Chapter 26. Are you afraid of getting eaten?
***
He gestured to Ihedia with his chin, signaling her to come over.
When she hesitated, he raised an eyebrow and gestured again.
She approached Kayan, taking each step cautiously.
"Are you lost?"
"Yes."
"You must have been lost for a while."
He said, glancing at her hands and feet, which were shivering in the cold.
Unlike her, Kayan showed no signs of being chilled, wearing only a thin layer of clothing suitable for spring and fall.
The bitter winter seemed to belong to her alone, even as they both breathed out a clear stream of white steam.
"Come here, closer."
"..."
"I said, come here."
Perhaps it was the trauma at the banquet hall, but the voice calling her didn't make it any easier.
He arched an eyebrow in mild irritation as Ihedia continued to pause, then rose from his seat.
Then, in the blink of an eye, he was right up to her nose, staring into her emerald eyes.
"Don't."
"..."
"Such eyes."
"...."
"Because I feel dirty.”
Kayan smirked, tilting his head to look blatantly into Ihedia's eyes.
He used the word 'dirty', but he seemed rather amused.
He was expressing his feelings as they were, without any malice, unlike when he was sober.
Ihedia couldn't figure out why he seemed to be in a good mood.
He should have been dizzy with one unpleasant event after another.
Perhaps he was simply drunk.
The sweet scent of wine wafted from the tip of his nose.
At the same time, there was an unearthly heat that could hardly be human.
Just being near him sent an abnormal heat through her skin.
When Ihedia lowered her eyes to avoid his gaze, Kayan gently lifted her chin with his fingertips.
"Maybe I should have just let him die."
Then his thick fingers tangled playfully in Ihedia's hair.
It was an oddly affectionate gesture, out of place with his murderous words.
Ihedia met the man's eyes, not averting them this time, as he wore an innocent smile that didn't suit him at all.
Then she held his hand.
It meant stop the harassment.
But the moment their hands touched, Kayan's face took on a strange look.
His eyelids moved slowly, and he looked down at Ihedia as if he were admiring her.
Feeling a little embarrassed by his gaze, Ihedia tried to pull away, but this time, Kayan didn't let go.
The heat from their clasped hands stopped her shivering from the cold.
It wasn't long before she felt as if she were in a cozy fire.
Kayan gently brought her cold hand to his face.
His lips were halfway kissing Ihedia's palm.
Ihedia blinked rapidly at his incomprehensible behavior.
Kayan moved his mouth to say something.
"Kayan!"
Netira's cry came from somewhere, desperately searching for Kayan.
Ihedia glanced in the direction of the sound and then at Kayan, a look of urgency on her face.
If she caught Netira's eye, she would surely suffer punishment.
Aurora was a prime example of a victim who had suffered a lot just because she happened to run into Kayan.
She couldn't be sent back to the outbuildings like that.
As if reading her distress, Kayan scooped her up and dragged her off somewhere.
Startled, Ihedia barely swallowed back a scream.
They were heading toward the forest where the wolves had been spotted earlier.
In her daze, she had forgotten her fear of the beast.
When Ihedia looked up at Kayan with anxious eyes in his arms, he smirked.
"Are you afraid of getting eaten by a wolf?"
A whisper mixed with slow breathing tickled Ihedia's ear.
She gripped the hem of Kayan's robe a little harder at the unfamiliar sensation.
Kayan quickened his pace as Netira's presence drew nearer, and he hurled into the wolf's lair.
Even with the grown woman in his arms, Kayan moved smoothly, as if her weight didn't bother him in the slightest.
A sense of déjà vu stirred in Ihedia's mind, a memory of crossing the plains in his arms as they crossed into Anut.
After a while, Kayan stopped at a spot where a thick stand of pure white birch trees stood.
He set Ihedia down gently.
It was a delicate, gentle gesture from start to finish that belied the fierce Anut warrior.
"If you go that way, you'll find another exit to the main building."
