Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 130955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 437(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 437(@300wpm)
Radek snarled. Carrot? Seriously?
Yev snorted and showed him a piece of the raw vegetable. Radek thoughtlessly took it, biting down on the sweet flesh. “No? That’s how much you hate it? Your previous owner probably called you something fancy. You know, like a book name. Le petit fox. But I’m a simple guy, and you need a name.”
Radek groaned. He didn’t want to end up as Carrot, even if the vegetable itself tasted delicious. He’d been teased at school for being ginger, and it had taken him a long time to embrace his freckled complexion. A sudden pang of pain in the stump made him whimper and he could have cried with embarrassment when the food fell out of his mouth half-chewed and rolled to Yev’s thigh.
Yev stilled, as if he feared he’d been the one to make Radek hurt. “Maybe it’ll be better if you do it in your own time after all,” he said and placed the little bowl of food on the floor before gently lifting Radek and setting him in front of it, as if he were afraid he might crush the fox body with his bare hands. 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.