A knock stirred the silent night. The lad hollowed out the tankard in his hand in a breath and put it down on the desk with a thud, but the book in his other hand still remained upright in a steady grasp, illuminated under the flickering candlelight.
“Come in,” said the heir, wondering if he should deworm these younger brothers of his just in a case.
“Do you know what time it’s now?” His hoarse, not so pleasant to the ears voice asked reprimandingly as the doors opened a gap with a mute creak.
A silence answered, and the teenager raised his head in a jolt.
“Am I unwelcome?” A milky quiver left Seraphina’s lips, and the words jabbed the young man’s heart.
“Why… why are you here?” Asked Ihan, and the book was placed down.
The child stood at the door, hair sticking out like stubborn weeds, delicate brows scrunched up distastefully, golden eyes reflecting the warm glimmer of the almost dying candle, and tiny hands clutched together, fingers entangled.
“Eldest brother, do I cause you discomfort?” She was brutally honest in her interrogation.
The heir left her question cold in the night, stood from behind his magnificent desk, and strode toward the child. He reached the door in a few long and impatient strides, his head lowered, eyes staring at the child straining her neck to match his gaze, and his palm rested for a brief moment on the ajar door before decisively pushing it shut.
Seraphina’s eyes enlarged unblinking and later twinkled.
“Why are you going around barefoot?” Ihan’s voice was gentle as he knelt on one knee in front of the little girl.
“Why are you drinking alone on such a fine night?” She asked back, her eyes bending in crescents.
“Does it smell bad?” the lad chuckled.
“Well, definitely less elegant than wine, but livelier,” sniffed and decreed the child.
“It’s ale, Julia’s masterpiece.”
“Still, do drink less, eldest brother. You are, after all, a child,” Seraphina’s words carried an equal tease and concern.
“I will listen,” the teenager breathed out as the dread of being feared or, even worse, detested by the child was dispelled by the other’s intrepid spirit and blunt tongue.
However, a sudden and uninvited grunt erupted his lips, startling the little girl and shattering the harmony.
“What is it?” She questioned, her brows furrowing.
The heir took deep breaths, veins throbbing glaringly, and his hands clenched, bones ashen, in an effort to fight the beast inside him. Unfortunately, this fight was not faring well for him. The young man sprung to his feet, his intention of fleeing evident in his eyes, and he bypassed his little sister heartlessly.
The moment the breeze birthed by his momentum grazed past the child’s smooth cheek, his hand was held by a tinier and warmer one, freezing him immobile in tension, but he never looked back.
“Don’t go. And don’t try to suppress him, either. Ysir will not hurt me,” her tone was unwavering as her grip.
“He bit you,” Ihan’s voice was husk, growly, and restrained.
“Eldest brother, release him,” she pleaded.
“Ysir could kill you!” His shout was much like a snarl of a beast.
Instantaneously, the hand clutching his loosened and disappeared. A lost feeling of given up on numbed his tightening chest, and his palm landed on the door handle.
“Look at me,” her voice called behind him, but lower and more majestic.
At once, the young heir dropped to his knees, hands clutching at his chest, and the fight was lost as the moment Seraphina’s command fell, Ysir burst out from his shadow in full aggression, tearing apart the restraints formed by its master’s consciousness.
Ihan shut his eyes tight and held his breath as the memory of a little girl lying in a pool of her own blood with barely a breath on her lips inside the forest burnt his mind, and silence sunk. However, he heard neither a child’s screams nor growls of the shadow beast, and the held breath left his slightly trembling lips, and he stood up and turned around.
The candle burnt out, but the moonlight gracing through the windows allowed him to see clearly. Before him sat obedient a little fox with shimmering golden irises and sleek snow-white fur, and coiled around it was a humongous black wolf, its four eyes glistering with contentment, a snout nuzzling the tiny white paws and tail wagging up and down, hitting the carpeted floor.
… Ihan Callenso run his calloused slender fingers through the silky fine fur of the snoozing little fox on his lap. Its ears twitched from time to time, and a purr would rumble through its chest.
“So, what exactly are you, little sister?”
“A nine-tailed fox,” she did not bother hiding the truth.
“Well, do not look like one to me,” Ihan called out the fox.
Hearing her elder brother’s tease, Seraphina pawed the other’s hand away, her stance bright as the day.
“Forgive me,” his chuckle vibrated from his chest.
Laugh, laugh as you like, pouted grumpily Seraphina.
