Where Foxes Hunt with Wolves - K.A. Merikan Page 0,111

and blood sobered Yev just as Burian shot out of the bushes, his eyes almost as red as the stains on his muzzle.

He got cold, then hot as he glanced at Ember and saw the blood matting his fur around the torn flesh. Holding the boy to his chest, he stepped forward and roared. The mountains cried out with him, and Burian froze, his large wolf body sinking lower.

They eyed each other for long seconds, but as Olek dashed into the clearing as well, Burian was already shifting. Ember whimpered, hugging him with those tiny paws Yev would sometimes kiss all over.

“Hand him over, Yev. What the fuck is this? I can still smell your seed on him!” Burian snarled, his nakedness making him no less menacing. Scars of all the battles he’d fought in the past marked his muscular, stocky form, but Yev had authored some of them, and he would not be intimidated, even though his secret had been discovered. With the truth laid bare, his mind rushed, not knowing where to turn to minimize the damage.

Still, in this tense moment, facing against his two brothers, he could not ignore the frantic shivers shaking his lover and pulled the small, furry body up, quickly licking the fresh wounds in a bid to accelerate healing.

Burian stepped back, his neck tensing as if the tendons there were about to break through skin. Olek kept to the background and didn’t make any attempts to cool their tempers like he usually would.

“You traitor! I told you to get rid of him, and you claimed it was done! What is this creature, huh?” Burian growled.

Radek’s blood tasted different in this form, but it was still sweet on Yev’s tongue, and he wouldn’t answer Burian until he was sure the boy didn't needlessly suffer because of the bites. He must have shifted after the attack, because if Burian had closed his jaws on the fox leg, the bone would have broken into tiny pieces.

Spreading his saliva over the punctures, Yev stared back. Because he would not flinch. Not because of Burian’s disapproval.

“That’s how it is?” Burian stepped closer with fire in his eyes, his neck stiff like a tree trunk. “I’m gonna rip that ginger bitch to pieces, so no need to heal him.”

Olek whined and closed his muzzle on Burian’s wrist, trying to pull him back, but only got a smack for it.

Yev gritted his teeth, his chest breeding fire he was about to unleash at the bastard who’d driven Radek to a frantic run. Who’d made him bleed.

“No. You will not,” he said through his teeth and gently placed Radek on the wooden bench by the door. But when Burian shifted his weight, trying to keep the boy in sight, Yev moved too, blocking the view.

Vapor left Burian’s mouth with each agitated huff. “The banishment was supposed to be a lesson. Someone else would have been put down for your transgressions, but Dad went soft on you and this is how you repay him? Keeping such secrets from the pack? If there are… werefoxes around or whatever he is, we should have been informed. And you sure as hell shouldn’t be fucking him. He saw the shed in the woods, and I told you to get rid of him!”

Olek whined, looking over at Yev with a hurt expression that revealed he remembered meeting Ember before, when he’d come over to deliver a fresh transport of pot. Yev sweated despite the cold when he realized his younger brother now knew the ‘fox’ that accompanied them to the hidden cellar had a human mind and understood what had happened.

Was he angry too? No, the lowered ears spoke of hurt, and seeing Olek, who’d always been more accepting of Yev than Burian, realizing he’d been betrayed was like having an icicle stabbed into his heart.

Yev would have tried to apologize and explain himself, but he could not do it when Burian was here, out for blood.

“It was an accident. He does not deserve to die for it.”

Endless seconds passed as they eyed each other, but then Burian jumped forward, shifting mid-air with a snarl and bared teeth ready to make red fur fly. Yev unleashed his beast too and shot up, squeezing his teeth on his brother’s throat the moment his clothes ripped at the seams.

The useless fabric fell to the ground, and Yev twisted in the air just before they hit the hardened snow. A hollow growl escaped Burian as Yev’s weight descended on