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)
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Yev cleared his throat, irritated that the blanket was slowly coming undone around his hips. The pajama pants should be dry enough to wear. “Break eggs into a bowl. I’ll have five. Be back in a minute,” he said and walked—or rather ran—past Radek, back to the pantry where the thin pants hung off the large chest freezer. He pulled them on, scowling at the cold hems irritating his skin again. How was he to deal with this? Radek wasn’t a werewolf. He couldn’t be told to run it off and come back once he was done sulking.
An egg shell broke, and the crack was followed by whispered swearing.
Yev swallowed and rested his hands on the freezer, letting his mind race. He couldn’t let Radek stay. Even the moonshrooms wouldn’t completely suppress his true nature when the Moon-Eyed God looked down on the mountains, so the only solution was to block all windows and stay indoors, out of the moon’s sight. But could he ignore his instincts with Radek so close?
Another egg breaking. More swearing.
This boy didn’t know how to crack eggs, so how was Yev to toss him out into a reality he didn’t grasp?
“I’ll do it,” Yev said, entering the kitchen.
“I got it!” Radek groaned, fishing out shell fragments out of the bowl, and Yev stood still, realizing why something as basic as cracking eggs proved difficult for Radek. He only had one hand now.
Ice hardened the contents of Yev’s stomach as he saw the boy hit the egg against the wooden counter, and then crush it once he tried to split it over the bowl. Shit.
He really should convince Radek to go home. “Your mom... she could help you with things like this until you relearn them. And you might need some kind of exercise too. And what about a prosthesis?” he tried as he opened the bread basket and pulled out the sourdough he bought from one of the local ladies who baked it at home.
Radek stilled. “I don’t want her help. I don’t wanna think about it, okay? A disabled fox is cute, an amputee gay dude is a curiosity at best. Fuck.”
Yev bit his lip, watching him in silence. What the fuck was he to say?
“You can overcome this. People live without limbs. It’s all a question of determination. It sucks now, but you will learn.”
Radek frowned and stepped away from the table “Oh yeah? Will it grow back if I’m determined enough?”
“That’s not what I said. But God throws stuff at us, and we just need to bear with it. That’s how life works.”
Oh, how much easier his life would have been if he were like everyone else. If women smelled like snacks, not flowers, and if men—men like Radek—weren’t so damn tempting. Yet he was the way he was, because no one would be sorry for him anyway.
“Thanks for the pep talk, Dad. Now can you do the eggs, because I’m clearly failing at making food?” Radek shook his head, hiding his face in the ginger cascades.
“What’s with that attitude? I’m trying to help. Feeling sorry for yourself won’t help you,” Yev said, taking over the breakfast-making duties.
Radek curled his fingers against the counter. “I just… I thought I’d be fine in the human form. That everything would go back to normal.”
Yev exhaled, cracking the eggs one after another in a well-practiced motion while he kept Radek at the edge of his vision. “You will get used to it. Humans are… surprisingly resilient. I suppose the same goes for fox changelings,” he said, trying to smile as he added salt, pepper, and started whisking the eggs. A good breakfast couldn’t fix Radek’s arm, but it would make him feel better in the moment.
And he still needed to think how to get rid of him tonight. The scent he carried, sweet yet almost meaty, would only sharpen once the full moon was up. Even the salty scent of tears was weirdly appetizing.
Radek rubbed his face again and again, shoulders trembling. Yev couldn’t help but reimagine him as Ember sulking in a corner. “We don’t need to talk about it. Tell me about the werewolf stuff, about the shifting. How do you control it?”
Yev hummed and dropped a large chunk of butter into the pan before starting the fire underneath. Once again, he was confronted with the fact that his urge to take care of the boy was in direct opposition with the interests of his people. They’d survived thanks to secrecy. What a damn conundrum.
“It’s hard to explain. For me, it was a normal thing. All the men in the village could turn, and now it’s as easy as snapping my fingers. Though it gets harder as the werewolves grow older.”
His younger brother, Olek, had once suggested it could be linked to lifestyle and dropping testosterone levels, but nobody had taken him seriously, and Yev himself wasn’t sure how he felt about problems with transformation being likened to erectile dysfunction but it was… well, a theory.