The day the werewolf I’d raised for a decade defied me for an illegitimate girl, I had him lashed eighty-eight times. As my whip fell, the live-stream comments in my vision scrolled into a furious blur. [My God! Is this venomous bitch insane with jealousy?! She's actually trying to kill him!] [How is this any different from treating him like a dog?! This is straight-up abuse! No wonder he chose to save the other girl instead of you!] [If she weren't so tyrannical, always threatening him, he would've left her side ages ago!] Threaten him? Threaten a disloyal dog? I was silent for a long moment, then let out a bitter laugh. I ordered his things thrown out. Then, I went straight to the fighting pits and picked out a new wolf whelp. It wasn't until two weeks later that he heard the news. He came from the girl's apartment, running through a storm, and seized my arm. His eyes were bloodshot, his voice trembling as he asked, "Is it true? You got a new Beastman?" 1 When I brought the blood-soaked wolf whelp home, a chilling silence fell over the villa. No one had believed me. The day before, I’d made my threat, and today, I’d actually returned with a new Beastman. The butler, fumbling a vase he nearly dropped, steeled himself and approached. "Where shall we… put him, my lady?" I shot him a sideways glance. "Where do you think?" A Beastman had to be trained personally. His room would be next to mine. He hesitated. "And the things in the room…?" "Throw them out," I said, my voice like ice. By now, everyone knew the story. The Beastman I’d raised for ten years had defied me for a slip of a girl, the bastard daughter of my father. When we both fell into the water, he hadn't hesitated to swim in the opposite direction. Last night, I’d reined in my fury and given him eighty-eight lashes. But even as the whip grew slick with his blood, his face remained a stony mask. He refused to make a sound. I was soaked to the bone, my palm burning. With the final, vicious crack of the whip, a spray of blood erupted from his lips. "Speak!" I commanded. He finally looked up, his eyes empty of emotion. "Speak? What would you have me say, my lady?" He knew I was incandescent with rage, yet he goaded me with question after question. "You bought my life. You shattered my bones and set them yourself. You carved your every rule into my flesh. What's wrong? Is the wolf you raised no longer obeying your commands? Has it wounded your pride?" It was laughable. He knew he was my creation, yet he’d chosen to save that wilting flower, the one trying to steal my inheritance. The endless night stretched around us like spilled ink. He tugged at the corner of his mouth in a smirk. "You have plenty of people who care about you, my lady. You don't need me." "Don't need you?" I scoffed. "Lucian, have you forgotten why I raised you in the first place?" His gaze was mocking, his posture defiant. "I can't begin to guess your motives, my lady." "I only know that you stand above everyone, the sun around which all planets orbit. On the shore, a dozen hands reached for you. But she… she had no one." "Perhaps you've never known the feeling of drowning, with only a single blade of grass to cling to. But I have. In that moment, she was the only one I saw." The chill of the night wind seeped into my bones. I gave a sardonic twist of my lips. "And?" His eyes were cold, his words sharp and clear. "She only had me." Only you? The absurdity of it all bloomed in my mind. For a full thirty seconds, our eyes locked in a battle of wills. He didn't flinch. I clicked my tongue against my teeth. "You want to be her dog?" I asked. "Fine." "I'll deliver you myself." A werewolf’s pride, his very blood, screamed against the insult of being called a dog. But I needed to humiliate him. I drove him through the night to Lily's little rental. When I kicked him out of the car, he barely winced. He simply stood,Enduring the blood seeping through his shirt, and began to limp toward the distant lights of her building. His silhouette was proud and cold, his head held high. He would never bow. 2 They say once bitten, twice shy. No one expected me to get another wolf whelp. At the underground fighting pit, the owner showed me a parade of different Beastmen. But I surveyed them all, row after row, and found none to my liking. Annoyed, I decided to leave. Just as I rounded a corner, about to step out of the long, damp corridor, a blood-caked hand shot out from a cage in the shadows and gripped my boot. I turned my head, my gaze drifting down. I had seen countless beasts on the brink of death. They were usually hysterical, numb, or begging pitifully. But this was different. Amidst the filth and the cold, flickering light, I saw a