He said, gesturing to the west.
Did this mean she had to walk alone through the woods, where ferocious wolves roam?
One moment she was uncomfortable with Kayan's company, and now she felt life-threatened, wondering if she would be bitten by a wolf the moment she was separated from him.
Sensing her inner thoughts, Kayan snorted low.
"I see you don't want to part.”
"It's not that......."
"We can stay here all night and finish what we didn't get to finish that day. I'm always welcome."
Embarrassed by Kayan's sly flirtation, Ihedia unconsciously clutched her robe.
Alone in the pitch-black night, in an uninhabited forest, with a man more terrifying than a wolf.
Only then did she begin to see her situation objectively.
Maybe it was worse now than it had been in the ballroom.
The corners of Kayan's mouth curved a little wider as he met Ihedia's colorful eyes.
"Wolves are cautious and stay within their own territory, and the Anut species are especially clever and have a good sense of human traits. They don't come down to the manor's boundaries unless they're trespassing on each other's territory."
"..."
"Even though this is a wolf forest, rest assured that technically the ground we are treading on is not their territory."
The calm explanation, which was somehow reassuring, caused Ihedia's wariness to fade a bit.
With that, Kayan turned and walked back the way they had come.
For some reason, she had the odd feeling that the man had saved her from crisis after crisis, but she shrugged it off as just a coincidence.
There was no reason for him to be so generous to someone who was nothing more than a slave to him.
As soon as Kayan's silhouette was completely out of sight, Ihedia hurried off in the direction he had given her.
The panoramic view of the wolf forest she had heard so much about came into focus.
There was certainly no sign of human traffic.
Perhaps that's why the firewood trees hadn't been cut down by humans.
The weather was so cold that there were no edible berries or fragrant flowers to be found, but there were plenty of useful herbs that were common in cold climates.
It's a shame that this large mountain was off-limits to wolves to protect their territory.
In an unexpected way, Ihedia realized the cultural differences with the Anut.
"The Anut hold the wolf sacred, and it would be unthinkable for them to kill what they consider to be their mother for human convenience.”
In her homeland of Elmir, if a beast appeared near the village, civilians would organize to hunt it down or hire a professional mercenary group to kill it.
In Elmir, such a place would have been a desolate place, overrun by poverty.
In her home country, the only pristine forests were those attached to royal manors with tight security.
At that moment, Ihedia smiled sadly as she remembered a boy rooted in her own guilt amid fragments of memories that were nothing more than a yoke
It occurred to her that perhaps all the trials she had endured were the price of ruining a life.
If that was the case, she could endure the hardships of life as a punishment with a sense of atonement.
If only she could see him again.
***
When Kayan came out of the wolf forest and into his bedroom, Netira was waiting for him there.
By the look on her face, he could tell she'd come to him with a lot of resentment toward Hulkan.
Kayan didn't want to talk about it, but Netira was determined to have a talk with him today.
"Kayan."
"If it's about him, I don't want to hear about it."
"You have to listen even if you don't want to."
"Why should I?"
Netira flinched for a moment at Kayan's insistence, but she didn't want to back down now.
The Bayate's patriarch was her.
And not just because of Hulkan.
It was Kayan who led the Black Wolves, but the organization had belonged to the Bayate family for generations.
Aside from her affection toward Kayan, she could not bear to see him overstep his authority.
Without her father and without Kayan, the Bayate family would have crumbled without a sound, but none of that mattered to Netira.
Once again, Netira opened her mouth with the complacent assumption that the mention of her father would cause Kayan to break down.
"Hulkan was my father's favorite, and you know he was close to me, too. Did you really have to do that?"
"Netira."
"So I mean......."
"Hulkan was supposed to be dead today."
A chilling gleam flashed in Kayan's eyes, and Netira stopped breathing for a moment.
***
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Write a comment
Io (Wednesday, 24 January 2024 19:34)
Ooo I love their interactions! Thank you so much for the chapter ❤️❤️