“How did this come to be here?” This was not what Reia was expecting.
I thought he would take me to a cave. Like, like... some kind of barbaric animal! But this was a house, an actual home.
With furniture, and candles, and warmth. It looked cosy despite the fact that she could see that many of those trinkets appeared to be bones and small animal skulls.
The room she was standing in was like a large living room and kitchen area. There was a darkness present down an unlit hallway that held a door on one side whereas the other had two.
The ceiling was tall enough that it allowed him freedom to move around with his massive height and the Impala antelope horns that made him even taller. He did have to duck slightly under the chandelier, but not by much, only to make sure his horns didn’t knock into it.
“It was built a very long time ago,” he answered, walking around her and then the long table with two chairs around it
– one that appeared to fit him and another that was much smaller – to walk to the counter where she saw a cooking hearth on the opposite side of the basin.
The table came to his hip height, which just so happened to be at her bottom ribcage. Being in this room, with everything that was designed to allow for his weight and mass, Reia felt undoubtably small.
She’d felt small sitting in the crook of his elbow or being cradled in his arms, but with the light and this room, it made her realise just how large he was.
He had to be at least seven feet and two inches tall from foot to skull, his horns reaching at least seven feet and nine inches, and even though Reia wasn’t short, a strong five feet and six inches for a human woman, he was still a giant.
He was also wide, a wall of flesh and muscle.
He opened one of the many cupboards above the counter next to the wide window to pull out four dill herb bundles wrapped in white ribbons with jingle bells and red berries.
There was also a bone, like a rat femur, dangling down horizontally by a string.
“Stay inside, I will return momentarily,” he told her as strode towards the front door. Like he knew she’d ask, he added, “My protection enchantments are no longer in place as they only last a few days. I must replace them.”
He promptly left, leaving Reia by herself to take in his home while she was alone.
She brushed her fingertips over the long table before making her way over to the counter to see what other items he had lying around. There was a second stone mortar and pestle that was already filled with crushed herbs and spices.
The chiming of the jingle bells told her he was right next to the window at the front of the house, near where she was standing. His footsteps began to thump to the other side of the house as she picked up a yellow glass bottle and opened it, daring to sniff its contents.
A noise of surprise came from her nose at the strange, but sweet, smell. She placed it back down to open a wooden container to find a dry black powder inside it. When she
sniffed it, she sneezed. It wasn’t terrible, but it tingled her nose.
She touched the healthy vine-like plants with three leaves sprouting from its vines in different sections. I’m surprised anything like this can live in the Veil. The trees she understood, but this seemed far more delicate.
She moved to the table to figure out what the ornaments were. They looked like driftwood with clumps of silver ore growing from it like moss.
Just as she was about to take a closer look, something glinting in her peripheral from the other side of the table caught her attention. Reia leaned over, having to partially jump to reach the centre of the table, and grabbed a hold of something cold.
A dagger. And she could see there was more than one. He left me alone with weapons? That was rather foolish of him.
The handle was a swirl shape with black leather rope in the indents for comfort as she curled her fist around it tightly. She tapped her forefinger of her other hand on the tapered point, finding the double-edged blade was sharp, but she made sure not to prick her finger.
A large, clawed hand covered in a black glove wrapping around her hand holding the handle made her yelp in surprise.
She’d been so engrossed in the weapon, in the possibility of perhaps using it to free herself, that she hadn’t heard him come back inside and walk up behind her.
She could feel the warmth of his body pressing against her back as he leaned over her while eerily bringing his snout down next to her head.
“Unless you know the one place to stab on my body and strike deep enough, I should forewarn you that if you fail, it will result in your unfortunate death.”
She attempted to pull out of his grasp, but he refused to release her and forced her to remain gripping the dagger.
“I wasn’t thinking that.”
A complete lie.
“Understand that many offerings have said those words to me before they tried. I do not like pain, and it is certain to invoke an uncontrollable rage in me – as you have already seen.”
“Okay, yes. I got it,” she muttered sharply as she yanked her hand harder. “Now let me go.”
He released her, and her hand stabbed into the air before she tossed the dagger onto the table. It clanked as it bounced over the surface of it. Reia swiftly turned around and faced him with a glare, but he’d already begun to walk away from her.
He reached up and undid the tie of his cloak from his neck before he pulled it forward to slip his horns through the holes to remove it. He placed it over the backrest of the chair at the dining table, and she sucked her lips into her mouth to bite them closed.
The cloak had done much to hide the bulkiness of his body. Although he was rather slim, she could see that strong muscles were pressing against his clothing, as biceps and thighs could be seen flexing as he moved around the room.
She also finally saw his head completely as a whole.
Although the front of his bony face was wolfish with sharp looking fangs, the back appeared more deer-like as it supported those heavy looking horns that spun and twirled up and back from his skull.
“I will light the rest of the house, then you must take a warm bath to remove your human scent from your skin,” he told her when he picked up the candle he’d used earlier to light the living area. “We must do it before it seeps through the walls and alerts the Demons close by that I have brought another human here. If you are hungry, I will give you food after unless you wish to rest first.”
A relaxing bath, food, and then sleep, sounded exactly what she needed. They’d been travelling for days, and Reia
