“Ah… um… sir…”

A timid, female voice pulled Nafan out of his reverie. Lifting his head with a start, he found the girl with white robes in front of him, leaning forward with a tentative smile.

“I can show you to your room, and to the baths. Would you like to follow me?”

“Would I?” The slightly teasing words slipped out of his lips before he could stop himself. Out of the corner of his eye, Nafan saw Khyriel – who was bent over the table of three men – shoot him a brief, dark look, and he quickly berated himself for instinctively flirting with the owner’s daughter. He had a feeling that it wouldn’t put him in Khyriel’s good books. Clearing his throat, Nafan straightened and gestured for the girl to lead the way. “Yes, yes I would,” he repeated in a more matter-of-fact tone.

“Of course. This way, please.” She turned and gestured politely for him to follow.

They brushed past a flap of fabric and entered a narrow corridor lined with wood-paneled doors. She paused at one of them, the fifth one on the right, and pulled open the door to show him the interior.

“This will be your room tonight, sir,” she said, making a rather elaborate gesture with her hands.

It was about what he’d expected – nothing fancy, just a simple room with some lucky ornaments, chairs set around a small round table, and a traditional woven rope bed with plain blankets. But at the sight of her sparkling, expectant gaze, Nafan felt the need to praise it.

“It’s lovely.”

The girl’s smile broadened, her cheeks turning pink and all but gushing joy as she stood there staring up at him with starry eyes. Enjoying the warmth of her attention, Nafan smiled back for a long while before remembering that Khyriel was nearby – he didn’t want the lycan to catch them like this and get the wrong idea.

Turning away, Nafan laughed brashly. “Ah, it’s so clean, I feel like I need to bathe first before stepping inside, or I’ll get it filthy!”

Without thinking, he set off down the hall to where he assumed the baths were.

“Oh –” Seconds later, he heard the quick pattering of footsteps and the girl caught up to him, accompanied by a small rush of sweet-smelling wind. Nafan felt his gut clench a little as her soft robes brushed past his arm.

Ugh… he tried his best, but at the end of the day, he was just an ordinary young man, too. Nafan really wasn’t good at passing trials like this.

At the very end of the hall, there were two doors on either side leading to the respective baths. Nafan could hear chattering from both ends, and after pointing out which one was for males, the girl handed him a towel and bowed her head.

“I have to return to help my father serve the other guests,” she said, sounding a little reluctant but straightening with a bright, almost hopeful-looking smile. “If you need anything later tonight, please come find me.”

“Of course. Thank you,” Nafan gave her a grateful smile, but he sighed inwardly in relief when she left. Most people treated him like an outcast or an omen of bad luck, but women, he noticed, tended to flock to him with exaggerated affection. He didn’t really understand it, but Nafan was grateful for any kind of friendly encounter – normally, anyway. That last incident in his previous town had left him a little wary of women.

Shaking himself, Nafan stripped and wrapped his belongings safely within the folds of his clothes. Then, ignoring the curious and alarmed stares being thrown his way, he picked the least crowded tub and climbed into the water.

He found with delight that it was still pleasantly warm – they must have heated it recently. Content, Nafan leaned back and let himself soak for a couple minutes, finally relaxed enough to start untangling the thoughts that had been bothering him all day.

The lycan… Khyriel had said that they weren’t ‘supposed’ to exist anymore. What did that mean?

Ten years ago, he’d been told that the two lycan clans had killed each other in a brutal war. It hadn’t made any sense to him. The Raoul and the Sreki, although not particularly friendly or close with each other, had never engaged in any large-scale conflicts before, either. The two clans had completely different interests – the Raoul, more human-like, were comfortable living near the border of Qin, staying in houses and living almost like humans. The Sreki were basically wolves, and lived in stone dens and burrows. Their hunting grounds were well separated by the Yellow River, and they didn’t even hunt the same things at the same time – the Raoul hunted in the daytime, in the lush forests of their territory, and the Sreki at night, along the grassy plains of theirs. There really was nothing to fight over.

