Chapter 111: Mama Wolf Says What?

Blair had no idea when she fell asleep.

One moment she was reading about the territorial instincts of feline beastmen, and the next, she was peeling a crinkled sheet of paper off her cheek. She blinked the sleep from her eyes, sitting up slowly in the desk chair. As she moved, a soft blanket slipped from her shoulders and pooled around her waist. Daemus must have come in and covered her while she was out.

She stood up, letting out a long stretch to work the stiffness from her spine, and padded over to the window. Pulling the curtain aside just an inch, she saw nothing but pitch black outside. It was the middle of the night.

Blair quietly cracked her bedroom door open and peeked out into the hallway. The house was bathed in complete darkness. From her angle, she could clearly see the outlines of the furniture in the living room and the empty counters in the kitchen. Not a single light was on.

She gently pulled the door shut again.

Gathering her toiletries and a change of clothes into a neat little bundle against her chest, she took a deep breath.

Please let Professor Feron be asleep, she prayed silently.

She twisted the doorknob, slipped out of her room, and tip-toed across the cold floor. She made her way to the bathroom, slipping inside and quietly clicking the door shut behind her.

Blair let out a quiet sigh of relief and flicked the light switch on.

Her relief vanished instantly. She stared blankly at the small room. There was a toilet, a mirror, and a sink. That was it. No shower, no bathtub. It was just a half-bath.

Blair wanted to cry. To get a shower, she was going to have to go upstairs.

She flicked the bathroom light back off. She opened the door just a crack to check the hallway, but she immediately froze.

Voices drifted through the dark house.

"Daemus respects you, Jack," Clarice’s voice echoed quietly. "You must convince him that he is making a mistake. That human girl has bewitched him, just like what happened to his forefather."

Blair held her breath, keeping still behind the slightly ajar door.

"If history is to repeat itself," Jack’s voice replied, calm and detached, "we should let it."

"There is no way you actually believe in something so shallow," Clarice argued back, her tone rising in frustration.

"You believe the moon decides who fucks who," Jack countered. "Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?"

Clarice gasped, clearly offended. She opened her mouth to argue, but Jack cut her off before she could get a word out.

"A bird has no business in a dog fight," Jack stated flatly. "I don’t care for your pack politics."

"Daemus is your godson!" Clarice insisted. "You should have his best interest at heart, just like we do."

"If he is hurt, or if he is hungry, I will help him," Jack told her, his tone leaving no room for debate. "But I will not force him to be with someone he doesn’t love."

A frustrated, indignant hmph sounded through the air, followed immediately by the sound of Clarice’s feet marching furiously up the stairs.

Blair slowly, silently pressed the bathroom door shut.

She stood in the pitch-black bathroom, clutching her clothes to her chest. She began to count in her head to give the professor enough time to go back to his room. She counted all the way to one thousand.

When she finally reached the end, she twisted the knob and cracked the door open again. The house was dead quiet.

Blair slipped out of the bathroom, making a beeline straight for the staircase. But just as she crept past the edge of the living room, a bright click shattered the dark.

A lamp flicked on.

Blair jumped out of her skin, a tiny, startled squeal escaping her lips.

Professor Feron was seated on the living room couch, his back to her, right beside the glowing lamp. He stood up and turned around to face her.

His red eyes narrowed. "You even move untrustworthy."

Blair’s face instantly reddened. She clutched her clothes tighter like a shield.

Jack was dressed in a simple, dark blue pajama set. Apart from the brief moment she had seen him naked, this was the very first time she had ever seen him wearing any color other than black, and out of a suit.

He looked so... normal. The image she had painted in her head of him sleeping in a dark coffin, or wrapped in a dark robe, crumbled just a little bit. He just wore normal pajamas.

"I... I was just heading for the bathroom," Blair stuttered out nervously, gesturing vaguely toward the stairs. "I didn’t want to be noisy."

Jack didn’t say a word as he walked toward her.

Blair’s body went stiff. Her feet glued themselves to the floor as he closed the distance between them, stopping right in front of her.

It was only then that she noticed the object in his hand. He was holding a glass filled with a dark, red liquid.

He held the glass out, offering it to her. "Drink it."

Blair looked down at the red liquid, and then back up at his handsome face. Her throat went dry. "Is it poison?" she asked nervously.

"No," Jack answered simply.

Blair looked back at the glass, her mind racing. Did he hate her that much? Would he actually poison her right here in his house just to get rid of her?

Jack kept his piercing gaze locked onto her pink eyes, watching the gears turn in her head. She was obviously trying to figure out his motives.

How interesting, Jack thought to himself. She had survived a bite from one of the most venomous snake beastwomen in the world, yet here she stood, trembling over what she thought could be poison. It told him he either didn’t quite understand how her mind worked yet, or she was simply putting on an excellent, deceptive act.

To prove himself, Jack lifted the glass to his own lips.

Blair’s breath hitched as she watched him take a slow sip. She tracked the movement of his throat as he swallowed the red liquid smoothly.

"Not poison," Jack told her.

He took a step forward. Blair instinctively took a step back, but she hit the back of the living room couch. She was trapped.

Jack leaned in, caging her in with his presence. He held the glass out again, the rim hovering just inches from her chest.

"Now, it’s your turn."

Blair shrank back as far as she physically could. "I’ll drink it," she stuttered out, her voice shaking, "if you tell me what’s in it."

Jack tilted his head, his red eyes unreadable in the lamplight.

"Does a baby bird know what its mother is feeding it?"