She was also starving after the events of the day and could really use something to eat.
After her few hours of resting while watching him recover, her shoulder didn’t hurt so bad. It was still tender to touch
so she tried not to move it too much.
She placed her hands on her hips while awkwardly holding the sword.
“I don’t have any food for you, but I do have water. Are you thirsty?”
He surprised her when he reached forward to place his clawed fingertips on her cheek.
“What is it you are doing with your face?”
“Hey!” She stepped back and smacked his hand away.
“We spoke about this.”
His hand flung away, and he cupped it to his chest while his eyes turned white.
“I forgot.”
Unbelievable. She shook her head.
“I have never seen a human do this or make that strange sound you make.”
Reia opened her mouth to explain what a laugh and smile were, but his head suddenly turned to the side to peer in a certain direction.
“He is here. I smell his scent on the wind.”
He looked around and then at his body that was still heavily wounded, but at least no longer bleeding. Her eyes widened as she turned her head the way he had.
“Then you should at least get out of the salt circle,” she said quietly.
Why does it feel like I’m about to be caught doing the wrong thing? Like she was cheating talking to this Duskwalker.
“I will be attacked if I leave now.”
He was wounded and covered in blood. No doubt the Demons would try to eat him. The key word here was try.
“Okay, okay, um.” This wasn’t good. She knew just because he sprinkled dirt everywhere that the scent of blood wasn’t gone, and she currently had a strange Duskwalker in the salt circle near her. “Just... I don’t know.
Go stand on the other side of the clearing, near the salt circle or something.”
He started to do as she told him to, and Reia turned to where she thought Orpheus might come.
I hope I can keep him calm.
Orpheus walked through the gloom, mist, and ever constant shadows of the Veil.
Underneath his cloak, he had a dead deer straddled across his shoulders with its four legs dangling on either side of his neck and down his chest. With it under his cloak, its scent was hidden by his.
Finding a deer to hunt had been the easy part. Finding one he’d managed to surprise and snap the neck of so he didn’t spill a single drop of blood was difficult. He couldn’t carry a bleeding carcass through the Veil without drawing attention and fighting with Demons for his meat.
There was also another problem. If the deer made him chase it, he’d consume it in a frenzy-induced high from the hunt.
Still, he’d managed to complete his task for Reia within a day, thankful a lone deer had managed to get separated and settled a short while after he slaughtered a handful of its herd in a craze.
He lifted his right hand, bright yellow filling his vision as his gaze fell upon what else he held.
I hope she will be pleased with what I found.
Getting it had been easy but keeping it had been painful.
Licking his sore and swollen tongue against the roof of his
mouth, he shuddered.
A reward? Orpheus hoped she would give him something in return.
A smile. Another hug like the one he’d obtained before he left. A touch to his body like the one she’d given him when she had that strange bleeding only the human women he’d taken ever got. He didn’t know it brought them pain, and he still didn’t know what its function was.
He lowered his arm to hold what he held carefully, being sure not to crack it in the grip of his large hand.
The walk was relativity short since he wasn’t ferrying a human and didn’t need to stay at the pace of their short strides. Of course, border dwellers, like the ones near his home, tried to ask him what he had when they were close enough, knowing he must have something beneath his now odd-shaped cloak. Warding them away was easy enough.
