Radek looked up, unsure what to do, but when Yev petted his back in encouragement, he smelled the food. It was raw, and he’d have never touched it in his human form, but his new body needed nourishment, so he didn’t fight his nature and swallowed piece after piece while the fire crackled behind him like a drummer experimenting with his art.
The meat all but melted on his tongue, and the vegetables tasted sweeter than candy. The new wound was increasingly achy, so whatever painkillers he’d gotten seemed to be wearing off, but he ignored it, intent on satisfying his hunger until pain made him lose appetite.
“Ember,” Yev said when Radek was close to finishing the huge portion of food. “That’s a good one. They’re as red as you.”
Radek cocked his head, sitting back to look up Yev’s insanely long legs, but he didn’t hate it. So he barked following his next swallow, trying to announce his decision. If only his leg didn’t hurt so much. How long would he even stay here? And once he turned human again, because he would, what if his hand—no, impossible. It was the fox body that got injured, not his. And once he became himself again, this foreign body that now felt deceptively as his own, would be only a memory.
Yev chuckled, his voice low and pleasant, like a warm blanket. He rubbed the top of Radek’s head with his finger, repeating the new name several times before rising from the chair and stretching until his back gave a creak. Radek was almost done with his late dinner when Yev pulled off both his T-shirt and sweater at once, revealing a wide chest with muscles bulging under the skin. His pecs and stomach were covered by dense, dark hairs, and if Radek hadn’t been a fox but a very lusty boy, his legs would have opened just about… now.
He should’ve hated Yev for humiliating him earlier, but that terrible afternoon already felt like a lifetime away. Right now, Yev’s presence meant safety and comfort, and Radek shamelessly looked up at his savior. If he was stuck in the skin of a fox, he could at least have that much. He’d had a few older guys show their interest in him before, but many of them acted in a sleazy way that he could sense from a mile away. It wasn’t about them wanting to have sex with him—that would have been fine—but being treated as if he were a childish idiot, too stupid to see through their cumbersome seduction techniques pissed him off. He would not fuck guys who considered him an idiot.
He was quickly realizing that maybe he’d actually like an older man very much. Yev was fit, and Radek would have loved to lay his head on his torso. He was nothing like the guys Radek had dated. Much more rough-looking with the ripped ear and the thick scar on his head, but Radek was surprised to spot a dark dip in the skin of his shoulder, as if there had been a hole there long ago, and the flesh of his left pec, above the nipple, was marked with interconnected dots that resembled teeth marks. Had he been attacked by a vicious dog, and that was where all the scars came from? He’d rather imagine Yev wrestling a bear.
Yev noticed Radek watching him and smiled. “Are you gay, little fox? I’m not your type.”
Radek snorted. Yev had no idea how much his type he was. Maybe that was the worst thing about being trapped in this new body? Never being able to fuck again? Because he would not—ever—fuck an actual fox, no matter what his instincts might say about it.
He limped closer to Yev and cocked his head, waiting to see more of that muscular flesh.
Unaware of the creeper present in his home, Yev tossed off his socks, and let his jeans slide to the floor, directing Radek’s attention to what he hadn’t gotten to see earlier. How big were Yev’s balls? They looked good in the underwear, but he wanted to know whether Yev shaved down there. Who was he kidding? Yev wasn’t the kind of guy who waxed and—
His thoughts came to a halt when Yev walked off to one of the wooden cabinets, presenting a muscular back marked by two sets of claw marks running from his shoulders and ending just above his boxer briefs.
Who was this guy to even have scars like this? An ex-circus performer?
Radek