Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Swat Swat Bite

Ormiss dragged me back into the palace, with Healer Eaon hurrying behind us.

"Will you stop," I tried to wrestle my hand free. "The kid is sick, not me."

"That child is already dead, you appear to not be so vulnerable to the venom."

"What are you talking about!" I yanked free of him. "Get your hands off me!"

He released me instantly. Magic still crackled over him and his abdomen moved with his quick, rushed breathing.

"The kid is not dead," I growled. "I was a street kid too, you know. I—"

"There is no anti-venom," Ormiss cut me off. "There is nothing that can be done. If he is not dead yet, he will be shortly."

I frowned. "So... is that why nobody moved to help him?"

"That and fear," Ormiss said. "It is impressive he was still alive and walking after five minutes being stung that many times."

"The squid was likely weakened from being captured and in restraint," Eaon said.

Ormiss nodded to this and growled, magic snapping angrily over his body, but then he focused back on me. "Please come back to our quarters."

"I'm fine, the venom didn't hurt me," I said.

"She was stung at least two dozen times," Eaon told Ormiss.

Ormiss shuddered, then reached towards me, restrained himself, and peered as best he could at the little bruises and sucker marks on my body.

"I'm fine," I said firmly. "I feel fine."

"Then humor me."

"I want someone to go check on the kid," I said stubbornly.

"How did the child get stung?" Ormiss asked.

"I was looking at the vendors... what did he call it. Coral. And the kid was part of a street kid pack and was just saying stupid shit about me being a land-dweller. I guess he was making so much noise and all the creature attacked him. These tentacles just grabbed him so I wrestled the tentacles."

Ormiss made an exasperated sound and ground his teeth together. He jerked his chin at Eaon. "Send one of your students to check on the child."

"And?" Eaon asked, tone expectant.

"Yes," Ormiss affirmed whatever Eaon was suggesting. Then, to me, he said, "Now will you please come sit quietly until we are sure you will not drop dead? I did not wait all this time to lose you over some stupid unrestrained delicacy!"

I followed Ormiss through the snake-work of hallways while Eaon followed. Once we were back in our quarters, Ormiss summoned the previous two attendants from that morning to remove my ruined layers of silk and demanded I take a bath with salty water to draw out any surface venom, then the attendants dressed me again in more silk while Ormiss sat and watched, stone-faced and refusing to speak.

"There," I told him once a final shell decoration was put into my hair, "now I will be a very pretty corpse should I die."

"Do not say that," Ormiss gestured for the attendants to leave and they fled, glancing at my sucker-bruised skin.

"So what was that thing?"

Ormiss scowled. "A squid. Or a type of squid. There are many types of squid."

"What's a squid?" I asked.

"A very cunning creature of the deep." Ormiss guided me to sit down, careful to not touch me, and kept intent watch as he explained. "The deranged descendants of sea serpents that have lost any sense of civility they might have had and now are just mindless..." he heaved a breath, growled, and said, "you know wolf shifters, yes."