Curiosity and the Beast
714 Words
The rain outside the Rolls-Royce picked up again, then settled into a rhythmic patter. Through the partition, the driver’s voice came hushed and urgent: "Sir, we’ve arrived...".
The words died in his throat as the partition lowered. Chloe was leaning back against the leather seat, her hand casually tangled in the thick, silver-grey wolf tail that had sprouted from Silas’s lower back—a side effect of the toxin’s forced shift. She looked at the driver over her shoulder. "Perfect timing. Get your Alpha inside".
"Mrs. Sterling is coming too," Silas rasped, his head tilted back against the headrest, his Adam’s apple bobbing with suppressed hunger.
The driver nodded silently and retreated. In the shadows of the backseat, Silas’s tail twitched, curling possessively around Chloe’s wrist.
"Don’t think that because you helped me once, you can do whatever you want," Silas growled, his fangs glinting in the dark. "One more step out of line, and I will Mark you right here".
It was meant as a threat, but his voice broke with an agonizing, primal heat.
Chloe arched an eyebrow, her fingers trailing intentionally over the softest fur on the underside of the tail. "Really? Because a minute ago, someone was acting like a big, lonely dog begging for a scratch".
Silas’s ears—now pointed and furred—flicked back in shock. "Mention that again, and I’ll—ugh!".
Chloe squeezed the base of the tail firmly, hitting a pressure point she remembered from her mother’s hunting journals. Silas’s breath hitched, and a flush of red crept up his neck.
"You know," Chloe whispered, watching the tail-tip automatically tighten around her arm despite his protests, "some people talk a big game about rejection, but their bodies are much more honest".
Silas yanked the tail back, tucking it beneath his suit jacket as he straightened his tie. "It’s the toxin," he said, his voice regaining its icy veneer. "Once I’ve recovered and the shift recedes, you will pay for this".
Chloe couldn't help but laugh. "To be honest, Silas, before tonight, I thought you were actually scary".
Silence fell over the cabin, save for the rain. Silas stared out at the blurred neon lights of Holloway City before speaking in a low, muffled tone: "Who were you with at the old manor?".
His knuckles were white as he clenched his fists. He told himself she was just a pawn for his revenge, so why did the lingering scent of another man on her skin make his blood boil?.
Chloe didn't answer directly. She leaned forward, closing the space between them. "Instead of worrying about that, why don't you tell me when exactly you were poisoned?".
"At the wedding," he admitted, his golden eyes narrowing as the tail unspooled from the seat crack again. "I didn't realize the extent of it until the toxin hit my nervous system".
"Is that why you snapped at the altar?".
Silas didn't answer, instead focusing on his phone to handle the backlog of work from the day.
"I’m curious," Chloe broke the silence again. "If you hate me and the Vance family so much, why go through with the wedding? Why not just... end everyone there?" She made a gesture like a gun to her head.
Silas’s tail thumped heavily against her hand. "You think slaughtering a room full of the city’s elite is that simple?". "The Hunter factions are everywhere, and public opinion is already a cage for my kind. If I had turned that church into a tomb, every Lycan in Holloway City would be hunted down by dawn".
"So it’s not that you didn't want to," Chloe mused. "It’s that you couldn't".
"You don't have to state the obvious," he snapped.
"High society sounds like a nightmare," Chloe sighed, her fingers absentmindedly twirling the tip of his tail. "But...".
"But what?".
"I was just thinking... if I’m officially Mrs. Sterling now, maybe I can help negotiate a real peace between our kinds?".
Silas lunged forward, his nose brushing her hair, his pupils shrinking into lethal vertical slits. "Peace requires leverage, little hunter. Instead of dreaming about fairy tales, you should start worrying about your own reputation".
He tapped a button on the car’s console, and the integrated screen flickered to life, displaying a breaking news headline.
- Writer
