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)
All his muscles softened, relaxed, and while there were shivers rushing up and down his back, it was more like a full-body purr than something to be afraid of. The covers rolled against Radek’s body as he stretched with pleasure, curling his toes as heat flashed through his body. He only opened his eyes when Yev’s hand froze, refusing to give him any more pets.
He made a needy whimper and smiled, but when his gaze met Yev’s, he knew what happened. The bed wasn’t gigantic anymore, and his skin had no fur. Or clothes for that matter.
He was bare.
“Hi?” Radek uttered, his voice rusty, as if he’d forgotten how to speak.
Yev shook his head, pulling back as if he’d been struck. “Why? I asked you who you were!” he said, taking shallow breaths.
Radek whined, far too used to making that sound now. “Because we got off on the wrong foot, and… I’m sorry, I was scared how you’d react.” He reached for Yev’s hand but gripped at air. Which made no sense, because Yev’s fingers were right there.
His stomach plummeted. It wasn’t Yev’s hand that was missing, but his own. His forearm ended mid-way with a healed stump, and for a moment Radek couldn’t believe what he was looking at.
Then, he screamed at the top of his lungs, waving the arm around as if that could help the truth from sinking in faster.
“Shit,” Yev uttered, rising off the bed. “Calm down. You’re all right. You need to breathe,” he said but didn’t try to come any closer.
“No! No! This can’t be happening to me! It’s my right fucking hand!” Radek cried, not even caring that he was naked, because what the fuck did that matter in the grand scheme of things? He’d calmed down about the amputation because he’d been sure it only happened to the fox. But what was he to do now?
Yev licked his lips, pale as the sheets had been before Radek’s sabotage. “You’re in shock. Please, sit down.”
Radek couldn’t breathe, and his aching throat turned his inhales into wheezing. This was not his life, not his body. He, Radek, the human, never got caught in snares.
An uncontrollable shudder rocked his body as Yev’s face blurred in front of him. Then, he dropped to the floor with a whimper.
It took him half a second this time to understand he was a fox again. All the furniture was massive, as was Yev, but this time Radek didn’t feel like settling into cuddles. He was terrified of the repercussions of Yev finding out who he was, and freaked the fuck out that the things that had happened to his fox body had real-life repercussions on who he was as a human.
Afraid of what Yev would do, he dashed between his legs and down the stairs.
“Ember!” Yev called out after him, but Radek’s mind was on high alert and insisted he ran, ran, ran. He gave a useless whine when his small body collided with the locked door, but once Yev’s footsteps echoed on the staircase, Radek dashed to the kitchen, and then behind the washing machine, into the dust and cobwebs stretching between the cables and tubes.
In the darkness of his hideout, he curled up and wished the truth away, but his heart beat so loudly he feared Yev might track him down if he followed that noise.
“Ember, come on! Where are you?” Yev called out from the living room, moving some furniture.
Radek had to bite back a whine, shattered to the core by the foul perspectives offered by the brief glimpse into his future. He had no idea what would happen to him now, and he couldn’t have felt tinier and more insignificant. His carefree existence had come to an abrupt end when life had catapulted him into a wall, leaving him as fragments of who he used to be. No matter how good it had felt to be Yev’s pet, he wasn’t really a fox, but he didn’t want to be the boy with no hand either.
He froze when Yev came into the kitchen, closing in on him, silent as a predator looking for his lunch. Radek longed to cry and feel tears roll down his face, but he was a fox now, and sorrow did not work that way.
“Come out of there, please.”
Radek expressed himself the only way he knew how. He whimpered, again, and again, in hope it would communicate how sorry he was, and how much he regretted some of the things he’d done in the past. How he wished this wasn’t his reality.
The gentle roll of a familiar palm down his back made him stiffen, but must have pushed his long arm in there and was now petting his back over and over. “I’m sorry. Ember, please, come out. Do you want to watch TV?”