Where Foxes Hunt with Wolves - K.A. Merikan Page 0,149
were a piece of meat to cook for her next meal.
“I’m okay!” Radek yelled from inside, his voice resonating in the metal container while Yev tried to wrap his head around it all.
The witch pulled out a stick of chalk from a colorful box decorated with characters from the latest kids’ blockbuster and started inscribing the cauldron with symbols Yev didn’t recognize. He didn’t trust her, but he did trust that his parents wouldn’t have gone behind his back to secretly murder Radek in a pretend accident, even if they personally disagreed with his choice of mate. They were honorable.
He still flinched at her touch, but when both Mother and Father took him by the arms, as if sensing his worries, he breathed in the herby steam and smoke, and looked into the sky. The stars had the color of Radek’s hair, and Yev smiled at them, drunk on the sudden sense that from this night on, their lives would be tied together.
They could have a forever.
He froze when the witch approached him with a wooden cup that emitted green smoke, but he’d already decided to trust her and opened his mouth to drink. The elixir wasn’t a liquid at all. Like vapor, it passed into his stomach barely touching his tongue and throat, but once she pushed his jaw up, closing his mouth, his entire body trembled, burning.
Within moments, his flesh heated and covered in sweat, as if he were feverish and on the verge of crossing the threshold between survival and death.
“Um? The water’s rising. Is this okay?” Radek asked from inside the cauldron, sounding so worried Yev wanted to rip the lid off and pull him out.
His body worked on its own accord, guided by invisible hands, and he placed both his palms on the warm lid, trapping Radek.
The chanting began.
His gaze blurred as nausea rose to his throat, but he felt so weak he couldn’t even focus on what he’d intended seconds ago. Three silhouettes started circling him in slow, dance-like steps, but to his hazy mind, they were shadows with large, glinting teeth like those of a werewolf. He couldn’t recognize a word of what they were saying, nor move an inch from where he stood, as if his fingers were stuck to the metal and he’d be ripping his skin off if he tried to pull away.
Radek went quiet, and while Yev trembled with worry, he shut his eyes and pressed his cheek to the hot cover, listening to the loud, forceful beating of Radek’s heart echoing inside. Or was it the rhythm of his own? He couldn’t differentiate them anymore.
The chants came to an abrupt stop, and it was as if they’d been what made him so weak in the first place. Adrenaline flooded his bloodstream, and when he realized he could no longer hear his lover at all, he ripped the lid off. He threw it to the grass before dipping his hands into the red liquid inside. The vapor was gone. The soup had the color of blood, and he could only breathe again once he touched smooth skin.
Radek gasped for air as his face emerged, his skin covered by the sticky potion that smelled like the delicious blood of a fresh kill on a full moon. The thick liquid covered pale skin as if he’d crawled out of a newly gutted carcass, but when he opened his eyes, they were as golden as ever.
Yev had never felt such an overwhelming need to sink his teeth into Radek’s meat. Taste him. Caress him. Mark him.
Make him surrender to the mating bite.
The freckled cheek looked juicy as an apple, and Yev let out a growl, leaning in to lap the tasteless goo off the deliciously smooth skin. And he discovered something.
Yev had always been enticed by Radek’s scent, but the boy was now a blank canvas. His body had no odor, as if he were a ghost standing in front of him, not a living breathing man. If they connected now, Radek would become his lifelong mate.
He could feel it.
A growl escaped his mouth. He hadn’t realized when his teeth had grown, but his canine cut his lip as he reached into the cauldron and pulled Radek’s body close, itching to make it his. To make him his.
The witch started another chant, and when Yev’s parents joined in, the scalding heat inside Yev flashed from the tips of his toes to his brain and made him lose balance.