Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Snack Sized

Yanice hurried up to the door and slammed it closed and threw the lock. She spun around and glared at me. "I warned you."

"Gloat all you want," I snapped. "He's never done anything like that before!"

"Is she bleeding?" Yanice demanded of Deliah.

Deliah pushed my hair aside and examined my scars. "There's a tiny bit. He had been licking her, though."

"You idiot," Yanice lashed into me. "Don't bleed around the demon-touched. How can you not know this? You were digging at those scars of yours and picked them raw and didn't wait for them to heal so they wouldn't bleed!"

"I have never heard of demons never being able to control themselves around a trickle of blood!" I snapped back.

Yanice gestured to the house. "You are all alone here! There's nothing holding back his demons! He's not afraid of you. You're just fucking prey and you're bloody and raw and warm!"

"That's bullshit," I snapped. Maris wasn't the only demon-touched I'd ever encountered, and it wasn't like you saw demon-touched descending on every kid with a skinned knee. Demon-touched weren't common, but they also weren't the extremely uncommon either. And Haven had an entire nest of them, or maybe multiple nests, and they weren't out licking blood off the stones.

"Is it?" Yanice pointed at the door. "You think I'm spouting old wives' tales?!"

I fucking hated that she was right. "I think I've been around him before and he never so much as salivated!"

"Because you weren't prey before. You're prey now, although I don't know why you'd be prey," she said, tone ugly. "Demons go crazy for beautiful blood. That's what they call it. They like any blood, but they can't resist beautiful blood."

"They call it something else," Deliah said softly.

"I'm not using their language," Yanice spat.

Beautiful blood? Another thing I didn't know about from my time in a dream world. I picked up my skirts and went to the door. Yanice blocked me. "Are you insane?"

"Yes," I snapped, "I am."

She unlocked it and yanked it open with a disgusted snarl and all but shoved me through.

Asund was nowhere to be seen. There was a narrow trail of blood leading down the road. Everyone on the street seemed confused, and all eyes turned right on me. A shadow moved overhead, and I looked up to see Korr's icy form sailing down the street towards the lower part of the city.

Itek alighted on the street behind me, Ormiss on his back. Ormiss dismounted, necklaces and shirts rattling, staff in hand, thunder crackling all around him.

"What happened?" he asked, reaching to touch me then yanking his hand back before he did.

"I'm not sure," I said. I reached over my shoulder and touched the offending scar. Itek shifted into human form and came to me as well.

"Are you hurt?" Ormiss asked. He scanned me up and down and his gaze honed in on my upper arms. "Who touched you!"

"I--" I looked down. My upper arms were burned--or bruised, it was hard to tell--with finger-shapes. Except the fingers looked too thin and strange. Maris had had a pretty strong grip on me.

Ormiss waved one hand like he didn't know what to do with it if it couldn't be on me, then spun around so fast his skirt brushed mine. His necklaces rattled like bones. "Who did this!"