Page 11 of Horns & Heart
“Here.I thought some food might make you feel better.”
The sandwich did smell nice, and I hadn’t eaten anything all day.After all, the plan had been to raid the department store, then find a place for the night, then get some rest and food.Meeting monsters and talking about penises and harems with them had decidedly not been the plan.Nor had the part where I’d almost gotten eaten in a changing room.
I shivered.Inkiri made those clicking sounds as if he’d actually noticed my discomfort.
Despite everything, I was hungry, so I threw caution to the wind and took the plate from him.The chips seemed safest, so I crunched down on those.
They were just regular salted ones, but so damn good.I hadn’t had chips in ages.But with everyone in the room watching me, I definitely recalled Hänsel and Gretel, specifically the part where one of them was being fattened up for dinner.I stopped mid-chew and looked from one strange face to another.
“What?”I asked with my mouth full.
Nokim, the one wearing taupe instead of black, leaned around the corner from the hallway as if he’d been hiding there but listening.
“Doesn’t he like that?I can make something else.In fact—” Nokim approached and began staring like the rest of them.
“This isn’t good?”Inkiri said.He was leaning in and sniffing the air.Or the food.Or me.Something.“Would you prefer something else?Tell me what you want, sweet thing.”
I swallowed finally.“Why are you all watching me?”
“Who else should we be watching?”Fellisse asked.“Why wouldn’t we watch him?I don’t understand.”
“He was scared we’d eat him, and you didn’t help with your greeting.”Inkiri sounded more upset than angry.
Fellisse crossed his arms in front of his chest.“What?Because I said I smelled human?I did smell him, for your information.”
Lissir hummed.“I like his scent.It’s a good scent.”He added something in their language.
Inkiri growled.
“Wait, I’m confused.”Nokim stepped closer.“I thought Inki had felt his mate call draw him to Rory?If we’re all smelling him, I want to smell him too.You all know my sense of nose isn’t that good.”
Mate call?That didn’t sound good.
Vergis clicked his tongue, again more in the way I would, not like when Inkiri did it.“It’s ‘sense of smell.’”He added something in their language, looking increasingly amused.
Nokim tilted his head left and right.“Well, then I want to use mysense of smellon him if we all get to do that.”
And without further ado, he stepped around the others, moving like a dancer, reached for the hand I’d picked up the chips with, and smelled my wrist.He was not subtle about it, and his breath tickled the sensitive skin there.
It wasn’t intimate exactly.It was plenty weird though.The air in the room seemed to become alive with static.
“Uhm.”I froze.I looked at Inkiri, who’d leaned in closer yet again and was making low rumbling noises deep in his chest.The guy was so close, he was pretty much wrapped around me like a blue tortilla.His slitted pupils were blown, and he looked only at me.
Lissir looked at Nokim with what even I could see was shock.“Why would you behave so lewdly?”
I liked Lissir.I decided I liked him a lot when he stood and pulled Nokim away from me before slapping his arm with his manga.He then tried the same with Inkiri, but whereas Nokim had allowed himself to be moved, Inkiri didn’t budge an inch.
Lissir clicked at Inkiri and said something in their language.Inkiri did finally lean back, but his eyes were still intense, as if he needed to communicate something that I simply didn’t understand.Lissir waved for me to come with him and took the hand Nokim had been smelling.
I wished I had the fortitude of character to have left the food there, but no.I was not leaving that plate behind, wherever we were going.It was food someone else had made for me, and despite my mistrust, it looked really yummy.It also smelled good, and not just the fatty, salty chips that I desperately wanted to shove into my mouth by the handful and crunch down on.
“And you are coming as well.”Lissir tapped Vergis’s knee with a foot as we passed.
“Shame.This was cringeworthy to watch.”Vergis unfolded himself and stood up before following me and Lissir like a horned shadow.
I thought I could feel Inkiri’s eyes on me, and a look over my shoulder confirmed it.A shiver ran down my back, and it wasn’t fear.Not once in my life had anyone ever looked at me like that.Like they wanted me.Wanted to ravish me.Hard.
