Chapter 10

Torian flopped onto his back with a growl. His stomach was gurgling angrily.

"I'm hungry," he griped, turning onto his side.

"There's plenty of leftovers in the fridge, I can heat something up for you. What do you want to eat?" Omi asked cheerfully.

Torian pointed at Devi, who was watching him closely.

"Torian, go outside," Devi said with a gentle smile, waving him off.

Torian nodded, crawling toward the door and waiting outside while he waited for Devi to finish.

Devi usually wasn't the one who fed him. Normally Yuki did it, but she wasn't here. She hadn't been there to follow them in, or he probably would've pulled her in himself.

Torian yelped as he was struck in the face with a soccer ball.

"Oh my God! I am so sorry! Are you okay?" Ken asked, running over to him.

"You are a prime example of why the birth control pill was invented!" Torian screeched, grabbing the ball and tearing it to shreds in his talons.

"Hey, you didn't have to ruin it!" Ken shouted at him, looking at the shredded remains of his ball.

"It offended me, so I killed it!" Torian hissed at him.

He went still at the scent of blood, he couldn't move a muscle for fear that he would lose control and run in after the demon.

"What's wrong, man? You look like you're about to have a heart attack!" Ken cried out, dropping to his knees in front of him and moving to try to help him.

"Don't touch him! Not right now!" Aridan screamed, racing over to them.

"What's going on here?" Aya demanded, glaring at the two blondes.

"Torian has to be still or he'll go into a feeding frenzy because Devi is bleeding!" Aridan cried, moving to stand in front of Torian, putting himself between Aya and the Drakatra.

"Why didn't anyone warn us of this? What else aren't you telling us?" Aya demanded, drawing his sword.

"I don't tell other peoples' secrets unless I have to. And right now I don't have to!" Aridan refused to move out of the way. He wasn't going to have Torian freak out.

"Aya, calm down. We'll talk to them about it once the situation cools down." Yohji slid a hand down Aya's arm, trying to comfort him.

"Oh my God, Omi is so going to give me the 'I told you so' speech later tonight," Ken pouted. Of course it was more than a speech, he was going to owe Omi twenty dollars. Omi had told him a year ago that Aya and Yohji liked each other, and Ken had said 'no way in hell!' He'd even watched them, trying to find anything of the sort. The two barely touched if it wasn't because of a mission.

"For what?" Yohji asked.

"Did Omi know something was wrong with him?" Aya asked, pointing toward Torian.

"No, but he did say that you two liked each other and I said you didn't. So he's going to laugh at me."

"Uh huh, so how much did you bet him?" Yohji asked, grinning. Ken must've thought he was blind to not see a bet in the mix.

"Just twenty. No big deal, man. Its more listening to Omi carry on about it that's going to suck. Especially with how much candy that guy has been feeding to him!" he cocked a thumb in Aridan's direction.

"Where the hell are you getting it all from, anyway?" Ken asked, looking back at the blonde.

"Sevron is the one giving it to me. He always has candy for me. I don't know where he's getting it from, though, because we didn't pack any bags for this trip, and…"

"Shut up! All of you! I want an answer as to what the hell is going on here! I get it that he's trying not to freak out, what I want to know is why?"

"I told you, Devi is bleeding!" Aridan whimpered.

"Should we go and check and make sure he's alright?"

"No, Devi's bleeding on purpose. And if you open that door before the demon is gone it will be a bloodbath!"

"So he cut himself to set this thing on us?" Aya demanded. He could feel his head throbbing with frustration.

"No, he cut himself to feed Torian so that the Drakatra doesn't start hunting the city by himself! If Torian isn't fed demons regularly he'll turn to the next closest species out of instinct. Who knows what that might really be! But he is our best bet at killing these things because he can paralyze them! It keeps our fatalities down while getting rid of the demons." Gabriel explained.

"Anything else you want to tell us? What about your boyfriend? Why did he freak out?" Yohji asked, he wasn't going to let any of them know that he had set his wires loosely around them already, just enough that all it would take was a good pull to catch both Aridan and Torian.

"Kyriel is a broken angel. Or at least that's what he has been called. When he was first guarding the seraphim gates in his youth he ingested too much blood. He used to think he was unsusceptible to the curse, so he didn't care, he even went as far as to use his teeth to tear out the throats of the fallen ones. He fell prey to the madness that plagued so many of his kind. I'm not going to give you all of the details of how he had fallen prey, because it is no one's business. But he has to be careful with how much blood is spilled around him." Gabriel slashed his talons outward and sliced through the wires that Yohji had set. He did it discreetly so that only Yohji and himself would know that anything had just happened.

Yohji kept his eyes trained on Aya's face. Aya's word would make them attack or back down. Right now Yohji didn't know what to think to be able to offer direction of his own. And he knew Ken was the same.

"Once he is fed we are all going to have a talk!" Aya growled, sheathing his sword and storming off. Yohji followed, wrapping an arm around Aya to try to offer him some comfort.

Aya leaned subtly into him. No one watching would've noticed it, but Yohji could feel it.

Author's notes: Thanks JollyBigSis and Blackorcid for your reviews. XD!