After having made a quick trip to the capital, Arius tapped down onto the ground in New Gate. He landed near the apartment complex where his soulmate lived, and because he had put a Tracker on her when they had met, he knew exactly where she had slept last night.

Arius went to that door, stood there, and began to wait. Too bad he had not flown a little faster, because he had just missed her by ten minutes. With any luck, she would be back soon.

Arius made for an exceptional soulmate by not killing her instantly. Finally meeting her yesterday had been a shocking experience, even despite all of the time that he had been allotted to prepare in advance.

While Arius knew that his soulmate had been born eighteen years ago, his thoughts never drifted to her much. As happy as he was to know that he had a soulmate—someone who would put up with all of his issues and could somehow love him regardless—it was creepy to think about her. Some little baby girl had just been born, and she would grow up to be the woman that he would have in bed. Needless to say, Arius did not like thinking about a child in those terms.

Whenever her birthday came around again, his thoughts wandered to her so that he could wish her a happy birthday. It was an annual routine, the one time of year that he would consciously think about the girl. Several months ago, the realization had dawned on him that she had reached the age of consent alongside adulthood. Once again, it was mildly creepy to think about her like that.

Luckily, she would be a demigoddess so that the impact of their age gap could lessen. A hundred-some year difference between immortals would not be a big deal, especially as they both grew older. It would be nice if he did not have to meet her for another ten or twenty years or so, at least. The last thing that Arius wanted to do was guide a young woman as she tried to find herself. As his soulmate, he would feel obligated to support her of course, but he liked to trust fate not to put him in that position.

Fate decided to spit right in his eyes, as it always did to him.

For one, entire second, Arius had wanted to freak out when he had met Val. The teenage boy next to Tavras had a soulmate, and that soulmate was himself.

What the actual fuck? had been his very first thoughts.

Things would never work out between him and his soulmate simply because Arius had no interest in men. His bad luck had really outdone itself this time.

His second thought had been a little more rational. The one basic requirement of gender meant that his soulmate could not actually be a boy. The demigod before him had to be a demigoddess.

Tavras had just shown up with a girl disguised as a boy, so that in turn meant that the girl could be none other than the daughter of Balduino. For the first time in history, Tavras had put Arius in an incredibly good mood.

The deductions had been laughably easy. To think, Tavras had thought that he could get away with bringing Balduino’s daughter to the Summit, disguised as a boy just because his son had already been caught. Tavras had done Arius’s job of tracking down the second traitorous child for him.

Alas, Arius had a few qualms with turning over his soulmate to Suvier. Supposedly, this demigoddess with the plain body and a terrible haircut would be the only person who could truly love him.

These days, love was in short supply for him. Out of all people who had ever cared about him, no one could just be a normal, supportive person that stayed in his life.

His mother had loved him before she had gone insane. Suvier had shown him his own depraved version of fatherly love. In that same vein of dysfunctional relationships, Evalaite also claimed to love him which he would never come to return, and he had told her that much.

Of his truly positive relationships, Urru was dead. His dragon sprite should be out there somewhere, but Arius had given up hope of ever finding him.

The only positive relationship left in his life was Ludo, his pseudo adoptive father. Did that relationship even count if he also served as his therapist?

Indeed, love was scarce in Arius’s life.

If not for Suvier, Arius would have been thrilled to have Val as his soulmate. Her father Balduino and his dragon Brixatorrixom had been his childhood heroes per the stories that his mother told him. While he had never had the honor to meet her father, that just made being soulmates with Val that much the easier—or less awkward to say the least.

In his hunt for the traitorous children, Arius had always been excited to meet Balduino’s progeny. He would revere them for their lineage alone, while of course killing them for it.

In a vastly different world, he would have happily played the role of a simping, little fanboy over his soulmate—the daughter of a literal legend. Instead, Arius never got to have anything good in his life.

For now, his decision was easy. Arius would play the dominant strategy: be kind to his soulmate, keep her identity hidden, and earn her trust.

So long as no one found out about Val’s identity, he could make his decision at his leisure. He needed to find out if the demigoddess was worth the risk of a long-term arrangement. If she were as screwed up in the head as his mother, or father, or soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, then Arius would rather live without a soulmate.

In that case, he would betray her without hesitation.

Honestly, he was expecting his decision to be easy. Arius knew that he was royally messed up in the head. No one could ever love him without being in some way unhinged themselves. Val must be as demented as him, and for that, he would guarantee her a swift end.