous spine to his side, he collapses on the edge of unconsciousness, rasping at Reia¹ to get inside the salt circle. She drags his massive body inch by inch as lesser Demons close in, fighting them off with his own sword until she gets him inside.

Orpheus² lies in a venom-induced coma for two days. Demons claw at the cabin walls, hissing promises to tear her flesh. Reia,¹ remembering how his cloak masked her scent, drags herself into his bed and burrows under his massive body. The Demons cannot smell her there, but they still torment her, scratching at the boarded window.

She changes the protection charms, retrieves water, and gorges on fruit from the garden. When he finally stirs, she is clutching his sword, dark circles under her eyes.

He wakes to find her small form pressed against his chest, and the realization that she chose to stay with him even when she could have fled or died sends a shock through his lonely heart. He nuzzles her, and they talk about her family's death; he tells her she is not a harbinger, that Demons simply could not smell her fear that night. Her tears dry as she hugs him.

Reia¹'s first period in the Veil triggers a crisis. The scent of blood sends Orpheus² into a shuddering frenzy; he claws at his own back, banishes himself from the cabin, and patrols the barrier for three days. Reia,¹ cramping and miserable, watches through the window as he suffers.

On the final night, he creeps into her room, eyes blazing red, jaws parting over her throat. Instead of fighting, she wraps her arms around his neck, strokes his fur, and asks him to keep his hand on her aching stomach.

Her calm, she discovers, dampens his hunger. They lie together, her fingers tracing his spine, and he confesses that her touch quiets the beast. When she asks him to undress so she can feel his skin directly, she discovers the seam where his cock is hidden and begins to explore.

Lying in the dark, Reia¹ unbuttons his shirt and traces the fur, bone, and fins covering his torso. When she presses against his groin, she finds nothing where a human man's penis would be, only a seam. Orpheus,² voice strained, explains his cock is hidden inside for protection.

As she strokes the seam, his shaft extrudes: thick, purple, spiraling, with four writhing tentacles around the base. He trembles, warning her of his fragile control. She wraps both hands around the girth, marveling at its texture, the frills and grooves. He begins to thrust into her grip, tentacles latching onto her arms.

When she squeezes harder near the swollen head, he warns her, then loses himself, his tongue shooting into her mouth as he spills across her stomach in thick, hot ropes. Afterward, he nuzzles her, and she asks about his past lovers; he mentions only one, long ago.

A second Duskwalker,³ with a fox skull and forking antlers, arrives at the cabin. He is gangly, wears only tattered shorts, and speaks in halting sentences. He has come for salt to protect his cave from a serpent Demon, but upon seeing Reia,¹ he becomes fascinated.

She does not smell of fear, she trains with a sword, and she willingly stays with Orpheus.² He asks Reia¹ to give him a name, then pleads for advice on how to find and keep his own human. Orpheus² is jealous and territorial, but Reia¹ insists they help. While they talk, a winged Demon swoops down and grabs Reia.¹

The fox-skulled Mavka³ fights it off, sustaining severe injuries. He collapses, then rabidly attacks the barrier trying to reach her before collapsing. Reia¹ stays with him while he heals, teaching him about personal boundaries when he keeps trying to touch her face.

Orpheus,² Reia¹ (disguised in a deer skull and his cloak), and the Mavka³ travel for four days to a hidden city where intelligent Demons live much like humans. The village, shielded from sun by twisted trees, bustles with shops, food stalls, tailors, and musicians.

They visit Snush,⁸ a Demon clothier who outfits the Mavka³ with proper clothes. At a food stall, Orpheus² stops Reia¹ from eating pastries made of human meat, guiding her instead to vegetable-filled pockets. In a bookshop, a cat-eared Demon⁹ fawns over Reia¹ when he realizes she is human, begging to see her expressions.

Following white feathers dropped by the Witch Owl,⁶ she finds three books: a sword-fighting manual, a children's tale collection marked at 'Beauty and the Beast,' and a bestiary. They return laden with fabric, cooking supplies, and materials for the Mavka³ to build his own cabin.

After their return, Reia¹ asks Orpheus² about the woman who used to live in the cabin.⁴ He confesses: nearly two hundred years ago, he hunted a remote house and found a woman named Katerina⁴ who showed no fear. She stayed with him for five years, demanding gifts, clothing, and a trip to the Demon village, but never smiled at him, never touched him willingly.

She told him she was not ready to give her soul. When the Demon King Jabez⁵ offered her escape, she took it, screaming that she had always hated Orpheus² and every moment with him. Orpheus²'s voice cracks as he recounts how she shattered his hope.