His mother had told him that Raoul and Sreki were once brother and sister, and the first lycan to settle in the Middle Country. She’d said that the lycan’s ancestors lived in the West, where she was from. There were beasts there who also had wolf-like forms, but were unable to control their transformation – they were human until the spiritual power of the moon stimulated their beast spirit, forcing their other form to become dominant. A human girl from the Middle Country had travelled once to the West, and unknowingly fallen in love with one of those beasts. When she found out his true form, she became scared, and escaped back to the Middle Country – only to find that she was pregnant. After giving birth to twins, the girl abandoned them by the Yellow River, afraid that they would also be beasts like their father. However, the siblings were picked up by a pack of wolves.

Sreki, the younger sister, had grown up resentful of her mother and thus hated humans. However, Raoul was fascinated by them, and wanted to prove that even as beasts, they could be refined and civilized. Unlike their father, the siblings had the ability to change forms at will. Eventually, Sreki and Raoul established packs of their own, and from there the two clans were created. In the lycan culture, the siblings were seen as deities, but Nafan’s mother had said that they were real, and that their lore was actual history.

Killing each other to the point of extinction made no sense – but nothing else made sense, either. As far as he knew, there were only several things in the Middle Country powerful enough to confront the lycan. There were maybe one or two human sorcerers, and a handful of… things, like demons and spirits, that Nafan didn’t know much about. And that was only true for a small pack – not two whole clans.

And then there was the fact that Khyriel was alive in the first place. Although he couldn’t be sure, Nafan remembered that the wolf he’d rescued as a child had also been black with one white ear. Back then, he’d found the young beast lying on the outskirts of the Raoul territory, fur soaked in river water and blood, with multiple broken bones and a nearly completely shattered right front paw. Its chances for survival hadn’t been high, and left alone it definitely wouldn’t have made it. When he’d returned after scavenging more medicine to find it gone, Nafan had been devastated. He thought for sure that the beast wouldn’t survive alone, but it looked like he had been wrong.

Was… Khyriel alive because of him?

The thought made him happy, but it also weighed heavily on his chest. Khyriel must have suffered through the Lycan war as a pup… he must have witnessed the massacre of his entire species.

Did he also know what had happened, then…? Did he know the truth?

Nafan wanted to know more than anything, but he fought against the naïve desire. He and Khyriel were still barely more than strangers. That wasn’t the kind of question he could just casually raise.

Drained from all of his deep thinking, Nafan sighed and pulled himself back to the present. He scrubbed, washed, then stepped out and stumbled away from the stares.

He was tired, but it felt too early to retire to his room. He didn’t really feel like lying awake in bed, drowning in the many questions still squirming in his mind. Instead, Nafan paused by his quarters to change back into his inner tunic and pants, then headed back out towards the dining area.

Khyriel wasn’t there – he glanced around a couple times, searching some of the denser crowds for the boy’s tell-tale hair and outfit, but he couldn’t find him. The owner was still at the counter, now very merry-faced and chatting heartily with a group of elderly men and their daughters. Nafan had been wanting to go over and chat with Da Shan, thinking that he’d have a chance to weed out some more information about Khyriel, but the seats looked full. Instead, he quickly caught the eye of the owner’s daughter and jerked his head briefly at an inconspicuous table.

Her face lit up in a smile, then she turned back to her customer hastily. Meanwhile, Nafan took a seat, and it wasn’t long until he caught the whiff of her sweet scent nearby.

“Was the bath to your liking, sir?” she asked shyly, hugging her drink tray over her chest as she paused in front of his table.

“It was,” Nafan smiled, leaning back in his chair in an attempt to relax. “I feel like having a drink. I’ll have whatever you recommend.”

“As you wish, sir.” She flushed for some reason, then turned away with a small prance in her step.

Thinking unconsciously of Khyriel, Nafan scanned the room again and noticed that the trio of men from earlier were also gone. That meant they were probably in a room somewhere… but wasn’t Khyriel a male? And a lycan, on top of that. He didn’t think he could imagine the boy allowing himself to be pushed down by a mere human… although, as Nafan fleetingly let himself think about it, his conscience was smashed by a sudden vivid image.

