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)
“We’re exclusive, and he doesn’t know my friends, so he’s a bit territorial. It’s fine. I wouldn’t like it if some guy pawed at him either.”
She frowned, but there was a smile pulling at her mouth. “You and a serious relationship? I didn’t think you’d want that before you hit your forties. And since when are you into older guys?”
Radek squirmed under the scrutiny, but she was right and they both knew it. He’d always rejected the very idea of having a boyfriend, joked relationships were like collars and chains, and now he’d moved in with a guy he met two months back? There was no pretending they were roommates, or buddies who fucked while living together for convenience. They did couple things, and even preserved some venison together, which was exactly the kind of thing Radek had laughed at Emil doing with Adam.
And as much as he avoided the idea, he was starting to worry about the expiration date of their involvement, since Yev was supposed to go back to Ukraine in a few months, and Radek planned to return to Cracow. Just thinking about parting ways sent an unpleasant shudder through Radek’s stomach, no matter how much he wanted to dismiss it as fear of being helpless without one of his hands.
“Maybe it’s exactly what I’ve been missing.” Radek winked at Iga but didn’t feel like laughing at all. The smile she had for him dropped. “Radek? Something’s up with your eyes. You wanna… sit down?”
Radek gasped when his top lip twitched in response. He’d shifted enough times by now to know that whiskers were about to come out of his skin. He covered his mouth. “I’ll check in the bathroom,” he said and turned on his heel, speeding up as he maneuvered between people standing in his way. He could not allow himself to turn in public, but if he managed to hide away in a toilet stall and wait out the transformation, the danger it posed would be avoided.
“Radek, wait!” Iga called out through the loud music, but something must have held her back.
Radek dashed through the dense crowd of people like an animal on the run from a predator. His heart beat ever faster, creating a dull pulsing in his head and limbs. His gums tickled, and his joints ached as he stumbled, falling on his face when something in his feet shifted rapidly.
Fuck.
Fuck!
He tried to even out his breathing to fool his body into thinking he was perfectly calm, like Yev had taught him, but how was he to do that when he was in a corridor, far from possible hideouts, and growing fur all over?’ Yev had told him it was too soon to travel out of Dybukowo, but no, he’d had to get his way. He’d had to show off, and dance, and shock everyone.
Radek fell to his hands and knees, obscured in the darkness, desperate for a place to hide, but everything around him was growing, and he shed the weight of his clothes. Everyone looked massive from the floor, their legs like moving trees that might crush him if he failed to roll away in time, their raised voices like a horn calling hunters to follow the fox.
He couldn’t breathe.
If he got captured here, his life would be over.
“It’s a fox! Fox! Security,” a woman shrieked, and Radek’s world tumbled when something hit him in the ribs and sent him rolling in the narrow corridor leading to the restrooms.
He screeched for help, no longer able to conceal himself, because if he made enough noise, maybe Yev would hear him all the way in the booth. He ran as fast as he could, narrowly avoiding another kick that would have sent him into the wall. He needed to hide—at all cost—so he focused on skirting by walls, in the darkest of corners as adrenaline pumped through his veins.
“No, I’m sure! It was a fox,” someone cried behind him, but he rushed on, increasingly desperate.
He didn’t even recognize the club from this angle, lost in what felt like a maze, not a familiar drinks harbor. Every boot and stiletto were a deadly weapon, and all he wanted was to hide, because there was no way he’d calm down enough to shift back in these conditions.
A familiar neon sign flashed in the far-off end of the hallway and as the thick-necked security guy left his spot at the entrance to see what the commotion was about, Radek wasted no time and dashed along the laminate floor, and then down the stairs, into the cellar that was almost completely dark. Here, music was louder, pulsing, relentless, and it evoked memories of unknown touches on his skin, of unfamiliar lips on his cock.
His human eyes wouldn’t have recognized the silhouettes of people in such low light, but the fox saw them all with ease and maneuvered through the very middle of the narrow walkway that created a maze of sorts, with nooks for people to hook up in.