“Then, did you come here to let the cat out of the bag?”
Not quite exactly. The saying, habits are scary things, wasn’t an exaggeration. I used to find your company consoling in my previous life, and today, subconsciously came looking for you, her thoughts were unvoiced.
Be that as it may, Ihan received her quietude yet perceived the disquiet lurking within, and his gaze softened.
“I heard you did not leave your room since returning from the palace today and barely touched your dinner. What upset you? Or should I ask who?” He inquired despite the knowledge.
.
.
.
“Her right hand danced the blaze, and her left sang life. That’s what the tale tells,” Seraphina’s mellow voice echoed inside the shrine.
The shrine was a small round-roofed mausoleum guarding the tomb of the deceased empress, Natalia Heroux, and her statue inside. The tomb was carved and sealed with preservation arrays, and the statue was true to life, vivid, and convincing. Natalia’s body was carved from ivory, draped and donned in dripping gold, and her eyes were embedded with black obsidians, making her appear intriguingly lifelike yet divine. Two tiny birthmarks, each blooming under the empress’s heart-stirring peach blossom eyes, could be identified at a glance.
As the memories of a certain baby girl, who took after her mother like a water droplet, crushed into Seraphina's mind like tidal waves, tender but bitter longing poked her heart.
“They meant her swords. My mother wielded Dawn of Men in her right hand and Lake of Death in her left. Both were shortswords, but Dawn of Men burnt its victims with every slash, whereas Lake of Death dripped with water instead of blood,” a blonde child recalled, her tears dripping on the smooth cold stone of the tomb drop by drop.
“A dual aura wielder, a bender of fire and water,” mumbled Seraphina.
“Red, thank you for bringing me here,” choked the child, suppressing the boiling emotions.
“I heard you could not attend the funeral because you fell ill after receiving the news and were later sent away. Since we came to the imperial palace, we ought to pay your mother a visit. She must have missed you dearly,” the golden-irised girl spoke as she ran her thumb on the other’s plump cheek, wiping the tears.
“What do I do, Red? I don’t want to cry, but the tears keep coming out,” sniffled Aine, her blonde locks falling into her face as she dropped her head in an effort to hide the wetness brewing inside her eyes, and each breath inevitably shaky.
“Sorrow and anger. I know,” Seraphina held her friend’s small hand in her own firmly.
“However, Aine, you are still young. Don’t hate your father too much. There is so much that you cannot see.”
“No! No, Red. Mother is dead, brother is gone, and I am abandoned. What’s there for me to see more? He gave us up! You don’t know how he did not look at me once today. I thought… hoped he would call my name, but he didn’t. He just didn’t, Red. Yet, yet, you knelt to him,” yelled and whimpered the girl, pulling her hand away forcefully.
Feeling the cold air hitting her palm, a sigh left Seraphina’s tender lips, and she rose and shouted,
“Ezekiel!”
The doors of the shrine opened, and the imperial elder walked inside along with the grand duke.
“At least address me as an imperial elder like your brothers do,” the old man grumped.
“She will call you as she sees fit,” Amaris gently patted his daughter’s head, sensing the child’s chippy state.
“Ezekiel, take your granddaughter to her mother’s garden. I think she needs some breather,” said Seraphina.
“Red, what are you doing?”
“Go, Aine, and you will understand why,” she turned to leave.
.
.
.
Ihan patted the little fox’s head.
“I’m amazed that my little sister could see what eyes could not. When I was young, I was also like the princess. I could not understand the regard our father held for his majesty as I believed it was undeserved. Such a mighty man yet bowed to the coward and worthless… However, as I grew older, I realized I was wrong. As a non-aura wielder against a wielder, as the second against the first, and as a man whose deepest yearning was for the mundane yet fulfilling life of a commoner, the courage he mustered to decrown his brother from the seat of the crown prince must have been one of a kind,” Ihan told, his words tranquil.
“And, it was not for greed or ambition. He just wanted to protect the woman he loved,” Seraphina hummed.
“And, Shelons’ support was no longer a choice, but a necessity for survival,” the young man concluded his sister’s sentence and asked,
“However, there is one thing I am curious about. What's in her majesty’s garden?”
“Scorpion grasses. A whole lots of them,” the little fox yawned and coiled.
