Incubus Dreams

I was in the kitchen eating biscuits with butter and honey slathered all over them. The biscuits were good, but the show was Gregory. He was still in leopardman form, but he was eating biscuits. Have you ever watched someone eat bread with teeth that are designed for tearing out the throats of gazelles It was interesting. If he ' d just put the whole biscuit in his mouth at once it would have been okay, but he didn ' t. He ate the rounds of bread dripping with butter and red-currant jelly in pieces, delicately. Except that his jaws weren ' t made for delicate, so his fur was spotted with reddish jelly, and he kept licking it off with an impossibly long tongue. It was disturbing, distracting, and vaguely fascinating. Like a combination of Animal Planet and Food Network.

It was good that I had something to amuse me, because Nathaniel was being very unamused. I ' d known he would be upset about me marking Micah ' s neck, when he ' d practically begged me to do it to him, and I ' d refused, but I had no real clue how upset. He ' d been banging things around the kitchen. A cabinet door didn ' t just close, it slammed. Opening the refrigerator was a chorus of bangs, slaps, etc ' I didn ' t even know that plastic food containers could make that much noise.

In between slamming things around, he was agreeing with everything Gregory said, but his tone of voice sounded like he was fighting. ' We ' ve been advertising a leopard for tonight, if they can ' t have me, you ' re it, ' Gregory said, then licked that long pink tongue all the way around his ' muzzle. '

' Fine, it ' s not like I ' ll be doing anything else tonight. ' Somehow I thought that last was directed at me.

Micah was giving me the look, the once that said as clearly as if he ' d spoken, fix this. Why was it always me that had to fix it Because I was usually the one who screwed it up in the first place. Oh, that was why.

My teeth marks were imprinted in Micah ' s neck, the edges had been smeared with neosporin, but he hadn ' t had to bandage it. Good for him, and for me. I ' d stopped before I ' d hurt him too badly. It was actually less bloody than the one and only time I ' d let myself mark Nathaniel. It had been when the arduer was new and I was still trying to find ways to feed it that didn ' t involve intercourse. Silly me.