Chapter 13
Several quiet breaths had slipped through Tina’s lips when, by the moonlit window, the beast had already risen to its feet and stood keeping watch.
The silhouette bathed in moonlight bore no trace of the fur that had covered its body, nor the sharp claws. In their place were finely sculpted muscles and long, tapering fingers. Were it not for the two eyes that burned with the same unwavering fire even in the dark, it would have been impossible to guess the man had been the beast on the bed.
“……”
The man shifted his gaze from the view beyond the window and regarded the sleeping Tina for a brief moment. Then, without warning, he pushed the window open and leapt straight down to the ground floor.
The annex’s high ceilings meant the thud of his landing echoed quite loudly, but the man didn’t spare it a thought. The human woman in the second-floor room was deep in sleep, and as for any other humans, no matter what their eyes might see, they would not live to tell the tale.
Once he had put enough distance between himself and the estate that his figure could no longer be traced from the annex’s second-floor window, the man shifted form once more. Threatening gray fur and a massive frame. The shape known as the “monster of the winter mountain.”
Having returned to his true form, the beast tore across the snow-covered mountain. His enormous body meant that each stride was followed by a heavy thud, thud as the ground trembled beneath him.
‘They didn’t push their search any deeper from this point, it seems.’
The man observed the deep claw marks gouged into the terrain and the trees toppled as though struck by a raid, and thought. By his estimate of the distance, there was still a small margin of time before they found him.
‘They won’t stop searching until they’ve found my hide, at least.’
Of course, he couldn’t afford to let his guard down. The scent of his kin grazing his nose told him they had been combing this area for quite some time and were not far off even now.
“So I do still need to stay by that human woman’s side after all.”
The man murmured after a long deliberation.
[“If you send it outside like this, it’ll freeze to death. Please. I’ll be quiet. I won’t cause any trouble.”]
His thoughts had turned to the human woman, and with them came the words he had heard that morning.
“Ha.”
The man let out a sharp, reflexive scoff. These were humans who would snap like spent kindling if he so much as swiped a single claw. And yet, to shield him from such beings, a woman far smaller than himself had stepped forward. How could that not be laughable?
“I’ll stay only until the search trail goes completely cold. No need to kill humans and stir up a commotion just yet.”
After laughing for some time, the man abruptly wiped all expression from his face and muttered.
[“How about Rus? From purus. It means ‘pure white.'”]
But once surfaced, the thought would not release him easily, and it dragged him, inevitably, to the most absurd part of all.
“Ha ha ha.”
The man threw his head back and laughed until his shoulders shook. ‘Rus?’ His name was Cain. The great alpha who had once led the wolf clan, the very embodiment of the terror they called a monster. And the best name she could come up with for him was ‘pure white.’
“…..”
And yet, for some reason, no matter how long he sneered, a strange discomfort refused to leave. The irritating sensation of something lodged near his chest, so unfamiliar it had crossed the line from unsettling into outright repulsive.
So the man — Cain, now bearer of the name Rus — ran on across the mountain. He must have dulled from spending too long at the human’s side; the instincts he had honed over years were growing faint. Paying this sort of discomfort any attention at all was unlike him.
Cain tried to clear his head by trampling roughly through trees draped in dried moss.
The tearful face that had gazed up at him could absolutely not burrow into his mind. Sleeping in the same bed as a human woman, receiving a name as though he were some cherished mate, none of it meant anything to him.
Of course it didn’t. As if a mere human could ever hold meaning for him.
“Ha… but then why.”
And yet there was something he could not explain. At some point, standing in the moonlight in his human form, Cain had become aware of something utterly impossible to ignore.
The thing standing rigidly at attention below his waist. The unbearable heat gathered there, so taut and swollen it seemed ready to burst at the slightest touch. His own flesh, already trailing a clear bead of fluid.
How could he possibly explain this?
“Is this what she calls ‘pure white’?”
A sound halfway between a scoff and a sigh escaped the man’s lips.
The next morning, Cain returned to his place at Tina’s side on the bed, as nonchalant as if the night before had been nothing more than a phantom in a blizzard.
Before reverting to the form Tina remembered, he caught himself frowning at the parted red lips that breathed soft and steady in deep sleep, but morning light was already encroaching into the room, so even that moment was fleeting.
Discussion
0 CommentsNo comments yet.