The room’s tension dropped a rung on the ladder but didn’t hit the floor. Nikolai rolled his shoulders with a crack, enduring the slow, throbbing pain. The itch kept humming through the bandages.
"Lucky or stupid?" Ursa mumbled when watching the boy, half smiling.
"Both!" Nikolai smiled back.
Mila pressed a small silver ampoule into his palm. "Break this and rub it into the wound when you get ho to get rid of the itch, but know it slls horrible. But it works!"
He slipped it into his pocket, then used his item ring to store it safely. "Thanks."
"Don’t thank , thank my darling." She then pointed to the night’s scoreboard. "I bet a huge amount of fruit on you and won." Mila made a victory sign before falling back onto the sofa beside Ursa.
"Fruit?"
"Hefty fruit," Bear said solemnly. "The expensive, smug kind."
Fruit. Another code word for cash in this Arena to keep the people outside from noticing the amounts carried was different types of fruit for money.
Banana - 1,000,000,
Waterlon - 500,000
Grapefruit - 50,000
Strawberry - 10,000
"I see..."
Nikolai snorted and realised he had given himself away by referring to the money as normal. He’d bet two waterlons on the first fight, and for this battle, he bet A good Banana and ca away with a whole bunch of them.
He sat down and took another full bottle of the expensive whiskey, sloshed it around and then put the lip to his.
It tastes like her...
His thoughts were vague as he downed the entire bottle, the burning caral taste helping his mind to forget the woman who tried to kill him.
Madoka, the woman from the SSS, was interesting because she could turn into a weretiger.
The alcohol finally began to affect his mind, sothing nostalgic he rarely got to enjoy since awakening. He didn’t want softness in his mouth. He wanted the underpass—the rain. The sound a porcelain mask makes right before it cracks.
"Black Bear, Ursa. I’m heading out for now, thank you." Nikolai’s slurred words almost passed as him being fine, but the Bear’s lips curled into a deep smirk before he began to bellow, his huge belly wobbling.
"Take care kid, that woman won’t let you go easily."
"Ah... well she’s destined to be my woman anyway, let her flail and kick around."
Nikolai nodded once and stepped into the hall.
The door humd shut behind him, keeping the whiskey warmth and the fruit brightness and the Bear’s old mory on the other side.
"Did he just call that crazy bitch his woman?" Mila’s eyes looked shocked, as if soone had just streaked naked in the cage.
But it wasn’t just her; Ursa’s small black eyes also beca rounded.
"...He’s a bit different from Ivan; that guy was crazy about his wife. But his son... After all, I could be friends with his son! Hahahaha!"
While the big Bear guffawed, Mila frowned, knowing what the Bear ant, as she noticed the two won waiting outside... never enough with just one woman.
"Tsk! n!"
***
The miserable skies of Londis offered little to no comfort as Nikolai trudged ho, his feet heavy, and mind blurred from the whiskey. He wanted to fight, to crush that woman, but other distorted and twisted desires also lingered inside.
"I..."
The word bled out of his throat and was eaten by the rain before he could finish it. He didn’t know if he’d ant to say hate her, or want her, or both. The lines kept saring together.
Each step splashed through puddles the colour of gutter wine. Streetlamps humd overhead, halos blurred by the drizzle. In the wet glass of a shuttered shop window, his reflection stared back, bright eyes, a crooked smile. He didn’t look normal... drunk, and his face felt numb.
Madoka’s scent still clung to his skin, buried under whiskey and rain but stubborn as old scars. Pogranate. Rose. And the tallic breath of her blood. He caught himself flexing his fingers like he was still holding the back of her neck, feeling her pulse under his nails.
Pathetic.
He turned down a narrower lane, boots sinking into uneven cobblestones. Londis’ backstreets had their heartbeat.
Drains gulping water, distant tires hissing, sowhere a man shouting in a language Nikolai half-rembered.
Tomorrow
His mouth twisted. The itch in his ribs didn’t care about the calendar. It wanted now. It wanted her throat and the sound she’d make when his claws split skin.
It wanted—
He stopped walking.
Took a slow breath. Let the rain hit his face until it ran cold enough to quiet the wolf.
