⚠ Suggestive content ⚠

“Hmph. Warming up now that you’re drunk? Good-for-nothing,” Tianxi huffed, punching him lightly on the shoulder. In response, the boy parted his lips and bared his fangs in a snarl. Nafan couldn’t help but chuckle at the animal-like reaction.

“How long have you been here, Khyriel Kanare?” Nafan asked, speaking carefully as he addressed the boy. “You’re awfully far from home.”

“... You already know too much for my liking, don’t expect me to tell you anything more,” Khyriel said warily. “Strange-looking perverted doctor or whatever.”

“My name is Nafan.”

“Titties, right.” Scoffing, Khyriel drained one more cup and gasped contently.

“Do you work here?” Nafan pressed, wondering how he could get behind the boy’s suspicious walls without getting his head bitten off.

“Why else would I be crawling after the ankles of old men?” Khyriel growled, shooting him a narrowed glare.

“The brat owed me a favor,” Tianxi explained, lifting a hand to the boy’s face. Khyriel immediately covered his nose, but the girl flicked him in the forehead instead and he snapped at her again with an irritated yelp.

“I paid it back to you a long time ago,” Khyriel said indignantly, rubbing the red mark on his head and casting Tianxi a resentful look.

“Yeah, now you only crawl after men because you like it,” Tianxi said with a light laugh. “I’m proud of you, Khyriel. You’ve learned so much from me.”

“So what if I like it, it’s easy money,” Khyriel growled. “Besides, I learned those things by myself –”

“What things?” Nafan interrupted curiously, sensing that they were dragging the conversation further from where he’d like it to be.

Both of them paused and cast him the same, evaluating look. Then Tianxi lifted a hand and patted the upper chest area of her garments, where Nafan kept his coins. She smiled, long lashes fluttering as she leaned suggestively across the table.

“If you cough up one more silver, I can show you.”

Catching her drift, Nafan coughed and averted his gaze, just happening to sweep it towards Khyriel. The boy, drunk, seemed to have lost interest in their conversation and was gazing listlessly into the shadows at the side of the room.

A spark of inspiration passed through his mind.

“… Alright.”

Nafan reached into his garments and pulled one more silver coin loose. He slid it across the table towards Tianxi, but when she put her finger on it, he didn’t let go. Meeting her questioning gaze, he tilted his head at Khyriel. “But I want him.”

Surprise and suspicion glittered through her dark eyes all at once. She leaned back and frowned warily as though recalculating her impression of him.

“… But he’s a man, you know that, right?”

Smiling wanly, Nafan opened his mouth to explain what he’d actually meant – but before he could say anything, Khyriel slammed his finger on the coin and dragged it forcefully away.

“Request accepted!”

A dark grin transformed his previously sullen face as he pocketed the coin and leapt to his feet. “He’s my customer now, right? Hey Tianxi-xi, hurry up and get us a room.”

Pursing her lips, Tianxi got to her feet resignedly.

“Let me take the liquor, too. It’s great.” Cackling, Khyriel grabbed the bottle and trailed off beside the girl, throwing one arm over her shoulder.

“You’re not planning to kill him, are you?” Tianxi said dryly, her voice tinged with dislike now as she glanced back to make sure Nafan was following.

Nafan froze mid-step, but Khyriel waved his hand dismissively.

“Nah, I’ll wait until he’s left the inn. I don’t want to spend another five months lending my ass to repay the damages.”

“Good,” Tianxi muttered, stopping outside a sliding door at the very end of the hall. “This will be your room. Feel free to ask if there is anything else you would like.” She spoke briskly, but when she stepped back and met Nafan’s gaze, her dark eyes narrowed.

“Enjoy your night.”

Offering her a nervous smile, Nafan nodded. They were joking, he cajoled himself. They were joking, right?

 Khyriel didn’t seem to notice his anxiety. The boy had already sprawled himself comfortably on the floor, stretching his limbs across the neatly folded blankets. He was on his belly, still pouring himself liquor, again uncaring of the fact that his robe had climbed dangerously up the length of his pale, lean thighs.

Closing the door quietly behind them, Nafan approached the young man carefully. He lowered himself to his knees in what he hoped was a polite gesture and waited for Khyriel to acknowledge him.

The boy greeted him with an amiable expression and offered him a cup of liquor.

“I didn’t pin you as the type to like men,” Khyriel purred, eyes narrowing in a smirk. “Is that why your mother gave you such a funny name, Titties?”

“It’s Nafan. And it’s Tethys,” Nafan said, accepting the cup. “And I’m not interested in boys. I’m interested in wolves.”

Khyriel tensed. Suddenly aware of the fact that he was two inches away from someone capable of transforming into a beast with fangs and claws, Nafan gulped and tried to steady his shaking hands.

But instead of mauling him to death, the next time Khyriel moved, it was merely to utter a faint laugh.

“Kinky,” he said mildly, draining his cup of liquor and pouring himself another one immediately. “But I don’t think you’d want to be inside a wolf’s ass.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Nafan said with a forlorn smile. So the boy was going to keep up this game… well, there was an easy way to break that.

