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)
“Just hug me!” Radek whined as more tears filled his eyes.
Yev choked on the air in his throat but pulled Radek in, and while Radek’s weakness made him uncomfortable, the sense of being the only one capable of offering him comfort gave Yev a sense of peace, as if he had all the necessary tools to deal with this project.
“It’ll be fine.” It was just a phrase, but he meant it.
Radek shivered in his arms, uttering with little sobs, but each subsequent breath he took was calmer, which in turn made Yev relax.
Minutes must have passed, but Radek finally spoke. “You didn’t let me have sugar when I was a fox. Can I have some now? My granddad used to make me this mix when I was little. Just egg yolks and sugar.”
Yev snorted and rubbed away Radek’s tears. “You want me to feed you kogel-mogel? That’s your greatest desire after a whole month in the body of a fox? Pretty low maintenance.”
“You can add a pinch of cinnamon.”
“Haute cuisine,” Yev said and helped Radek put on a hoodie that had soft fluff on the inside. It somehow felt appropriate to cushion him. Radek didn’t protest when Yev zipped him up.
He rummaged through the cabinet, finding a pair of guest slippers that should fit his foxy boy, and with the outfit completed, led Radek to the kitchen.
“You didn’t tell me yet how it happened. How did you end up in the snares?” he asked, even though just thinking about the steel teeth cutting into poor Ember’s flesh made his anger flare.
Radek sighed and leaned his elbows on the table, looking adorable with red hair falling to his shoulders from under the hood. “It’s kinda your fault really,” he said but winked at Yev when he frowned. “The day we had that argument, and I came over with the mouse, and then you said I was being a shit for owning the fox farm… You were right. I’ve never actually been there. My mom wouldn’t let me, and as time passed I was no longer interested. I didn’t visit the place even after my dad died and I technically inherited the business. I think deep down I knew it wouldn’t fill me with joy to see what was going on there.
“So when you pointed it out, I got so angry. I wanted to prove to myself that you were wrong. I drove to the farm and went to see the foxes.” Radek took a deep breath and stopped talking for a moment, teeth digging into his bottom lip. “It’s terrible. They’re trapped and hurting, and then I heard them. I could understand them. When they started screaming all at once, something in me broke, my whole body lost its shape, and there I was. A fox.
“I ran out of the farm before I got caught, and I just wouldn’t stop running. I was so fast, and I knew I’d be safer in the forest. Or at least that was what I thought before I got caught in the snares.” He looked up at Yev. “And then you found me.”
The story kept Yev on edge, because it was crystal clear to him that had he not driven close to the spot where Radek had been entrapped, the boy wouldn’t have survived the night. He’d have died from infection, been murdered by the poachers, or killed by other predators. Either way—a horrific way to die. Alone. In a body that surely hadn’t even felt like his own at the time.
His chest constricted, his throat ached, and his eyes stung, so he faced the egg basket and removed two from the bed of hay. “Yeah. That’s—what do you want to do about the farm?”
The silence was expected. Radek had so far proved himself to be an avoider of issues that didn’t sit well with him.
“I don’t know yet. I can’t keep it, but if I shut it down… it’s not an easy process. Those poor foxes are suffering there. As Ember, I could pretend there’s nothing I could do, but that excuse has gone out the window. I need to act. And I hate it.”
Yev separated the yolks from whites. He added sugar and cinnamon, and switched on the old mixer, which had been in the kitchen when he first arrived here. Making the dessert was so much simpler than dealing with Radek’s emotional issues.
The noise of the mixer was the perfect excuse for neither of them to speak, but it only took a few minutes for the yolks to froth.
“Would you come with me? In case the manager reacts badly? Or if I shift again?”
Yev swallowed, watching his shadow on the tiles above the counter. Wasn’t this the exact spot where they’d fucked last night? He could almost sense the heat of their bodies working together. “You’re the owner, so he shouldn’t ‘react badly’, but yes, I will go with you as moral support,” he said and turned toward Radek with a small smile and a little bowl filled with kogel-mogel.