Chapter 21
“…..”
The man gave no answer, and for a time there was nothing but silence and standoff.
The campfire crackled and popped, its echo climbing the walls. After several such cycles, Tina had gathered her thoughts enough to try again. Carefully this time.
“…Is this a dream, too?”
She asked, fingers twisting into the animal hide draped over her knees. If this were not a dream, certain things made no sense. She had clearly fallen from a cliff, yet here she sat, relatively intact.
The pain radiating from below her ankle was impossible to ignore, and the scrapes scattered across her body stung sharply. But the fur covering her was warm, and the heat from the campfire was soothing.
So this had to be a dream. Above all, the man sitting before her was the very man who came to her every night in her dreams. The collapse of all logic had the paradoxical effect of easing her into a strange calm.
“…..”
At her question, the man’s lips parted, then closed again uselessly, as though swallowing something that had failed to become words.
Instead, he steadied his breathing and began to approach. Unlike before, he approached slowly, carefully, so as not to startle her.
When the man had closed the distance to the length of a shared breath, and Tina had unconsciously drawn in the air between them, he locked both eyes onto hers and spoke.
“Then consider it a nightmare.”
Tina blinked quietly at the cryptic words. Her back was already pressed against cold stone, but the heat climbing through her body overpowered the chill, and she had not noticed.
‘A nightmare?’
Amid the confusion, she tried to think. The dizzying haze wrapped around her would not let her thoughts run straight. All that lingered was a faint sensation of being bewitched helplessly, by something beyond her control.
“What do you— ngh.”
In the next instant, Tina had to hold her breath. The man, whose lips had been mere inches from hers, bowed his head and began to lick slowly across her palm. His manner was careful and reverent, as though handling something sacred.
Tina curled her fingers tight on reflex, but the man simply held her gaze in silence and pressed the tip of his tongue to her skin.
“…Ngh.”
As the hot breath and strange sensation burrowed into her palm, Tina caught herself holding her breath.
“I can heal you.”
After a long silence, the man spoke. Drawn by his words, Tina lowered her gaze and saw it. The scrapes on her palm had vanished.
The hand that had been rubbed raw against rock, blood showing through the skin, was now perfectly clean and whole.
“This…”
Tina opened her mouth in quiet disbelief. The man was still staring straight at her, and a chill she could not explain ran down her spine.
“W-wait!”
When the man leaned closer still, Tina cried out without warning.
“If this is a dream… if I stay here too long, does that mean I won’t be able to go back to the estate?”
The man paused and furrowed his brow. The displeasure that had not been there a moment ago was no longer hidden.
“And that is what you choose to worry about?”
A sound like a growl ground between his teeth. He was angry. Tina had seen his face distort the instant the word “estate” left her lips.
“It’s just…”
Out of habit, Tina’s mind went to the family at the estate, but that kind of thought was the sort that vanished quickly.
That was not what worried her. What worried her was…
“…I made a promise to look after someone.”
Tina spoke in a careful tone.
“There’s a small one—a little one I promised to stay with. He can’t survive without me.”
With each word she spoke, the man’s movements slowed. Perhaps it was the way he seemed to be truly listening, but Tina was beginning to feel steadier.
That was why she ended up telling him everything about Rus, though he had never asked.
That her little one would be alone and frightened if she did not go back. That he would struggle to survive on his own. That she needed to be there for him.
“…..”
The man listened in silence, his deep gaze studying her with quiet care.
“But no matter how devotedly you’ve cared for that beast, it is still a beast in the end. It may yet do terrible things to you.”
After a long silence, the man spoke. His voice was low and stripped of emotion.
“No matter how much you’ve doted on it, a creature born a beast—”
“No. He would never.”
Tina cut him off before he could finish.
“Rus would never do anything to hurt me, he’s not the kind to do so.”
She clenched her fists as she spoke. She was angry. Angry that he would speak this way about the one she loved. Angry that he would belittle the one she had exchanged a promise with.
“…Then.”
After drawing the silence out, the man spoke again. The low register of his voice made whatever lay beneath it impossible to read.
“You’ll be fine. At the very least, the wrong being done to you right now won’t cause you any harm.”
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