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Then cold pressure pushed into her, starting from her forehead. Her eyes flung open as her energy was restored, and all the blood she’d lost was returned in one startling and swift wave. Her wounds pulled until she could feel them closing from the edges inward.

When the hand slid away from the hood partially covering her hair, Emerie was left looking up at a towering Duskwalker with a wolf skull for a face and impala antelope horns. Blue orbs stared down at her, and for a moment, she wondered why he was... sad.

It was just one of the many strange things that had snagged her thoughts over the course of the recent events, but it was the one that she lingered on. She couldn’t help it, not when he silently towered over her, blocking the sun and making it glow around the back of his white skull like an angelic halo.

It didn’t escape her notice that, out of the three Duskwalkers she’d met so far, he seemed to be the bulkiest. He was also the only one fully dressed, wearing a black shirt, pants, and even boots.

He looks like a gentleman. Well, if Duskwalkers could look like one.All he needed was a fancy cane.

Sparkling in the sunlight, two charms dangled from his horns. Blue, black, and purple beads had been threaded three times in that pattern, with silver jingle bells on the ends.

They softly chimed each time he moved his head.

“Orpheus, you better go help Magnar,” the blonde woman stated, drawing Emerie’s gaze. She was looking over her shoulder towards the snarls and growls that could be heard, and it allowed Emerie to get a good profile view of her full pink lips, small nose, and flawless cheek. “He sounds like he’s having a hard time.”

She turned to Emerie, and deep-green eyes, like a forest, met her own blue ones. They narrowed disapprovingly, untrusting as those full lips flattened.

The fuck is she looking at me like that for?

“No, Reia. I will stay with you,” Orpheus, the wolf-skulled Duskwalker, firmly stated.

She folded her arms across her generous breasts, pushing them up through the low neckline of her pink dress. Her arms were bare, and they revealed pale skin, like she hadn’t greeted the sun much in her life. A sword hilt at her side glinted.

“What’s more dangerous, an unknown woman or a Duskwalker losing his shit?” Reia bit back.

A soft growl rolled out of him that seemed more from annoyance than anger, and it ended on a defeated huff. He turned and headed towards where Ingram was still pinned down.

Emerie watched him leave, noticing the back of his shirt was wet and sticking to him from the inside, as though his back was bleeding. That was before his upward-curling deer tail fluttered.

She was beginning to get her bearings when quick huffing from her left drew all of their attention.

Just when she thought shit couldn’t get any weirder, she watched a woman riding the back of a feline-skulled Duskwalker like he was a damn horse. It was also very similar to how Emerie rode Ingram’s back, since he, too, also had spikes running down his spine – although much smaller.

He had backwards-curling ram horns, their tips jutting up past his feline cheekbones. His long, thin black tail flicked to the side as he halted, and the fawny-skinned woman slid off his back in a well-practised move. With the hilt of a short sword strapped to her waist, she marched towards them, and her long, black high ponytail swung behind her.

The woman was dressed differently than the first two.

Instead of wearing a dress, she was clad in a pair of brown leather pants, black boots, and a winter coat made from deer hide. She also had a dagger to go with the sword on her weapons belt.

“Okay. What the hell did I miss?” she barked, while the feline-skulled Duskwalker shifted from his monstrous four-legged form into one that was standing.

A pair of pants pushed up through his short fur until they covered him, seeming to come from beneath his very flesh. He wore no shirt, and she didn’t think his pawed feet would have fit inside any pair of shoes known to humankind.

Unlike Ingram, he didn’t have as many bones covering his body. His bottom two ribs were missing, like they’d sunken into his flesh, and only his knuckles were visible, rather than the entirety of the backs of his hands.

“Mayumi,” he called with a whine, chasing two tiny blob creatures that were moving around his body with his clawed hands. He even lifted one of his arms to reach for his side. “I let you come because you promised you would stay out of danger and with Delora.”

Both the tiny blobs let out harrowing shrieks before leaping through the air, only to be caught mid-way by the Duskwalker’s swift and swiping hands. It was like he knew it was going to happen and was prepared for it.

That didn’t save Emerie from jolting in surprise, especially when it seemed as though they were coming for her.

They kind of look like... little Demons.She wondered if it was the smell of her blood drying against her back that caused them to jump at her.

Since they wouldn’t settle, he walked away while shaking his head. It looked like he had his hands full, with both of them squirming to get free. They continued to shriek, even over the distance.

Mayumi’s brown eyes found Reia’s face, then she lifted her upper lip as though she was sneering. Mayumi poked her thumb back at the feline-skulled Duskwalker, with an expression that screamed ‘the audacity of this guy.’

Instead of responding, Reia glared at the black-haired woman, while nodding her chin at Emerie.