"You shouldn't have saved me."
The slave woman's words drifted through the night air as she walked beside us, her voice carrying that same matter-of-fact tone I had grown accustomed to during our brief imprisonment.
I relaxed in Javrian's arms as if I were riding some magnificent horse, letting my gaze drift up to the star-scattered sky above us.
The night was clear and cold, each breath forming small puffs of vapor in the mountain air.
But I couldn't ignore the atmosphere around us.
Every few seconds, I caught glimpses of the pack members shooting the woman venomous glares—the kind of looks that promised death the moment I wasn't paying attention.
Their eyes would narrow, jaws would clench, and then they would deliberately turn away before snapping their gazes back to her as if they couldn't help themselves.
It was like watching wolves circling wounded prey, held back only by some invisible leash.
I shook my head, trying to dispel the growing tension. Maybe a change of subject would help.
"Now that I noticed," I said, glancing down at the woman, "why are you not spitting?"
She looked up at me with that one visible yellow eye, and I fully expected her to say something about depleting her saliva reserves or finally getting control over whatever condition plagued her.
Instead, she blinked once and said simply, "I forgot."
Then—pthoo—right on cue.
My eyebrow rose involuntarily as I tried to suppress the laugh building in my chest.
Yes, what can I expect?
But what really caught my attention was the pack's reaction. The moment that disgusting sound hit the air, every single one of them flinched as if they'd been physically struck.
Kael's massive frame actually shuddered. Vera made a sound of revulsion. Even young Darius looked like he might be sick.
But beneath their obvious disgust, I saw something else—something that made me narrow my eyes and study their faces more carefully.
Disappointment.
Anger, yes, but also a deep, bitter disappointment that seemed to cut deeper than mere annoyance.
They clicked their tongues and turned away from the woman, only to look back at her moments later with expressions that spoke of old wounds and broken trust.
What exactly is the history here?
"You don't want to sleep?"
Javrian's quiet question pulled me from my observations.
I tilted my head back to meet his gaze, finding those silver eyes studying my face from mere inches away.
And to be honest, even on this cold night, I was not feeling much. Tremble was simply breathing just above my face. His body was naturally warm as he covered his cloak around me, and his breath was warming my face. That was definitely something that was pulling me into sleep.
But...
"I cannot sleep without my bed," I lied smoothly, adding another layer of deception when I saw him processing this. "I personally prefer high-quality fur or cotton, so I can't sleep."
The truth was, I needed to stay awake to talk with the chained woman.
To understand what was happening here.
These people had helped me, and that woman had risked herself for a stranger—the least I could do was try to figure out why everyone seemed ready to murder her.
Javrian went quiet for a moment, then said simply, "Oh, I see," before turning his attention back to the path ahead.
But not before I caught that smile.
It was subtle, barely there, but definitely amused—like he had just won some kind of lottery. Though it was not that exciting. But for someone like him who had that dead face all the time, that smile was more than enough to tell me he had just won some kind of treasure without him even wanting it.
'Why is he smiling like that?' I could only look blankly as his smile vanished, replaced once again by his usual expression.
I pushed the confusion aside and focused back on the woman. "So what do you—"
The words died in my throat as a shadow exploded from the darkness.
WHAM!
The woman went flying through the air as if she had been hit by a battering ram, her body crashing into a cluster of rocks with a sickening thud that made my stomach lurch.
My mouth remained parted, words forgotten, as I stared at where she had been standing just seconds before.
Now, in her place, stood Lila.
The silver-haired woman's breath came out in visible puffs of fog, her pale eyes blazing with a fury so intense it seemed to light up the darkness around us.
Her muscular frame was already beginning to shift and stretch as her transformation began—bones cracking, muscles rippling, silver fur erupting across her skin.
She fixed her predatory gaze on the woman's crumpled form and snarled with deadly intent:
"You are dead today, Sally."
'!'
'You psycho!' My mind raced as the pieces clicked together with horrible clarity.
'Lila hit her because she was walking beside Javrian.'
Of course. I should have seen it coming the moment I noticed how Lila was absent and when she came to see another woman.
It's obvious she will flare!
Especially how initially she had tracked every interaction between me and Javrian, how her jaw clenched whenever Javrian's attention focused on me instead of her.
The woman I'd been talking to—Sally—had been walking right beside us, close enough that anyone watching might assume she was trying to walk beside Javrian, ignoring others in the group.
And Lila, with all that barely contained jealousy I'd witnessed earlier, had snapped.
"Javrian!" I lurched forward, grabbing his shoulder with both my bound hands and pushing myself up against him.
My cheek pressed against his as I twisted to look over his shoulder, trying to see what had happened to Sally through the gap between our faces.
What I saw made my blood run cold.
Where Sally had landed wasn't a woman anymore—it was a small wolf with yellow fur, roughly the same size as her human form.
The wolf was breathing heavily, clearly wounded, one of its hind legs bent at an unnatural angle.
It kept trying to stand, only to collapse again with soft whimpers of pain. Each failed attempt sent a sharp pang through my chest.
She's helpless.
I turned my gaze toward Lila, who was already sprinting forward with inhuman speed.
She leaped into the air, her silver hair streaming behind her like liquid metal as the moonlight caught every strand.
Her shadow fell across the trembling yellow wolf, who looked up with those same yellow eyes I'd grown familiar with in our prison cell. But now they held something I'd never seen before—fear.
Sally lowered her head, eyes closing as if accepting her fate.
Something inside me snapped.
"Save her now, Javrian!" I slammed both my palms against his chest as hard as I could, the sound echoing like a slap across his face. Our noses were almost touching as I yelled, "Lila will kill her!"
The moment the words left my mouth, I felt it—a tremor that seemed to start from Javrian himself and ripple outward through the ground beneath us.
Dust began to swirl around us, and suddenly there was a thunderous sound of impact.
When the dust settled, my eyes widened in shock.
Javrian was no longer holding me. Instead, he stood between the wounded Sally and Lila, his massive frame like an immovable wall. His right hand was wrapped around Lila's fist, stopping her mid-strike just inches from Sally's vulnerable form.
But what caught my attention most was that his silver gaze remained fixed directly on me, not on the confrontation he'd just interrupted.
"What is the meaning of this, Javrian?"