"Don’t forget Leona... she’s waiting for ."
Ho was still blocks away, but the city had gone thin around him—less traffic, more shadow. Sowhere above, a drainpipe overflowed, spilling water in a narrow silver curtain across the alley. He passed under it, letting it drench him, not caring.
When he finally reached the apartnt block, the lights from the top floor were warm against the grey. He swiped his keycard at the front door. The lock clicked, and a rush of central-heated air t him in the hall.
He didn’t go to his room imdiately. He stood in the narrow kitchen, peeled off his coat, and pulled the silver ampoule from his ring.
And then broke it.
The sll hit first—sharp, herbal, aggressive. Mila hadn’t lied. It reeked like sothing pried out of an old apothecary drawer. But when he sared it over the bandaged wound, the burn was clean. The itch dulled, pulling back like a waning tide.
For the first ti all night, his breathing found its natural rhythm, and he leaned against the counter, closing his eyes. In the dark behind his lids, the scene replayed itself... a beautiful woman sitting on his lap... her golden eyes peering up at him, the heat of breath, the scent of her body, the taste of her lips...
Her voice in the VIP room, low and husky: Hello, little wolf.
He opened his eyes before the mory could finish, his hand sliding rapidly along his exposed shaft, the cold air contrasting with the hot, throbbing beast, almost like it was screaming in delight as the tip oozed with a wet fluid.
"Haa...."
The steady rhythm of his breathing faltered, the air thick with the mingled scents of the apothecary burn on his ribs and the darker, more primal musk rising from him. His grip tightened, faster... biting his lip as if willing the ghost of Madoka’s warmth to tough... her lips to kiss... to swallow it whole, growing sharper in his mind.
Although not Madoka... He didn’t notice her at first.
Leona had been there for so ti, silent in the doorway, one hand resting lightly against the fra. Her copper hair caught the low kitchen light, a muted halo around the sharp lines of her face. She was barefoot, watching him with the quiet steps of a predator, watching him, sniffing the dense aroma leaking from his body.
"Nikolai..."
There was nothing in her that didn’t already know what n looked like at their rawest. She’d been his maid, his confidante, his lover. And tonight, she saw him sowhat differently... the wet sound as he moved faster, the swollen beast throbbing in his hands.
"Nikolai..."
Her voice was low, warm, and it cut through the haze like a thin blade.
His head turned slightly, breath still rough, eyes hooded and faintly glazed. The wolf in him didn’t startle and simply shifted its gaze to a new target.
Leona stepped forward, her bare feet silent against the cool floor. The hem of her loose nightshirt swayed with each slow step, the fabric brushing the tops of her thighs. Her green eyes locked on his hand, on the tension in his forearm, on the way each stroke made his hips twitch almost imperceptibly.
"Do you need help?"
She gracefully slid up her dress before leaning against the counter...
A beautiful pink slit parted slightly, dripping with a thin layer of honey, the opening spread apart with a slick pop.
Her scent joined the air, warm, feminine, a grounding contrast to the sharp herbal bite from his ribs. Nikolai’s gaze flicked down, catching the slow reveal between her thighs. The wolf in him tilted its head, curious, then leaned forward without moving its feet.
"You shouldn’t sneak up on ," he said, voice still thick with the remnants of Madoka’s shadow.
"You weren’t listening," she murmured, her tone carrying no rebuke, just fact. "You were sowhere else. I’m bringing you back."
Her fingers hooked the edge of the counter beside him, steadying herself as she slid closer. His hand slowed, grip loosening just enough for her to step between him and the counter, her hip brushing his knuckles.
The heat radiating from her made the cold of the kitchen irrelevant.
Her thigh grazed his as she guided the heavy length toward her, the swollen crown slipping against slippery heat before parting her completely.
A low hiss escaped him at the molten tightness that welcod him in, inch by slow inch, her inner walls clenching greedily around the intrusion. Leona gasped, her breath deep and fluttering eyes half-shut as her nails dug into the edge of the counter.
"Welco ho," she whispered, voice breaking on a quiet moan as he pushed deeper, not slowing until their hips t with a wet, deliberate slap, lifting her feet off the floor with a small yelp.
The wolf in him rumbled approval and began to move.
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