Chapter 53
“……”
Cain fingered the cold blanket for a moment, then moved toward the mouth of the cave. At his feet, the blanket, torn by claws that had sprouted without his notice, lay in a crumpled heap.
He closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. When he shut out his vision, a scent now deeply familiar painted a vivid map inside his mind.
Finding a single human woman was not difficult. What he sought was not far. If she had been trying to flee, the distance would have been laughable.
Cain lowered his body and took the form of a wolf. The shift into that massive, menacing shape, a monster’s form, took no longer than a single drawn breath.
‘How dare she.’
With that single phrase repeating in his mind, Cain ran and ran. The woman he had spent so long painstakingly taming had slipped from his grasp. How could he not be furious?
“Ha.”
And when Cain finally reached the place where Tina’s scent hung thick in the air, he stopped in his tracks and let out a scoff before he could help himself.
Tina was poking her head out between the winter cornelian cherry trees, peering at the berries with wide, curious eyes. The way she squinted, trying to pick those tiny fruits, made her look like a baby rabbit setting foot on a snowy field for the very first time.
“My lady.”
After admiring that guileless face for a moment, Cain stepped forward and approached her.
“Cain!”
Their eyes met through the snow-laden branches, and in an instant Tina’s face lit up, a bright, beaming smile catching at the corners of her lips. Her gray eyes disappeared behind the cheerful crescent of her lashes.
“I stepped out for a little walk and found these berries. I was picking them for you.”
Tina held open the pocket of her clothes, her face clear and innocent. She must have been at it for quite a while; the pocket, stitched together from patches of cloth, was already half-full of cornelian cherries.
“……”
Cain’s gaze rested on the berries for a moment. Then he stepped closer, wrapped his arms around Tina’s waist, and pulled her into a firm embrace. Her thin frame folded entirely into his thick arms.
“Don’t disappear and leave me behind.”
While the startled Tina let out a little squeal, Cain pressed a faint kiss to the crook of her neck and drawled the words slowly.
“That’s what I should be saying.”
The ticklish tremor against her neck made Tina laugh brightly as she replied.
“Cain.”
Tina stretched her arms out and wrapped them around Cain’s broad frame, then gently pushed at his shoulders so he would face her.
“Yes. I promise. I’ll stay with you.”
She blinked slowly, speaking each word as though casting a spell.
“But you have to promise me, too. That you’ll stay with me. That when I’m struggling, you’ll be right there beside me.”
Tina held up her pinky finger between them. The faint smile at the corner of her lips was playful, yet carried an unmistakable wish.
“……”
Cain looked down at the outstretched finger in silence for a long moment. A single small gesture, yet it held everything Tina was hoping for, and everything he would never allow to slip away.
“…Oh.”
Realizing this, Cain lowered his head and drew the slender finger into his mouth, sucking it slowly. From the tip, stained with the juice of the berries, came a sweet-tart taste. As his wet tongue grazed the spaces between her fingers, a fine tremor ran through Tina’s body.
“…I think a promise like this is better sealed with the body than with a finger, don’t you?”
Cain lifted his gaze to meet Tina’s with a sly smile, then pulled her hips flush against him and ground his already-swollen arousal against her belly with unhurried pressure.
“I… no… today I’m a little… it’s too…”
At the unmistakable presence pressing against her lower belly, Tina whipped her head aside and stammered in a fluster. Her eyes, so guileless only moments ago, darted around with nowhere to land.
“We did go at it until dawn, after all… heh.”
But Tina’s protests didn’t last long. Cain dipped his head further and began to suck deeply at the inside of her wrist, now and then nipping lightly with his teeth as though leaving his mark, imprinting rows of faint bite marks into her skin.
“My lady. You smell sweet.”
“Ngh… n-no, I don’t…”
“The same scent you gave off last night, when you were clinging to me and crying from pleasure.”
Tina’s face flushed scarlet at Cain’s lewd remarks.
“You want my body, don’t you?”
Cain looked down at Tina’s flustered face, then pinched the n****e that had stiffened as rigidly as his own arousal, squeezing it hard. Even through the thick winter clothing, those peaks announced their presence, and at the tormenting hand, they only stood more firmly to attention, as if in gratitude.
“Mmh!”
At the bolt of stimulation that surged all the way to the crown of her head, Tina’s legs began to give way beneath her.
“Just once. I promise.”
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