Where Foxes Hunt with Wolves - K.A. Merikan Page 0,78

closer, so his shoulder nudged Radek’s. There was just one other person in the waiting area, but this was Sanok, and he didn’t want to start gossip. “What if you do? What if you turn into a big, bad fox man each full moon?”

Radek’s face scrunched, and his lip trembled. He gently pushed Yev away. “It’s not funny. Is that how you turn others?”

Yev shook his head, curling his toes in his boots, and when the other vet in the practice called in their only company, he let his hand slide down Radek’s forearm, until the touch of the warm, slender fingers shot a jolt of electricity up Yev’s arm.

“That’s a myth. We breed like any other species. Though we do live in isolated pockets and occasionally meet up with other groups to mingle and get fresh blood into the pack.”

He shook his head as nostalgia passed over him, like his grandmother’s shawl used to when he played with it as a kid. The last of those meetups, with a pack from Finland, had been a complete disaster for him. He’d rejected a woman Father had kept pushing at him and caused a minor scandal. Just fantastic.

Radek slotted his fingers between Yev’s, making him realize that he’d never held another man’s hand this way outside of sex. “So there’s… lady werewolves?” At least his foot stopped tapping.

Yev nodded. “Yes, but only men turn. The women, they get… I’d say more animalistic on the full moon, but they don’t transform. And there’s less of them, so every girl born into a family is a cause for celebration.”

Which made Yev’s refusal to take a wife when she was offered to him even more of an insult to everyone involved. “And then, some werewolves can have children with human women too, but choosing one as a mate is a risk, because conceiving a child might prove difficult. My brother is in this kind of situation. Maybe that’s why he’s always so angry.”

Radek squeezed Yev’s hand and pressed his cheek to Yev’s shoulder. “If there’s more male werewolves overall, it shouldn’t be such a problem that you want a man. Less competition for everyone else?”

Yev exhaled, rubbing the middle of Radek’s hand with his thumb as he glanced into the golden eyes, which shone with curiosity. “It’s not that simple. Our population is dwindling, and it’s always been small. We need to breed, or we won’t survive. And werewolves like me… the strongest, largest of us… it’s imperative that we have offspring.”

No one had ever listened to Yev with so much attention. He would never have dreamed of sharing these secrets with a human lover, and now here he was, with a beautiful boy who could just maybe truly understand all of him. And he wasn’t allowed to keep that boy.

But he was getting ahead of himself. Would Radek want to be kept in the first place? And why consider this at all if it couldn't happen? A man could not mate with another male.

The smartass grin Yev knew so well was back on Radek’s face. “Ooh… the strongest, you say?”

Yev shrugged, leaning closer without thinking. “What can I say? Good genes. Maybe you can see me in my moon form one day?”

“Would that be dangerous to me?” Radek asked, but wouldn’t even blink, all of his attention on Yev. Few things felt better than this. Maybe knotting that tight freckly ass came close.

It had only happened once so far, but Yev felt as if Radek somehow belonged to him now, as if they had bonded in some mystical way werewolves only could with the mates who allowed it.

“It depends. I’ve never been around a man I liked on a full moon before,” Yev said, and a flush crept up his neck when he realized what he’d said.

“Would have been risky for someone to see those claws and canines? But if you get even bigger and badder in your full shifted form, I don’t know if I can take that kind of dick.” Radek laughed, but tapped his foot against the floor again.

Was this conversation making him nervous?

Yev swallowed and pulled on Radek’s hand so he could hold it in both of his, gently kneading. Warm shivers ran up and down his body, trying to fool his brain into thinking they were like any other werewolf-non-werewolf couple, and the same rules applied. “I never heard of a werewolf hurting his mate on the full moon. But I hear that a lot of action takes