pair of black eyes, stubborn and startlingly clear. He told me he would be my dog. All he asked for was a scrap of food. I glanced at the tag on his cage: REJECT. The chattering owner beside me saw what I was looking at and broke into a cold sweat. I raised a hand, stopping him before he could intervene. Pulling off my black leather glove, I slowly crouched down. In the perpetual stench of rust and rot that was the Pit, a single shaft of light happened to fall on my fingertips. I tipped up his chin, studying him. If he had watched me select my prospects, he would know how impossibly high my standards were. And here he was, broken and bleeding, hovering on the edge of death. His heart hammered in his chest, so loud I could almost hear it. He was conscious of every ragged breath. The three minutes I spent assessing him must have felt like a century. Yet, he saw no flicker of emotion on my cold face. Just as the light in his dark eyes began to fade, I raised an eyebrow. "You're willing to come with me?" His drooping wolf ears shot straight up. He began to wag his tail frantically, like a puppy, and a fire ignited in his pupils. He nuzzled my wrist, repeating the words with a desperate, fervent heat. Willing. Willing to go with me, willing to be my dog, willing to be loyal for a lifetime, to never betray me. Good. Those were the words I liked to hear. I looked at the terrified owner. "He'll do." 3 I had no intention of keeping the wolf whelp. He was a reject, after all. He would never survive my long and brutal training. When his wounds had mostly healed, I told him, "You can go." He stared at me for a long time before asking, "Why?" A storm of emotion churned in his damp, black eyes. He watched me, unblinking. I nonchalantly flipped a page of my newspaper. "No reason. Consider it an act of charity." The butler stepped forward to lead him away, whispering, "Look, kid, our lady only keeps the strongest, most loyal Beastmen. Don't get your hopes up. Your predecessor was sent away overnight for being disloyal, and he'd been with her for ten years. She didn't even bat an eye…" As the butler rambled on, the boy suddenly vanished from his side. The young Beastman had returned. His voice was raspy, still laced with breathlessness from his sprint back to me. "Can I have a chance to be better than him?" For once, I bothered to lift my gaze. "In what respect?" He clenched his fists, enunciating each word with fierce determination. "In every respect." Strength. Loyalty. He would surpass the predecessor the butler spoke of in every conceivable way. I set down the newspaper and studied him properly. In the spacious, brightly lit living room, he waited, tense and anxious, for my verdict. I hadn't paid much attention to his appearance when I brought him back. Now that he was clean, I saw that every line of his face was sharp and aggressive. A high brow, blade-like eyes. But the effect was softened by his damp lashes, creating a strange vulnerability. His eyes were the same as that day in the Pit—stubborn and clear. That was the real reason I'd taken him. After a long, silent appraisal, I finally spoke. "Very well." "If you can survive it." 4 My training methods were notoriously cruel. The ones I’d acquired before—One, Two, Three, Four, and Five—none of them had survived this period. He was to be the ninth. The name was just a designation. Besides bearing my family name, the name "Kai" had no special significance. But he still nodded with solemn gravity. I didn't intend to start with high intensity. But his potential far exceeded my expectations. In just one week, he completed all the basic training and was already asking for more difficulty. It made me wonder if the "Reject" label had been a mistake. At dusk, he had just finished a sixty-mile mountain run with a two-hundred-pound pack. The muscles in his calves were twitching uncontrollably, and he had to brace his hands on his knees to keep from collapsing. A hundred kilometers in six hours, maintaining perfect marksmanship even as his muscles were tearing themselves apart. He achieved it on his third try. I was leaning against the window of my SUV, one hand on the frame, talking idly on the phone, but my eyes never left his retreating figure. Suddenly, as if sensing my gaze, he turned. Our eyes met across the distance. Backlit by the setting sun, he began to run towards me, down the slope. The wind on the summit tossed his damp, dark hair. He drew closer, until I could see the flushed skin of his neck and the single drop of sweat clinging to his throat. The call was from my father, summoning me to a gala. He said if I would just bow my head, he would forgive my "aggression" towards his illegitimate daughter. Laughable. A