The young man no longer uttered a word. He carried the sleeping bundle of boneless fur, left his mother's study, and reached the child’s bedroom. He placed the tiny round creature on the center of the bed and hesitated for a moment as to whether to cover the fox with a quilt, fearing his sister would find the heat uncomfortable. After careful consideration, the quilt was dismissed, but his coat, earthly simple for his status, covered the little white.
He left after the one last pet, and on his way to his bedroom, wondered whether that old tyrant knew the other name of scorpion grasses and its signification and meaning. As a purebred northerner, the young heir was more familiar with the name ‘forget-me-not’ instead of ‘scorpion grass’ and cherished the message it conveyed. In the north, the blue blooms of forget-me-nots were often painted on the portraits of their loved ones who left forever as these little clusters the capitols and southerners call wild and ordinary signified remembrance and longing here.
For the emperor to be familiar with this custom and plant a garden full of them proved his vast knowledge and the long hours spent behind books.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
“You survived,” said a boy, a young wolf beastman. “But it seems you won’t for long.”
He looked at the bare back facing him, eyes taking in the thinner and shorter body of the boy and the bleeding wounds and older scabs and scars covering it. It looked wretchedly hideous and lonely, seemingly on the verge of breaking down, but peculiarly gave off certain elements of fear and respect that only men had for men. Both were no longer boys but young men.
“I heard a pantheress, a daughter of the panthers’ clan leader, offered her hand to you, which you declined. Say, Crevaria’s boy, being a male pet would not cost you fights you always trod too close to death. Why refuse? A pride? Or a beastwoman beneath you, the glorious imperial prince?”
“If you are not here for our deal, fuck off,” a growly hoarse voice responded.
“I am a wolf. Of course, I will keep my end of the deal. I bet on your head and you on your kill. And you won. You killed that monster.”
“So, you got the news?”
“I do. But I can’t guarantee it’s one you’d wish to hear,” teased the young beastman.
“Say.”
“Your sister, the princess, is no longer there,” the wolf’s words unleashed a raging beast.
The boy, who sat crouched, cleaning his fresh wounds, leaped into his legs and turned around. When his eyes locked with the beastboy’s, he looked lethal and maddened, more horrifying than the monster he had slayed in the arena. Red in his irises burnt with glow, seemingly on the verge of dripping blood, and the lean muscles on his bare wounded chest stretched taut with each shaky breath that left his trembling lips.
“Say again,” his growl was low and deep.
A kick landed squarely on his bruised abdomen, swift and without mercy. The teenager flew back from the impact, torn back hit the muddy wall before falling on the dirt floor face first. He coughed red and wheezed for a breath as a claw sunk into his jet-black hair and yanked his head up, nearly dislocating his slender neck.
“Careful, human. It’s not your palace where you are hauled on a golden pedestal. So, watch your tone and attitude,” snarled viciously the young wolf, his clutch tearing and burning the other’s scalp before releasing.
“It’s interesting how your eyes turn bloodier the more you’re beaten,” he amused.
“My sister,” coughed Reyan, shaking his head and trying to dispel the lightheadedness.
“Oh, it seems my words caused some misunderstandings. Your sister is no longer in the abandoned palace because your lunatic imperial grandfather took her in. Lucky, ain’t she?” Whistled the wolf.
The other’s glowing crimson irises glared at the prideful young beastman, causing chilly shivers to run through his spine.
“Ezekiel Crevaria, the cruel, was a dying old man, but somehow he’s healthy and hearty now. A mystery, isn’t it? But, no, no one’s giving a shit about that because there’s even more startling news circulating the markets. A female Callenso has appeared. A month ago, your mad old man barged into the high court with your little sister in his arms and Callenso’s brats in tow. There she was, a little girl with golden eyes, apparently, Amaris Callenso’s bastard.”
“Watch your tongue, wolf. If she really is what you speak of her, then certain words must never be uttered. Shadow beasts adore the rarely-born girls in the family more than their masters. It’s a proven fact,” warned the boy before spitting out the blood and clot.
“We’re in Ruleless Land. But your words are appreciated, human. There is already a man who got his mouth burst open by Amaris Callenso. You’ll like this a lot, aren’t you curious?”
“Hmm, no. From your gleeful wagging tail, I’m sure it’s Efrem Shelon,” a throaty chuckle fell.
“You’re no fun,” spat the beastboy, got up, and turned to leave.
“Neo,” called the teenager.
“Reyan,” halted the other.
“Thank you. And…”
“And what?”
“And, one day, I’ll beat your ass until your ma can’t recognize her pup.”