Reia,¹ furious on his behalf, immediately begins destroying the old talismans Katerina⁴ had made, replacing them with her own. She tells Orpheus² she will never leave him, and that night, she initiates their first full sexual union, asking him to fill her completely.

While Orpheus² fetches water, a shirtless, gold-draped figure appears in the yard. Jabez,⁵ the Demon King, grins with pointed teeth and horns, stepping through the salt circle that should bar ill intent. He claims Reia¹ is a prisoner and offers her freedom if she comes with him, but she sees through the ruse: he wants to use her to destroy Orpheus.²

When she refuses and runs, he teleports beside her, burns his hand tearing off the protection amulet, and whisks her to his castle. There, a beautiful black-haired woman in a red gown greets her warmly.

She introduces herself as Katerina,⁴ still alive after two centuries thanks to Jabez⁵'s magic. Katerina⁴ spins a tale of shared victimhood, claiming she wants to help Reia¹ escape the monster² who ruined them both. Reia,¹ hiding her true feelings, plays along while noting the dagger in Katerina⁴'s sleeve and the guards outside her door.

Orpheus² sprints for an entire day and night, arriving at the castle in his monstrous form. Katerina⁴ meets him in the throne room, pretending she wants him back, claiming Reia¹ willingly stayed with Jabez.⁵ When Orpheus² turns away to search for Reia,¹ Katerina⁴ raises a dagger aimed at his skull.

Reia,¹ freed by biting Jabez⁵'s hand and punching his seam, tackles Katerina.⁴ After a vicious struggle, Reia¹ plunges her sword through Katerina⁴'s chest. Jabez,⁵ enraged, throws the dropped dagger. It sinks between Reia¹'s shoulder blades.

Orpheus² catches her as she crumples, a protective shield flaring around them from her spilling blood. Jabez⁵ removes the castle's cloaking aroma so Orpheus² will be driven mad by the scent and consume her corpse, but all Orpheus² feels is grief. Reia,¹ dying, cups his snout and whispers that she wants to give him her soul.

As Reia¹'s life fades, a warm glow rises from her chest. Her soul appears, a tiny fiery woman kneeling in her cupped palms, reaching toward Orpheus.² He opens his jaws and swallows it. Her body disintegrates into ash in his arms. Orpheus,² believing he has failed, rages against Jabez⁵ until the Demon King⁵ teleports him away.

Back at the empty cabin, Orpheus² searches frantically for Reia,¹ then sprints into the forest, a single bell jingling from his horn. Her ghost materializes, floating above him. She cannot touch him, cannot make him hear her clearly.

Finally, she wills herself solid and lands on the ground. He whirls, and she cups his snout, telling him she is a Phantom now, bound to him. His eyes, which had been leaking glowing tears, brighten. She explains: just as his wounds heal in a day, she will reappear by his side within a day of any death.

The morning after their reunion, Reia¹ finds a white feather on the windowsill. Outside, the Witch Owl,⁶ in her human form, a dark-skinned woman cloaked in feathers, waits in a tree. She reveals that eons ago, she was a human who gave her soul to the void, a spirit of darkness, mating with it to birth the Duskwalkers.

Orpheus² is her son. When Reia¹ asks about the children's book, the Witch Owl⁶ laughs: the 'Beauty and the Beast' tale was her way of showing Reia¹ that love can bloom across monstrous difference. She warns that as a Phantom, Reia¹ can now conceive with Orpheus.²

Horrified, Reia¹ realizes she has already had unprotected sex. The Witch Owl⁶ tells her Orpheus² can learn a spell to seal her womb. Reia,¹ relieved later when her period arrives, confronts Orpheus,² who immediately sets to learning the spell, not wanting to lose the intimacy she might deny him otherwise.

Weeks later, Orpheus² takes Reia¹ to the surface to hunt. She sits in a sunny meadow while he fails to catch deer, his bells now a matched pair. She has decided to wait the remaining nine years of the village's protection ward before asking him to cast it around their cabin instead, so they can travel without their home being destroyed.

When she mentions wanting revenge on Chad, the man who tormented her as a child, Orpheus² turns toward her old village without hesitation. They discuss feeding him to the fox-skulled Mavka³ so he can gain more humanity.

Reia¹ reflects that she is no longer human but something else, a Phantom bride¹ bound to a soul-eating Duskwalker.² She does not mind. The world is vast, and they have forever to explore it together, returning always to the candle-lit cabin where she first learned to laugh in the jaws of a monster.²