As Khyriel leaned forward to pour himself a third cup of alcohol, Nafan grabbed him by the wrist. As the young man turned and shot him a wary glare, Nafan took a deep breath and spoke firmly.

“You’re a lycan, aren’t you?”

Again, Khyriel tensed. His blue eyes narrowed and darken, swirling with fear, bitterness, and something too violent for Nafan to understand. An aura began to rise from his stiff shoulders, a billowing sense of danger that rippled through his taut muscles and his trembling lips.

He had been hiding it well, but it was clear, now. The creature in front of Nafan right now was not a harmless pretty-boy, but a deadly beast. If he wanted to, he could eradicate Nafan in a heartbeat. There was nothing stopping him.

Well, nothing except the thumb that Nafan had planted on his wrist – a little bit of pressure away from a critical Chi spot. It wouldn’t save him if Khyriel truly wanted to make him disappear, but it might buy him enough time to scream some last words.

“… What are you talking about?”

Khyriel smiled. The aura billowing around his shoulders faded, and Nafan heard himself sigh in both relief and disappointment as the boy turned away with a dismissive scoff.

“The lycan are dead. They’re ghosts, just like you.”

“But I’m not dead,” Nafan protested.

Annoyance flashed through the boy’s face and he bared his fangs in a snarl. Pulling away, Khyriel fell back on the blankets and glared resentfully at him.

“Who are you, really?”

“I’m a doctor,” Nafan repeated with a wan smile.

“Oh, yeah?” Khyriel bared his fangs in a humorless grin. “Then I’ll tell you, I’m a prostitute and a hire-arm. Nothing more.”

“Those jobs are at quite the opposite ends of the spectrum,” Nafan murmured. He knew he hardly had the right, but he felt his gaze soften in pity as he gazed down at the young man. For a lycan to end up here, doing those kinds of things for mere humans… the poor thing must have gone through so much.

“Not really,” Khyriel said flatly. There wasn’t an ounce of shame or remorse in his cold voice. “I lend my body. Those who hire me can use it for whatever they like – whether it’s to murder their wife or fill me with semen, I’ll do it if they have the money.”

“I have money,” Nafan offered. It didn’t sound like a bad idea, filling him – no, no, bad Nafan! Mentally shaking himself, Nafan took a deep breath and tried again. “I want to see a wolf. How much do you want for that?”

Khyriel sighed, closing his eyes for a moment before turning away and opening them to gaze at the far side of the room. “Wolves are hard to find. It’ll take me a couple days. Do you want it dead or alive?”

“You know what I mean,” Nafan chuckled. “I want to see your –”

“My what?”

He froze. A frigid chill rushed through his body as Nafan realized that somehow, in the past split second, Khyriel had climbed over him. The young man was leaning close, pushing down on his chest with his own and parting his lips against Nafan’s throat, showing off the threatening gleam of his sharp fangs.

Nafan gulped, and as his throat bob, he felt it graze Khyriel’s sharp teeth with a sting. A pang of fear shook his hands and he dropped his cup, but neither of them moved an inch as it tumbled noisily onto the ground amidst a pool of spilled liquor.

“Your… you… you know…”

It was all he could manage. Nafan was impressed that his shaking rasp even sounded like words.

Khyriel’s eyes narrowed, glinting a vivid blue as he snarled.

“Why do you need proof? You already seem so sure of yourself.”

“I… I’m not –” Nafan broke off with a faint huff as the young man shifted against him, soft thighs brushing against his coarse cotton tunics. He blinked several times, struggling to keep his vision straight as Khyriel’s pale face rippled in and out of focus. The sweet scent of the perfumed room was suffocating his senses, and he was starting to feel light-headed from the liquor. It billowed onto his tongue and filled his mouth with a ghostly trace of its bitterness as Khyriel leaned closer and whispered against his lips.

“Let’s say I’m what you think I am. What then?”

It several more tries to sound coherent this time. Strange tingles wreaked his body every time Khyriel’s fangs grazed his skin, and though Nafan had thought it was fear, now he wasn’t so sure.

“I… I don’t know…”

A warm gust of air blew onto his tongue – a scoff. Khyriel’s shadow fell over him and Nafan flinched instinctively, squeezing his eyes shut as he waited for his life to end.

Cool arms slid around his shoulders and twined back behind his head. Fingers brushed through his curly hair, and the jaws of the beast clamped down on his throat.

But it kept going… sliding lower, following the contours of his collarbone into his shoulders and pushing his robes away.

Oh, huh? Wait. Wait, wait –

A distinct rush of alarm flew through his limbs, giving Nafan control of his body for a brief moment. He opened his eyes and put a hand on the young man’s chest – but that was all.

Then, the vibrant deep blue of Khyriel’s irises flooded his senses like a pool of spilt ink, blotting out every inch of his conscience.

The last thing Nafan remembered of that night was his palms grazing warm skin, and the sharp sting of pain against his lips.