A knock stirred the silent night. The lad hollowed out the tankard in his hand in a breath and put it down on the desk with a thud, but the book in his other hand still remained upright in a steady grasp, illuminated under the flickering candlelight.
“Come in,” said the heir, wondering if he should deworm these younger brothers of his just in a case.
“Do you know what time it’s now?” His hoarse, not so pleasant to the ears voice asked reprimandingly as the doors opened a gap with a mute creak.
A silence answered, and the teenager raised his head in a jolt.
“Am I unwelcome?” A milky quiver left Seraphina’s lips, and the words jabbed the young man’s heart.
“Why… why are you here?” Asked Ihan, and the book was placed down.
The child stood at the door, hair sticking out like stubborn weeds, delicate brows scrunched up distastefully, golden eyes reflecting the warm glimmer of the almost dying candle, and tiny hands clutched together, fingers entangled.
“Eldest brother, do I cause you discomfort?” She was brutally honest in her interrogation.
The heir left her question cold in the night, stood from behind his magnificent desk, and strode toward the child. He reached the door in a few long and impatient strides, his head lowered, eyes staring at the child straining her neck to match his gaze, and his palm rested for a brief moment on the ajar door before decisively pushing it shut.
Seraphina’s eyes enlarged unblinking and later twinkled.
“Why are you going around barefoot?” Ihan’s voice was gentle as he knelt on one knee in front of the little girl.
“Why are you drinking alone on such a fine night?” She asked back, her eyes bending in crescents.
“Does it smell bad?” the lad chuckled.
“Well, definitely less elegant than wine, but livelier,” sniffed and decreed the child.
“It’s ale, Julia’s masterpiece.”
“Still, do drink less, eldest brother. You are, after all, a child,” Seraphina’s words carried an equal tease and concern.
“I will listen,” the teenager breathed out as the dread of being feared or, even worse, detested by the child was dispelled by the other’s intrepid spirit and blunt tongue.
However, a sudden and uninvited grunt erupted his lips, startling the little girl and shattering the harmony.
“What is it?” She questioned, her brows furrowing.
The heir took deep breaths, veins throbbing glaringly, and his hands clenched, bones ashen, in an effort to fight the beast inside him. Unfortunately, this fight was not faring well for him. The young man sprung to his feet, his intention of fleeing evident in his eyes, and he bypassed his little sister heartlessly.
The moment the breeze birthed by his momentum grazed past the child’s smooth cheek, his hand was held by a tinier and warmer one, freezing him immobile in tension, but he never looked back.
“Don’t go. And don’t try to suppress him, either. Ysir will not hurt me,” her tone was unwavering as her grip.
“He bit you,” Ihan’s voice was husk, growly, and restrained.
“Eldest brother, release him,” she pleaded.
“Ysir could kill you!” His shout was much like a snarl of a beast.
Instantaneously, the hand clutching his loosened and disappeared. A lost feeling of given up on numbed his tightening chest, and his palm landed on the door handle.
“Look at me,” her voice called behind him, but lower and more majestic.
At once, the young heir dropped to his knees, hands clutching at his chest, and the fight was lost as the moment Seraphina’s command fell, Ysir burst out from his shadow in full aggression, tearing apart the restraints formed by its master’s consciousness.
Ihan shut his eyes tight and held his breath as the memory of a little girl lying in a pool of her own blood with barely a breath on her lips inside the forest burnt his mind, and silence sunk. However, he heard neither a child’s screams nor growls of the shadow beast, and the held breath left his slightly trembling lips, and he stood up and turned around.
The candle burnt out, but the moonlight gracing through the windows allowed him to see clearly. Before him sat obedient a little fox with shimmering golden irises and sleek snow-white fur, and coiled around it was a humongous black wolf, its four eyes glistering with contentment, a snout nuzzling the tiny white paws and tail wagging up and down, hitting the carpeted floor.
… Ihan Callenso run his calloused slender fingers through the silky fine fur of the snoozing little fox on his lap. Its ears twitched from time to time, and a purr would rumble through its chest.
“So, what exactly are you, little sister?”
“A nine-tailed fox,” she did not bother hiding the truth.
“Well, do not look like one to me,” Ihan called out the fox.
Hearing her elder brother’s tease, Seraphina pawed the other’s hand away, her stance bright as the day.
“Forgive me,” his chuckle vibrated from his chest.
Laugh, laugh as you like, pouted grumpily Seraphina.
