The fear in her scent he’d smelt earlier had gentled without his direct attention, and he was curious about it.
She is wary. That was what he could smell. She wasn’t petrified since she wasn’t trembling or shivering in his presence.
I have only met a few like her. Even now, he could tell just from their faces that the humans gaping at him in the sun –
who weren’t at risk of being stolen away – were more afraid than this woman in white.
“Little human, why are you offering yourself to me?”
Orpheus had never asked this of a human while still standing in the town they came from.
He would eventually learn from them all why they were willing to be taken. However, he was truly curious about why this one was standing before him. It appeared she was willing. She had said so herself in a very vague way. But she was also... angry.
Is she angry with me or the other humans?
“To help protect my people,” she answered through gritted teeth.
He tilted his head when he was in front of her once more, looking at her clenched jaw and creased brows.
A lie, perhaps? If Orpheus could grin, he may have.
“Yes. You will do.” He brought his gloved hand out from his cloak and offered it to her. “You will become my newest human, snowy one.”
“You will be taking her?” Gilford asked with a high-pitch of surprise, while the woman blinked at his hand in confusion.
“Yes, I have chosen the original sacrifice.” He thrust his hand at the woman, demanding she place her palm in his.
After a few moments of staring at his outreach gloved palm, she hesitantly lifted her hand and slipped it into his far larger one.
Once more, he stopped breathing to avoid taking in any scents. His claws rushed out, and the middle one dug into the flesh of her wrist to produce a small droplet of blood.
That was all it took for a blue ring of light to illuminate around them, flapping both their cloaks – his black, hers white – as a burst of magical energy pushed between them.
A double circle with ancient runic symbols between the
circle’s lines was cast upon the ground, lines forming inside the circle to create a six-pointed star.
Gasps rang out from the crowd as the woman tried to pry her hand away from his in shock, but he held firm until the protection ward was completed. Their union solidified as the magical contractor and offered sacrifice who gave their blood.
He wondered if the warmth he could feel from her through his glove was real, or a figment of his imagination.
He retracted his hand once it was done and severed the contact between them. Her hand flew to her chest as she cupped where his claw had cut into her skin.
“The protection ward is complete. Let us leave,” he demanded with a sense of mild urgency.
He strode forward to be behind her so she would begin to walk towards the gates, unwilling to remain in this human town any longer than necessary.
“Is that why you did that?” she whispered up to him as he pushed his hand on the small of her back when her feet seemed stuck to the dirt.
She stumbled forward before she began to move, Orpheus following with his palm remaining over her back and waist.
“Yes. Blood must be paid, and I cannot use my own.”
Gilford quickly rushed forward to walk beside them with a slight distance as Orpheus steered the confused woman between his ethereal companions.
“Thank you, oh great Duskwalker, for your protection. We hope you will be satisfied with your decision and bless us again in the future.”
It is hardly a blessing. His ward would disappear in ten years, and when he created a new one in a different town, the Demons from the new protected village would rush to this one when it was weakened to feed. Chaos would ensue.
Orpheus turned his face towards him, staring with annoyance hidden behind the fact he couldn’t make a single expression. He disliked the overly courteous way the
humans spoke to him since he knew it was a façade to appease him. Like that would be enough to stop him from ruining the town with claw and fang.
If I did not desire this void to be filled, then I surely would have.
They were afraid of him, hated him. They were disgusted by him, and he had no intention of building any form of trust when he very much may one day decide to become a malevolent spirit against them.
Ten years between each human did little to satisfy his hunger, and as the years grew and he got older, living on mind-numbingly endlessly, the more tired he was becoming of it.
How much longer will it be? An ongoing question without a matching answer. How much longer would it be before he found a human who wanted to be his companion?
Once he left the village, he finally dug out the hardened mud from his nose hole so he could be more comfortable and smell properly.
He turned his bony skull to the top of the blonde-headed woman in front of him. Perhaps this one will be different. If not, Orpheus would be back on the surface world to hunt for a new ‘bride’.
He rarely had confidence in his stolen humans.
