Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Scribbly Scrawly Birdy Crawly

Why couldn't I shift? If I was a shifter, why couldn't I feel anything? I could feel the damn scars. Was this where my spine had been broken? Right there between the scars on my shoulder blades? Or were those stitch marks where I'd been re-assembled?

Or just marks from talons?

I dug harder into the scars trying to feel something. A twinge. Something.

Nothing.

How the hell did you train a shifter to shift, anyway? I'd never known a shifter that needed to learn how to do it. They just figured it out. Then again, I'd been raised...somewhere...so perhaps there were shifters that needed help.

"Lady."

I twisted around to look at Deliah, who stood in the doorway of my room, eyes wide as she stared at me.

"What?" I asked, annoyed and rather pretzel-shaped reaching around to pick at my scarred back.

"You--the scholar is here. And you're bleeding."

"What?" I pulled my hand back. I had flesh and blood under my fingernails. "...what..."

Deliah scurried forward, hands raised as she reached, then hesitated, "What did you do?"

"I must have scratched myself." I hadn't thought I'd been pushing that hard. I'd never inspected or thought much about my scars. Were they fragile? I'd never noticed them bleed easily before.

"Oh no, no," Deliah said under her breath. She looked around helplessly, then darted into the washroom off the main bedroom. She fetched a bowl, water, and a towel. She quickly drew the wet towel over my back, then grabbed my hands and toweled them before returning to mop up my back.

"How bad is it?" She seemed awfully disturbed.

"It's just that the scholar is waiting," she said under her breath.

"He can wait five minutes."

Deliah huffed and kept rubbing. Then she shoved her full hand into my scar, lifted it, pressed, then lifted again.

"What's keeping you?" Yanice hissed from the doorway.

"The Lady scratched herself," Deliah said, flustered.

"What now," Yanice stomped into the bedroom, yanked the towel away.

"This doesn't have to be drama," I said, bemused. "You've never seen blood before?"

Yanice muttered something that was probably insulting. She already looked flushed and sweaty from chasing all around Haven. Poor darling, that beautiful hair of hers was out of place and her dress was dusty.

They patted me down with cloths and Yanice grumpily shoved another dress at me since I'd apparently bled on the other one. I brushed her hand away. "A little blood is fine."

"He's demon-touched," Yanice snapped. "You can't parade blood around him."

"Fine." I all but rolled my eyes and changed gowns, only to see the one they'd made me take off had a smear of blood about the size of my fingertip. "Are you scared of him? He's demon-touched in the way a demon looked his way once."

"That's enough to send my skin crawling, maybe not yours," Yanice snapped while Deliah escaped with my bloodied gown.

"Why, Yanice, I'm not sure what you're saying. That you're a coward, or that you think you're too pure and good to be around a scholar with a touch of demon in him." I opened my eyes very wide.

"I think you are a little fool who is in over her head and doesn't get how to play a deft hand of cards," she retorted.

"He's a scholar. Are you saying I shouldn't associate with scholars?"