107- The Scent That Unraveled
POV Edric Eldoria:
“Has Lunara come down yet?” I asked Anton as soon as I entered. He looked at me strangely and ran a hand through his hair.
“Can’t you smell her?” he asked.
“Yes—I could.”
“It’s not the same as before, the one that’s impregnated?” he denied.
“She spent the last few hours releasing pheromones nonstop and… I think she destroyed your room. She dragged furniture and made a lot of noise.”
Anger flared inside me.
“And why the hell didn’t you go there to stop her?”
The damned inhibitor should already have taken effect. She shouldn’t still be in heat.
“Are you crazy? Look at this delicious smell she’s giving off. If I went over there, she could attack me. Nicoleta didn’t even come near the second floor—she said when a she-wolf is like this, if another female approaches she freaks out.”
Of everything he’d said, only one thing tripped in my brain.
“Delicious smell?” I roared, breathing hard, grinding my teeth.
Anton took a step back, feeling the abrupt shift in the air.
“You want me to lie to you? Her scent doesn’t affect me as it should, because, deep down, I catch a note of your scent in it, but still, it’s delicious.” He spread his arms, exasperated. “And she contaminated the whole damn house with it. Nicoleta ran out of here terrified, desperate, afraid Lunara would smell her and go insane.”
I grabbed my hair hard.
“Why the fuck didn’t the antidote work?”
“I don’t know. Has this ever happened before?” I shot him a sidelong glance.
“It’s not like I spend enough time next to a female in heat to know.”
“Well… me neither.”
I felt irritated and frustrated. I had stayed away from home long enough to avoid thinking about her and her state before losing control again. I walked for miles, dragging the damn thing far away—not because it was necessary, but to occupy my mind. I dismembered the body, separating it into parts, in an attempt to help the animals that would devour it. Then I went to the village center and observed each of my wolves, trying to pick up any surprise from any of them. I found nothing. Then I went to the sawmill and analyzed some reports unnecessarily, before returning.
“Fuck, this is going to be impossible to deal with,” I muttered.
“If you want, get out of here, go somewhere else. Andrei and I will take shifts until her heat ends.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“So you two can keep smelling her and saying it’s delicious?”
The angrier I remembered what he had said, the angrier I became.
“Fuck, Edric.” He snorted.
Lunara let out a loud howl from upstairs, full of desperation and pain. Anton and I exchanged looks. I shot toward the stairs, using my inhuman speed to reach her. I burst into the room without thinking twice.
I stopped, shocked at what I saw. Anton stood just behind me.
“What the hell is this?” I whispered, taking in the scene.
Lunara had… destroyed my room. The furniture was out of place, my clothes shredded on the bed, pillows torn. Feathers were everywhere—some floated in the air, others stuck in her hair. She was sitting facing the door, wearing one of my shirts. Her eyes shone emerald green, showing that it wasn’t the woman I’d have to deal with, but the wolf. The scent was even stronger than in the rest of the house, as if it had soaked into the walls.
“She made a nest?” Anton blurted, shocked.
I’d heard of females who did this. They made nests when they went into heat to have a pleasant place for the supposed pups they’d have. Not all of them did it, though.
“Apparently, yes.”
Part of me was shocked and dying of rage at Lunara for having destroyed my room; while the other part—more precisely, my beast—was bursting with pride at the little she-wolf.
“Her scent is… even better from up here.” A low growl rumbled in my chest.
“Get out of here, Anton. Leave this house before I kill you.”
I felt the change in my body, the oscillation between man and beast. The last bit of control I had was draining away, becoming almost nil. My urge was to gut Anton. My most grotesque, savage part screamed for it. I wanted to rip his throat out, make him choke on his own blood. He had seen Lunara half-naked and smelled her. The scent that belonged only to me.
But I could keep control because I understood what it meant. I was under the effects of her heat, acting in the most primitive way, as our instincts ordered. Anton was not to blame, and I would never forgive myself if I killed my friend. If I had been younger, perhaps he wouldn’t have been so lucky. Controlling these instincts was hard, painful, even cruel.
“I’m getting out of here, you don’t have to say it twice.” He ran down the stairs, stumbling over his own feet.
I glared at Lunara and stepped into the room, studying her.
“Why didn’t the antidote work?” I asked.
She didn’t answer—she watched me, tilting her head to the side. Her movements weren’t natural; they were exaggerated and slow. The she-wolf fixed me with a look as if I were her prey. She knelt on the bed, hands clasped in front of her body, acting like no more than an innocent, vulnerable female—but the gleam in her eyes was something else. I knew she would attack me at the first opportunity.
I took another step.
“You know this is wrong? That you might regret it later?”
She rose slowly and walked toward me in measured steps. She looked even more beautiful, half-transformed. The emerald-green eyes shone with such intensity and depth I could lose myself in them. Brown hair fell across her face in messy waves, laden with feathers from the pillows she’d torn. She parted her lips and gave a moan.
“Ahhh…”
“Lunara,” I snarled.