The glowing orbs of his eyes, which hovered in front of the voids of its sockets, swirled almost like rotating fire. His skull was clean and appeared as though it was polished as the sunlight hit over the white of it and made it glisten.
I thought it would be cream-coloured. Or that, perhaps, the flesh of a rotting animal might be loosely hanging from it like a decaying corpse.
“What is your name?” he finally asked, quiet despite how close they were.
Shit. How am I supposed to give my name if I am not allowed to talk? Hell, the people didn’t even utter her name. How was she supposed to violate two things they feared without upsetting them?
Reia gave a sneering cringe, unsure of what she was supposed to do. No one had given her advice or told her what she should do if he spoke to her.
Shuffling her feet nervously, her eyes fell to the chief.
“Speak, child!” Gilford shouted, his face growing red with anger. Reia was making a mess of this already.
It was too late. The Duskwalker’s hand shot forward.
She managed to catch a glimpse of the dark, glistening claws that ripped through his black gloves before his hand encircled her throat. She expected him to lift her off the ground, but he only brought her to the tips of her toes. The pressure was tight but wasn’t suffocating as he bent forward to be more at her level.
“Reia,” she managed to get out, calming enough to narrow her eyes into a glare once more. “My name is Reia Salvias.”
Orpheus twisted his head at the petite little human he held onto, inspecting her face in detail now that they were inches apart and she couldn’t escape.
Yes. It is much easier to see her like this. She was too far away before, too hard for him to look at bony face to human face.
He was unable to smell her properly since he’d shoved mud and grass into his nose hole to block as much of the scent of fear as he could. It was uncomfortable, and he despised it, but he needed to do this otherwise he would attack the village in a mindless craze because of their stench of fear.
Her hair was blonde, straight and glossy around the backs of his gloved fingers. Her nose was small, but had a defiant upturn to it, which made it appear more dismissive when she’d turned her chin up at him earlier. Her features were gentle around her jaw and chin, but were sharp around her eyes and brows, making her glare, he realised, more prominent.
Her skin was like snow, as though she hadn’t been in the sun much, which he could tell was true by the transparent-like paleness of her skin. If he took her to the Veil, he doubted her skin would ever ripen into the light golden that should have wrapped the warm meat of her slim body.
Her eyes were a forestry green, which pleased him.
Actually, looking upon her was pleasing, but he felt this way about most humans, for various reasons, some more evil and cruel than others.
As he inspected his sacrifice in detail, Orpheus waited for the tantalizing scent of fear to fill his mouth with saliva. He was so close to her. He would be able to taste just a hint of it that his blocked, clogged nose couldn’t. He could only just smell her with their proximity, but it hid the rest of the humans from him.
It didn’t take long. The scent gently lifted into the air from her pores, inciting the glow of his eyes to want to change from his normal blue to red in hunger.
But that didn’t happen, his eyes remained blue.
He tilted his head when he realised the scent wasn’t strong enough to stir true hunger in him.
This female, this human woman, was afraid, but not nearly as much as she should have been while being held like this by him. She appears rather… angry.
“If-if she is not to your liking, we have prepared other sacrifices to become your bride,” the one named Gilford sputtered in haste.
There are others? He lowered her enough that she was no longer blocking his vision, as two humans in white dresses were ushered through the Priests and Priestesses.
A dark-haired man and a red-headed woman.
“There has never been more than one intended offering,” Orpheus stated, projecting his voice through his skull so it could be heard.
He had to actively produce his voice past his own mind, speaking from it since he didn’t have lips or the kind of mouth to talk. He could make noises if he wished to, but they were often guttural and incoherent to others.
“We wanted to make sure we appeased you, is all.”
What is wrong with this one, then?
Orpheus placed the blonde-haired woman named Reia on the ground and twisted his head at her while examining her once more. She appears to have all her parts. He could see she wasn’t missing any limbs and didn’t have the look of deathly sicknesses that seeped from the skins of humans.