Stas knocked me off Nik at the very last moment, when I had already managed to touch his flesh with my wolf's mouth. The blow was so powerful that it threw us onto the snow and spun us around. Stas held me so tightly that when we finally stopped and I started to fight back, nothing worked: I simply didn't have enough space to maneuver. I struggled with all my might, driven by the impulse to finish what I had started. I twisted us back and forth through the soft white blanket, hoping that sooner or later, I'd catch the moment when Stas would loosen his grip. I even tried to bite him, but Stanislav was too fast. With a swift movement, he twisted and sharply grabbed me by the throat. Stas squeezed hard, and at some point, I felt that I couldn't breathe. The lack of oxygen caused tension to build in my head. My ears rang. It was a disgusting, helpless feeling that I would hesitate to remember three hundred times.
I fought even more fiercely with my paws, but my claws only slid with a screech on Stas's jacket. His chest under me heaved heavily, and his hands trembled, judging by the vibrations that passed into my body, but still, Stas didn't let go. He said something, but I couldn't make out the words: the sounds drowned in the loud beats of my own heart as I fell into darkness. And this time, no one was waiting for me there.
That day, Stas saw the version of Asya Black that I despised myself — weak before the blue flame that danced inside and made me act according to my own reasoning, burning everything around.
The next morning, I woke up in my room, not remembering how I had come home. By then, Kostya had already come to his senses, though he looked weak and exhausted. During our last argument, my father had been so angry that he almost released the wolf inside himself. Only later did I realize how dangerous it had been. Playing with the wolf is bad, even when you're facing an experienced werewolf with decades of practice. Fearing he would harm me, Kostya suppressed the spirit inside him, and I mistakenly almost mistook what had happened for a heart attack or something similar. No one had ever lost consciousness in front of me before. I was just confused and didn't know where to start. Thankfully, I had the sense to call Dr. Smirnov, not the regular ambulance. Vladimir explained the real situation, as far as he could, and took responsibility for looking after my father. That's why Kostya wasn't around when Kaandor and I, let's say, had our argument. We both liked to characterize what happened that day as "he took over my body and provoked me to kill Nik," but it sounded too grim. I didn't know if my father would have been able to help me back then and change the situation, had he been in good condition. And did it even matter how things would have turned out if someone had acted differently, if the sun, for example, had risen for the first time in the west instead of the east? What was far more valuable now was that my father was gradually and methodically teaching me how to live with the werewolf spirit inside me.
Ironically, it was only after opening my mouth above Nik that day that I realized: I should have listened to my father from the start. Not go to the open house, but wait a little longer before returning to people. Get to know my guardian spirit better, invest the energy into establishing an inner dialogue with him. I had been paralyzed — one misfortune after another kept falling on me, and I couldn't even deal with my usual emotions. A part of me hoped that all the recent events were just a bad dream, and I simply couldn't wake up. I refused to believe it, even when I woke up in my room and saw Kaandor curiously inspecting the spines of the books on the shelves, and heard him recounting the recent events in a neutral tone, shattering like a fragile cup my pleasant hope that it had all been just a bad dream. And the shards of that cup were so tiny that they could never be fully removed, continuing to painfully sink into my skin, each time reminding me of what happened and of the mistakes I made.
After telling Kostya the whole truth about the thirst that tormented me and Kaandor, I promised my father that I would listen to his advice more often. He only gave me a strained smile and patted me on the head, as if he didn't believe me at my word and knew perfectly well that this was just a temporary enlightenment born of guilt. And he was right: I would buck every time I felt too much pressure on my boundaries, but I still went to training and patrols, even when it seemed tempting to sleep another hour or two.
At first, it was hard to get used to the muscle pain, but over time, it seemed like the least of the inconveniences, and I was able to adapt fairly easily. This kind of pain can be dealt with, which I couldn't say about the difficulties that arose every time my thoughts went astray and anxiety began to grow. Every time, these difficulties unfolded in new shades and variations. Kostya trained me not only physically but also helped me establish a delicate connection with my guardian spirit. The problem was that my father's experience didn't compare to mine. My father's spirit rarely took on a visual form, interacting on a sensory level with Kostya, while Kaandor was a different kind of nuisance, one who could throw a sarcastic joke at the most inopportune moment and make me either laugh or get angry. If Kaandor could materialize and become visible not just to witchers like Max, he would surely have found common ground with Stas.
Even going with Kostya to the supermarket for groceries was hard. Kaandor loved those trips: he would comment on passing shoppers, eavesdrop on conversations, memorizing out-of-context phrases, and follow me like a broken radio, repeating snippets of broadcasts. It became unbearable after a while. I would start getting angry and then snap at Kaandor to finally shut up, only realizing how it must have looked from the outside by the satisfied laugh he gave in response, since, with rare exceptions, I was the only one who could see the spirit. The saddest part was that I kept falling for this trick, even now. Though we had grown closer, Kaandor still knew how to irritate me like no one else. Yet, he had become a friend, the one I had never had. A friend who is always with you.