“Then, did you come here to let the cat out of the bag?”
Not quite exactly. The saying, habits are scary things, wasn’t an exaggeration. I used to find your company consoling in my previous life, and today, subconsciously came looking for you, her thoughts were unvoiced.
Be that as it may, Ihan received her quietude yet perceived the disquiet lurking within, and his gaze softened.
“I heard you did not leave your room since returning from the palace today and barely touched your dinner. What upset you? Or should I ask who?” He inquired despite the knowledge.
.
.
.
“Her right hand danced the blaze, and her left sang life. That’s what the tale tells,” Seraphina’s mellow voice echoed inside the shrine.
The shrine was a small round-roofed mausoleum guarding the tomb of the deceased empress, Natalia Heroux, and her statue inside. The tomb was carved and sealed with preservation arrays, and the statue was true to life, vivid, and convincing. Natalia’s body was carved from ivory, draped and donned in dripping gold, and her eyes were embedded with black obsidians, making her appear intriguingly lifelike yet divine. Two tiny birthmarks, each blooming under the empress’s heart-stirring peach blossom eyes, could be identified at a glance.
As the memories of a certain baby girl, who took after her mother like a water droplet, crushed into Seraphina's mind like tidal waves, tender but bitter longing poked her heart.
“They meant her swords. My mother wielded Dawn of Men in her right hand and Lake of Death in her left. Both were shortswords, but Dawn of Men burnt its victims with every slash, whereas Lake of Death dripped with water instead of blood,” a blonde child recalled, her tears dripping on the smooth cold stone of the tomb drop by drop.
“A dual aura wielder, a bender of fire and water,” mumbled Seraphina.
“Red, thank you for bringing me here,” choked the child, suppressing the boiling emotions.
“I heard you could not attend the funeral because you fell ill after receiving the news and were later sent away. Since we came to the imperial palace, we ought to pay your mother a visit. She must have missed you dearly,” the golden-irised girl spoke as she ran her thumb on the other’s plump cheek, wiping the tears.
“What do I do, Red? I don’t want to cry, but the tears keep coming out,” sniffled Aine, her blonde locks falling into her face as she dropped her head in an effort to hide the wetness brewing inside her eyes, and each breath inevitably shaky.
“Sorrow and anger. I know,” Seraphina held her friend’s small hand in her own firmly.
“However, Aine, you are still young. Don’t hate your father too much. There is so much that you cannot see.”
“No! No, Red. Mother is dead, brother is gone, and I am abandoned. What’s there for me to see more? He gave us up! You don’t know how he did not look at me once today. I thought… hoped he would call my name, but he didn’t. He just didn’t, Red. Yet, yet, you knelt to him,” yelled and whimpered the girl, pulling her hand away forcefully.
Feeling the cold air hitting her palm, a sigh left Seraphina’s tender lips, and she rose and shouted,
“Ezekiel!”
The doors of the shrine opened, and the imperial elder walked inside along with the grand duke.
“At least address me as an imperial elder like your brothers do,” the old man grumped.
“She will call you as she sees fit,” Amaris gently patted his daughter’s head, sensing the child’s chippy state.
“Ezekiel, take your granddaughter to her mother’s garden. I think she needs some breather,” said Seraphina.
“Red, what are you doing?”
“Go, Aine, and you will understand why,” she turned to leave.
.
.
.
Ihan patted the little fox’s head.
“I’m amazed that my little sister could see what eyes could not. When I was young, I was also like the princess. I could not understand the regard our father held for his majesty as I believed it was undeserved. Such a mighty man yet bowed to the coward and worthless… However, as I grew older, I realized I was wrong. As a non-aura wielder against a wielder, as the second against the first, and as a man whose deepest yearning was for the mundane yet fulfilling life of a commoner, the courage he mustered to decrown his brother from the seat of the crown prince must have been one of a kind,” Ihan told, his words tranquil.
“And, it was not for greed or ambition. He just wanted to protect the woman he loved,” Seraphina hummed.
“And, Shelons’ support was no longer a choice, but a necessity for survival,” the young man concluded his sister’s sentence and asked,
“However, there is one thing I am curious about. What's in her majesty’s garden?”
“Scorpion grasses. A whole lots of them,” the little fox yawned and coiled.
