Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Bleed, Little Unicorn, Bleed

 "Theia!" Ethat shouted as he lunged off the bed. He grabbed the knife from my hand and threw it away, then yanked me around. "No! No! What are you thinking!"

He had an arm in each hand and shook me as he shouted. I froze as my teeth rattled and his withering magic swirled around us in a mixture of black flies and pollen and fireflies.

Ice clamped around Ethat's neck. He ignored it and plunged his face down to mine, his skin twisted and withered on one side of his face, drawing down the skin around one eye. His pupils had constricted into a tiny reptilian slit in a field of green. He held me pinned in his grip. "No."

"Don't make me do this, brother," Korr ordered, his voice rasping and tormented, and the ice around Ethat's neck cracked and creaked and then Ethat jerked.

"Ethat," I managed to squeak. His breath wheezed. His grip didn't loosen.

He jerked again as the ice collar made an odd crunch noise and blood trickled out from under it. Ethat's pupils dilated and squished back into orbs, and he released me.

I fell back on the desk. Blood splattered the pale decor. The ice collar melted off Ethat, and blood and trickles of water ran down his body. Blood wept out of a dozen small wounds on his neck. Behind him, Korr, sitting up now, and breathing with his entire body, dropped his hand back to the bed, and the ash soothing around his body seemed to have spread.

"No, no, no." I shoved around Ethat and crawled back up onto the bed. Korr had bent over his side, too weak to even fall back or endure the pain of moving versus the pain of staying like this.

He slid his gaze towards me, and said between gulps of air, "Get out of here. Go... hide... behind--when he gets...like...this. Your blood..."

"He's not a demon," I said as I dripped blood onto the otherwise spotless bedclothes.

Ethat clicked his teeth, gaze riveted on my bloody hand. Even as blood trickled down his chest and abs and the grooves of his thighs and a few drops wrapped their way around his shaft.

The door burst open and Asund launched himself through the air and landed on the bed in war-form with a snarl. Not far behind him was Itek, who was too big to get through the bedroom door in gryphon form.

Asund growled at the bloody Ethat. "Shhheee issss bleeeding."

Itek hissed angrily, and shifted down into human form. "What did you do this time, Ethat!"

Ethat backed up towards the window, the craze seeming to shake off him like he shook off pollen.

"Did you attack her?!" Itek snarled.

Asund growled, low and dangerous, his muscles clenching under his leathery hide as his claws curled into the abused bed-sheets. With sinister grace, he stepped over the footboard and crawled down onto the ground. Ethat gave him a polite but worried look.

"Stop!" I found my voice. "Stop!"

"Two of you bleeding is not a misunderstanding," Itek said, staring at Ethat. "Did you make your crippled brother restrain you?"

Ethat looked panicked and confused.

Itek looked at me, his golden eyes narrowing in on something, then snarled, "She is bruising. You handled her!"

Ethat looked at his hands with even more panic.

The rattle and swish of Ormiss' skirts preceded him as he came through the door, lightening crackling over him and extending up the walls and across the floor.

Korr was trying to get enough air and strength to say something, but he was practically ice-blue with the effort.

"Get the whip," Itek snarled to Ormiss. "We're flaying that thing alive. He bruised Theia, and she's bleeding."