Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 130955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 437(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 437(@300wpm)
“Ignore him and do your thing. You are the best of us anyway,” he said softly, listening to his brother moving around in the cellar.
He and Olek had never talked about Yev’s transgressions. It was an untouchable topic, and Yev loved his soft-spoken brother too much to provoke him into saying ugly things. So it hung between them like fog neither of them wanted to step into.
Olek came back up the ladder with an empty backpack. “Thanks. What will you do with the fox when it’s healed up?”
Yev instantly wanted to hug Ember more tightly. “Don’t know yet. Why?”
“You know why. Don’t get too attached to him. Dad won’t have that. The wolves wouldn’t like it either.”
It was time to end the conversation before Olek slipped in something more about wolves or decided to shift after all.
“Yeah, well, I’m not coming back yet, so it doesn’t matter. At least I have someone to keep me company,” Yev grumbled.
Any other time, he’d have invited Olek to stay for tea, drinking up stories from their village as if they were mead, but he couldn’t have Ember listen to any of this.
Olek raised his hands. “Fine. Maybe teach him to play cards with you then.”
Ember barked a ‘yes’, but Olek couldn’t know the meaning of the sound as he rushed off without a goodbye.
Yev exhaled and placed Ember on the ground, giving himself time to think as he closed the padlock and then covered the hatch with the hay.
“This needs to be a secret. Understood?” he asked softly, glancing over his shoulder to meet Ember’s gaze.
The fox nodded at him with a ridiculously serious expression. With his family, with the werewolves, Yev could communicate with much more sophistication than this when in wolf form. As long as they looked into each other’s eyes, they could pretty much speak straight to one another’s souls. In comparison, a nodding, barking fox was funny as best, and tragic at worst.
A gay fox at that. Little perv had been spying on him.
Yev scooted down and started rubbing his knuckles under the fox’s chin. “There’s a witch in this forest. I’ll take you to her, and I’m sure she’ll work out this problem of yours.”
Chapter 9 – Radek
Yev had driven them deep into the forest, and once they could no longer move by truck, he placed Radek in a mid-sized backpack and continued on foot, making his way across the black and gray landscape of moderate hills scattered throughout the woods like snow-capped dunes spiked with huge wooden splinters of oak trees.
Radek placed his chin on Yev’s shoulder, so he could look ahead, but he trusted Yev to keep him safe and was overwhelmed by the care this man had given him. He’d tried to communicate for days to no avail because Yev would pick him up mid-scratching letters, and wouldn’t realize what Radek was doing in the first place. Now that Yev knew the truth, Radek was both relieved and nervous. It calmed him to have such a fierce protector despite it being somewhat patronizing. But he wouldn’t dare reveal who he was, because Yev would have kicked him out on his furry face and laughed about the irony of a fox farm owner ending up this way. Even the best men had their limits, and Radek had crossed Yev’s.
The forest went quieter at dawn, only to liven up again once the night shift left their burrows. As a grown man with a rifle in hand, he’d never feared anything out in the wild, but now that he was a tiny animal, being out in nature meant being vulnerable to a number of threats—animal and human alike. The amputated limb would have made him more of a target, as it slowed him down, so he made sure not to venture far away from Yev, even though having to go so close to him was embarrassing as fuck.
His brain stalled and caused him to lean against Yev when something large moved between the trees. His heart beat faster, his fur bristled, muscles filling with adrenaline in preparation to run for his life.
He’d always seen well in the dark, but had no point of reference for the silhouette climbing a mild hill a stone’s throw away. Bipedal and as tall as an elephant, it did not belong in those woods, but the creature moved fast, pushing trees aside as if it knew exactly where it was going. Radek expected the twisted horns on its head to tangle into the branches, but that didn’t happen, and the beast made its way through the dusky forest, paying them as little mind as a giraffe might to ants.
Radek might have shivered, because Yev rubbed his paw with his fingers in a calming gesture. “Don’t be afraid. You’re with me now, but the depths of the forest can be dangerous. Never come here on your own at night,” he whispered as the giant humanoid disappeared from sight.