“How can you be with me if you’re a ghost?”

Am I a ghost? Ghosts couldn’t turn physical.

They were humans that were so desperate to live after being eaten by Demons that they haunted the places they were killed. They were trapped within the borders of their homes or the forests, stuck there forever.

But Reia kept returning to him, and she could turn back to normal.

What am I then? She tried to think on what else she could be.

Then a section in one of the books the Witch Owl gave to her came into her memory, the one about creatures – both real and mythical. She’d recently learned that Elves were real, but from another world, and there had also been a page about Phantoms.

Creatures that lived on the cusp of life and death; a spirit being who had a human body if they wished. They were usually anchored to something, and she turned her gaze to the floating flame above his head between his horns.

But it wasn’t a flame.

It was the little spirit she’d pulled from her body. She was curled up in the fetal position, facing forward. Her ankles were crossed, her knees to her chest as she hugged them, while her face pressed against the nook of them. The flame hair was still floating.

From afar, it looked like nothing but a rounded flame, but up close, it was easy to see it was her soul.

She looked comfortable, as if it was only sleeping while being wrapped in the black, goopy string that threaded

around its legs, its body, and even throat, that then attached to his horns.

He is my anchor. Orpheus had tied her soul to him, literally.

“I think you made me a Phantom,” she told him, not looking behind her, trusting that he would lead them back.

“What is a Phantom?”

He didn’t know this would happen to me? She explained what she thought over the time it took them until they were passing over the salt circle.

He took them inside and she was greeted by the chaos of him searching inside the house.

The dining table was skewed from where it usually rested, her chair turned on its side. The chairs in the living room were parted with the little table between them knocked over. Items on tables had been scattered to the floor, as if he’d lifted the object they rested on to check underneath in places she couldn’t possibly hide.

How silly, she thought with a sad smile.

She looked to him to find he was crouching in front of her, staring and waiting. She wondered if he would have patiently sat there for eternity for her to turn physical for him.

All she had to do was will for it, as if she’d done this a million times, and her incorporeal body began to sink. Her toes were the first to feel sensation as they touched the timber floor before she sank to her heels. Pressure trailed up her legs, her hips, her chest, and then her head.

Placing her hands forward, she gave Orpheus a warm smile when she cupped her palms underneath the jaw of his snout, touching the warmth and hardness of the bone.

His fangs parted as he rasped, “Reia.”

He shot forward, swiftly closing the space between them so he could hold her, his arms squeezing her to him when he lifted her to stand.

Wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, she felt his tense muscles soften with her in his embrace.

She didn’t know he could stand up on his hindlegs in his monstrous form, but even though he was slightly curled forward, she felt comfortable and supported.

She stroked the back of his skull down to the fur behind his neck sticking out from under it.

“Hello, my big Duskwalker.”

He held her tighter, near crushing her. He started brushing his claws down her body, feeling her, touching her, stroking her from shoulder all the way down to her backside and thigh.

“I should have protected you. I shouldn’t have let you be harmed.” He started to lower them as if he couldn’t maintain standing and allowed her to step back just far enough so they could face each other while he still had an arm around her. “You died in my hands. Are you angry with me?”

“Not at all.” His eyes were still the same well of blue, like the deepest part of the ocean, and they were still trickling.

She worried she needed to ease his guilt. “You aren’t to blame for what happened. Please don’t feel that way.”

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to the tip of his rounded snout. She did it to the side, then the top, then over his fangs on the other side. Each time he came a little closer while his hand slid up her body.

When she went to kiss his cheek, he placed his large hand at the base of her skull to hold her still and lightly swiped his tongue over her lips. The second time, she met his tongue with her own.

Then he became incessant, licking at her and hoping she’d greet him each time.

She placed her arms around his neck before slipping one over his cheek to rub it, then going back to hold him.

“Reia, I...” His fingers slipped up into her hair to thread them through it with the delicious scrape of his claws. “I need you. I need to feel you.”

Her gaze locked on his, seeing they were still so sad and trickling, like he couldn’t stop from feeling low.

She wanted to give him what he needed, to touch her. But she couldn’t, not with such an expression that was unbearably painful to look at.

She wondered... He would never hurt me.

“What would happen if I were to make you chase me?”

She didn’t care if his eyes were red if he took her, if he was hungry or angry, it would be better than seeing his pain. She knew he’d done enough running in the past day, but she needed to break him out of this.

“I don’t want to chase you.”

When she tried to back out of his arms, and he wouldn’t let her, Reia willed her body to turn incorporeal. She floated past his arms, and he followed her slowly while crouched.

“But I want you to hunt for me, Orpheus.”

“I don’t know what will happen. I might hurt you.” Those trickles seemed to go a little faster as the glowing spot floating around his skull holes became more persistent.

“Why do you want me to do this?”

“I’m yours to catch.” He tilted his head as she smiled. She bent like she was about to kiss him, but instead said, “And when you do, you can have me.”

Purple flashed but dulled back to that sadness instantly.

Then she was gone, fading past the wall.