The young man no longer uttered a word. He carried the sleeping bundle of boneless fur, left his mother's study, and reached the child’s bedroom. He placed the tiny round creature on the center of the bed and hesitated for a moment as to whether to cover the fox with a quilt, fearing his sister would find the heat uncomfortable. After careful consideration, the quilt was dismissed, but his coat, earthly simple for his status, covered the little white.
He left after the one last pet, and on his way to his bedroom, wondered whether that old tyrant knew the other name of scorpion grasses and its signification and meaning. As a purebred northerner, the young heir was more familiar with the name ‘forget-me-not’ instead of ‘scorpion grass’ and cherished the message it conveyed. In the north, the blue blooms of forget-me-nots were often painted on the portraits of their loved ones who left forever as these little clusters the capitols and southerners call wild and ordinary signified remembrance and longing here.
For the emperor to be familiar with this custom and plant a garden full of them proved his vast knowledge and the long hours spent behind books.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
“You survived,” said a boy, a young wolf beastman. “But it seems you won’t for long.”
He looked at the bare back facing him, eyes taking in the thinner and shorter body of the boy and the bleeding wounds and older scabs and scars covering it. It looked wretchedly hideous and lonely, seemingly on the verge of breaking down, but peculiarly gave off certain elements of fear and respect that only men had for men. Both were no longer boys but young men.
“I heard a pantheress, a daughter of the panthers’ clan leader, offered her hand to you, which you declined. Say, Crevaria’s boy, being a male pet would not cost you fights you always trod too close to death. Why refuse? A pride? Or a beastwoman beneath you, the glorious imperial prince?”
“If you are not here for our deal, fuck off,” a growly hoarse voice responded.
“I am a wolf. Of course, I will keep my end of the deal. I bet on your head and you on your kill. And you won. You killed that monster.”
“So, you got the news?”
“I do. But I can’t guarantee it’s one you’d wish to hear,” teased the young beastman.
“Say.”
“Your sister, the princess, is no longer there,” the wolf’s words unleashed a raging beast.
The boy, who sat crouched, cleaning his fresh wounds, leaped into his legs and turned around. When his eyes locked with the beastboy’s, he looked lethal and maddened, more horrifying than the monster he had slayed in the arena. Red in his irises burnt with glow, seemingly on the verge of dripping blood, and the lean muscles on his bare wounded chest stretched taut with each shaky breath that left his trembling lips.
“Say again,” his growl was low and deep.
A kick landed squarely on his bruised abdomen, swift and without mercy. The teenager flew back from the impact, torn back hit the muddy wall before falling on the dirt floor face first. He coughed red and wheezed for a breath as a claw sunk into his jet-black hair and yanked his head up, nearly dislocating his slender neck.
“Careful, human. It’s not your palace where you are hauled on a golden pedestal. So, watch your tone and attitude,” snarled viciously the young wolf, his clutch tearing and burning the other’s scalp before releasing.
“It’s interesting how your eyes turn bloodier the more you’re beaten,” he amused.
“My sister,” coughed Reyan, shaking his head and trying to dispel the lightheadedness.
“Oh, it seems my words caused some misunderstandings. Your sister is no longer in the abandoned palace because your lunatic imperial grandfather took her in. Lucky, ain’t she?” Whistled the wolf.
The other’s glowing crimson irises glared at the prideful young beastman, causing chilly shivers to run through his spine.
“Ezekiel Crevaria, the cruel, was a dying old man, but somehow he’s healthy and hearty now. A mystery, isn’t it? But, no, no one’s giving a shit about that because there’s even more startling news circulating the markets. A female Callenso has appeared. A month ago, your mad old man barged into the high court with your little sister in his arms and Callenso’s brats in tow. There she was, a little girl with golden eyes, apparently, Amaris Callenso’s bastard.”
“Watch your tongue, wolf. If she really is what you speak of her, then certain words must never be uttered. Shadow beasts adore the rarely-born girls in the family more than their masters. It’s a proven fact,” warned the boy before spitting out the blood and clot.
“We’re in Ruleless Land. But your words are appreciated, human. There is already a man who got his mouth burst open by Amaris Callenso. You’ll like this a lot, aren’t you curious?”
“Hmm, no. From your gleeful wagging tail, I’m sure it’s Efrem Shelon,” a throaty chuckle fell.
“You’re no fun,” spat the beastboy, got up, and turned to leave.
“Neo,” called the teenager.
“Reyan,” halted the other.
“Thank you. And…”
“And what?”
“And, one day, I’ll beat your ass until your ma can’t recognize her pup.”