He saw the boy, skin flushed, glowing in the dim lamplight and slick with fluid… lying on rumpled sheets. Khyriel was gazing up at him through long, dark lashes, his blue irises closing in a thick, hazy blink as slowly his red tongue flickered past his pink lips to lick up the white fluid slicked over the corner of his mouth.

Whoah.

Nafan pulled himself out of his imagination with a jolt of shock. What the… why did it linger so clearly in his head? He’d slept with lots of women – he was notoriously bad at saying no – but he’d never been approached by a man before. So why, all of a sudden, was he sitting here imagining the scruffy non-human male nestled in his bedsheets, especially when there was already a pretty girl flirting with him?

Disoriented, Nafan rested his chin in his hand and stared blankly ahead. When the owner’s daughter returned, she came up and handed him a large jug of pale liquor with a rather tentative smile.

“Is everything alright? You look troubled,” she said quietly.

“You’re just as sharp as your father, huh,” Nafan mused, grabbing the drink in relief and taking a deep sip. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl fidget and glance a couple times at the chair on the other side of the table. She clearly wanted him to invite her to sit… Nafan thought about it, but again, he hesitated. Both the owner and Khyriel had made it pretty clear that she was off-limits.

“This is really good.” He lifted his cup and grinned at her. “Thank you. You should recommend this to the other customers too!”

“Oh… yes, I suppose so.” Disappointment flashed through her eyes, but at least she got the message. Pulling her drink tray closer to her chest, the girl mustered a polite smile that didn’t quite reach her eye. “Let me know if you need anything else. I’ll be right there.”

“Of course.” Swarmed with guilt – he really wasn’t good at saying no – Nafan risked throwing one last comment at her retreating back. “You’re very beautiful!”

She paused, glanced back at him in surprise, then giggled and continued leaving with a slight skip in her step.

Relieved, Nafan sighed wearily and took another sip of his drink. It was strong, and he grimaced as the alcohol burned through his face.

The performers had switched out, and it was now two women playing pipa and chi. The song was slow and had a whimsical, almost drowsy tune. Feeling listless, Nafan watched them through half-lidded eyes and drank slowly, acutely aware of a gradual sluggish weight descending upon his body.

He drank through three different performances, but the owner’s daughter only had to refill his drink once. The liquor was too sharp and bitter to his taste, and Nafan wasn’t even sure if he was sober or not after he finished the second cup. While his head did have a definite spin to it, he was also in too serious a mood to feel particularly drunk. In the end, it was just like having a constant, dull headache – eventually, even the cheerful noise and the stuffy warmth of the inn became irritating to him, and Nafan rose to his feet with a defeated sigh.

Across the room, the innkeeper’s daughter somehow managed to catch his eye. She straightened from the table she’d been serving and tilted her head slightly, dark eyes turning round in a sort of curious concern. Nafan managed to smile and unstrung a couple coins to place on the table as tips for her – then he turned his back and brushed through the fabric curtains into the much quieter hallways with a weary sigh.

As he took the first couple steps towards his room, Nafan felt a sharp sting flash across his chest. He paused, hand flashing instinctively over the left side of his chest with a wince – but the pain disappeared quickly, and he set off again with a disgruntled huff. Right… tomorrow, he’d have to look around and see what he could buy from the local doctor. He also needed a hat, and that blanket that he’d promised himself…

Maybe I’ll just stay another night, Nafan thought, deeply concentrated now as he argued with himself about wasting money versus getting what he wanted. Really, it depended on how fast he could find everything that he needed… and also if Khyriel was willing to stay another day, he guessed. His thoughts had been constantly flickering back to the lycan this entire night. The creature was so mysterious and fascinating to him that he had a hard time thinking about anything else.

Just as Nafan was pondering his apparent obsession over Khyriel, he passed the door adjacent to his own room and heard a sudden cry. Instinctively, he stopped, staring straight ahead with his eyes suddenly wide awake as he heard the voice again. It was coy, but it was male… and really familiar. When he heard it the third time, followed by a couple gasping pants, Nafan realized with a sharp jolt that it was a voice that knew.