TWOTCL༘ ೀ⋆｡

LXXV-77

“Was it… contagious pneumonia? Not the flu?”

“…Based on the symptoms I know, yes.”

Clank. Clank. The metallic sound continued. Elysia began to suspect that this eerie noise echoed every time Hadeon responded.

“…Hadeon?”

Elysia quickly put on his shirt that had covered her. She hastily fastened the front and began to move toward the corner of the barn where he was. As she got up, the sound of chains clattered loudly again.

“Don’t come any closer!”

At the growl-like cry, Elysia froze completely.

Her eyes, wide open, began to adjust to the darkness, and she squinted.

“Ha… Hadeon?”

As she furrowed her brows, the scene she couldn’t see before started to come into faint view. Despite Hadeon’s warning, Elysia took a few steps forward.

“I said, don’t come any closer!”

Hadeon roared like a beast under attack. At the same time, Elysia froze in place like prey caught in a predator’s gaze.

She saw everything.

Hadeon Lark’s waist and left arm were bound to a massive iron contraption made of thick ropes and chains. He was leaning against an abandoned apparatus, shirtless. His broad shoulders, chest, and his muscular abdomen were all scratched and lacerated as if whipped.

Elysia was so horrified by his appearance that she stumbled and fell to the floor.

Upon closer inspection, the constant sound was the chains and the pillar clashing as he moved. Some of his wounds seemed to be from his struggling.

“What… what is this…!”

“Don’t move a step. Back away.”

Hadeon warned in a boiling voice. The threat was so intense that Elysia’s lower abdomen trembled with fear.

Then, a long-forgotten piece of knowledge about beastmen flashed through her mind. She finally realized the source of the thick air filling the space as soon as she woke up. It was his pheromones.

Realizing this, Elysia stumbled backward and fell.

“This… what is this…”

But the pheromones filling the barn were too raw to have been released intentionally. It meant they were emitted against his will.

From what Elysia knew, there were only two scenarios in which a strong adult like him could be in such an unavoidable situation.

Madness, or…

When she thought of that word, her lower abdomen quivered with a shiver.

A male’s rutting season.

Elysia felt the intense desire she’d unconsciously ignored slowly creeping up inside her. She closed her legs that had spread open without her realizing it. She felt a sudden surge between her legs, and her face flushed.

Elysia, unable to control her embarrassment and confusion, pulled Hadeon’s shirt hem to cover her thighs. She felt sweat beading on her body as if the high fever that tormented her all night was rising again.

This can’t be happening. But why? Why now?

Her breathing started to quicken. Elysia didn’t know much about the rutting season of beastmen. She had always considered it irrelevant to her.