man so ruthless in his youth had become sentimental about family in his old age. I gave a few noncommittal replies and hung up. "My lady." He fought to even his breathing as he came to a stop before me. Watching his chest heave, I suddenly realized he did this every evening—ran to me, gasping for air. Even today, when his body was at its absolute limit. I chided him gently, "What's the hurry?" "I was afraid you'd get bored waiting." My hand, poised to put the key in the ignition, paused. I glanced at him. "Get in," I said coolly. "I came to pick you up. There's no 'bored' about it." After he buckled his seatbelt, he turned his head, his throat bobbing as he finally managed to say the words he'd been holding back. "It only took six hours today." "Hmm." "And I didn't miss a single shot." "Hmm." He didn't need to report to me. A team was already recording all his data. His physical stats, his reaction times—they were all top-tier. I knew that Lucian's best time had been seven hours and three minutes. And Kai had shattered that record in just one week. The comment stream was in an uproar. [No way a new Beastman is stronger than the main love interest!! Who is this guy?! He's totally stealing the male lead's thunder! Someone needs to fix this!!] [What's the big deal? Did everyone forget this is a polyamory story? A stronger Beastman showing up is totally normal. Why is everyone so shocked? In the end, they all fall for our sweet heroine anyway.] [Exactly. Who could resist our gentle, kind, and complimentary heroine, Lily! Once this little wolf sees the bitch's true colors, he'll run straight into our girl's arms.] [Ugh, I wish it was our heroine there instead. The little wolf is so obviously looking for praise!! He worked so hard, finally got the courage to ask for it, and all he gets is a couple of cold 'hmms'! My heart breaks for him!!] I had learned to ignore these idiotic comments. But the last one that floated by made me pause and think. Was he asking for praise? 5 The car entered the city, and the evening glow washed over the congested traffic on the overpass. I couldn't stop myself from glancing at the passenger seat. His ears did seem to be drooping a little. His lips were pressed into a thin line. He stared down at the bloodstains on his clothes, lost in thought. I rehearsed the words in my head a few times before finally speaking his name. The young Beastman looked up. His thick lashes fluttered, half of his body bathed in the sunset's glow, which unexpectedly softened the fierce aura he usually carried. Damn it. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't say them. I started to speak, then stopped. Then started again. "Take tomorrow off," I finally said, my grip tightening on the steering wheel. It wasn't praise, but it was concern. That should be enough to lift his spirits, right? But after a moment of stunned silence, he protested, "I'm fine. I can continue training." I turned my head, my gaze falling to his blood-streaked calves. Fine? I frowned. The comment stream helpfully provided the answer. [He thinks he didn't do well enough today, that he failed to meet her expectations. Poor little wolf. Lily, where are you?! This evil villain is going to crush his confidence!] [Sigh. He's terrified of being thrown away for not being good enough, so he's trying to prove himself. Too bad he's stuck with a heartless monster. If it were the heroine, she'd be showering him with praise right now.] [Hold on, let's be rational. The heroine has a lot of love to give, so she can share it. But for a villain like this, who was never loved as a child, it's hard to learn how to love others. I kind of get her.] [You're defending this venomous bitch? Get real. Her being twisted is her problem. What did our little wolf ever do to deserve this?] The argument in the comments intensified. I ignored it, my gaze fixed on Kai's face. The last rays of sunset fell across his cheek, making the blood on his neck seem almost beautiful. The colors of the sky spread out like spilled ink, so vibrant it was dizzying. My prolonged stare made his knuckles clench. His heartbeat grew stronger, more frantic. He couldn't bear being scrutinized like this. His ears turned a burning red, and he couldn't stop his eyes from dropping. Just as he was about to turn away completely, to escape my gaze, I spoke. "You were brilliant today." He froze mid-turn. "So," I added, "you can have tomorrow off. This is your reward." The gridlocked traffic on the overpass finally began to move. Not everyone is born knowing how to love, but I didn't mind learning. Especially for the wolf whelp I was raising with my own two hands.
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