It took me an hour to reach my destination and another to get us settled into the place I had never sold or rented.

Why?

Maybe, I wanted to leave a place for me to return to if my life went south, somewhere I could seek shelter without owing anyone any favors like right now.

The place I had brought Junjun to belonged to my mother when she was alive, but now, it was mine. No one, including Haoyu, knew about it.

I hid my car in the basement and checked it for bugs. Confident that none of the pesky buggers had tagged along, I carried the still unconscious idol inside.

The boy had caught a fear on our way over; with him burning up like a ball of fire, I had my work cut out for the night.

I cleaned and changed him into my clothes while my thoughts drifted to the beast.

Where did it come from?

How had it vanished so suddenly?

Was it responsible for the mutilated bodies I had found in the pit?

I was sure that whatever it was wanted me dead.

Why had it changed its mind?

Why had it let me go?

I laid my charge on the bed and returned with water in a bowl and a washcloth.

I checked his temperature; wanting to bring it down, I sponged his body with the cold, wet cloth. Repeating the procedure, I attempted to piece together what I had seen, heard, and been told.

Logically, the beast could be a mutated form of the native wolf; the reserve was, after all, an attempt at rehabilitating wolves.

If so, how was it that no one had spotted it yet?

It was kinda hard to miss something so freaking ginormous, right?

A low grunt pulled me back to where I was performing nursing duties, and I checked Junjun's forehead and was relieved to find that the fever was all but gone now. 

"Hey, sleepyhead." I cooed, stroking the top of his head. He seemed to enjoy it, as I, for some reason, knew he would. I was glad that I was in a profession where it was mandatory to have survival (and, to some degree) medical skills. The crease on his forehead smoothed out gradually, and he turned away from me, pulling my arm with him. I barely stopped myself from falling on top of him.

I was already in awe of his arm strength which he had displayed on multiple occasions, but it was the first time I had had the pleasure of experiencing it on my over-six-foot-tall, strong, yet lean frame.

With my chest pressed against his back, I could feel his muscles move under his skin. I tried to pull my arm back but failed. Not for the lack of trying, though. The boy had me in an iron hold. Even though this was the first time I had seen him in this level of undress, I could swear that the muscles were a recent addition. A very recent addition. I was not talking about days but hours.

I recalled how I had imagined the idol sprouting muscles out of the blue the day after I had met him.

'Zhao Laoshi, are you sure that what you saw earlier was your imagination?' The Bastard questioned. 'Maybe, it was real…just like right now.'

I gulped thickly and strangled the Bastard's voice. The first thing I needed now was to make sure that the boy was alright.

"Hey," I called softly, struggling to hold my stance with the idol tugging on my arm with all his might. 

'Maybe I had fed him too much steak.' I offered myself a ridiculous explanation cause I couldn't come up with anything that could explain-

Wait.

A faint red mark- no bigger than a needle prick- on his forearm caught my attention. I needed to get a closer look. The only way to do that was to let myself be pulled towards the slumbering idol.

No sooner did I do that than Junjun pushed his back against me and hummed. Satisfied. His tight grip on my arm loosened, allowing me to pull it back. We stayed like that for a few seconds before I turned him around gently and held his forearm to light.

A closer examination confirmed my earlier suspicion. It was a needle prick. The faint residue of dried blood and the lack of the distinct smell of astringent led me to believe that whoever had injected Junjun was in a hurry.

My heart slumped and eyes drifted to his calm, resting face. Instantly I was overcome by a need to protect him, and without giving it much thought, I slipped my right arm under his head; adjusting his face so that it was resting on my shoulder, I drapped my free arm over him.

He snuggled closer and hummed. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

I suppressed a chuckle and asked, "Comfortable, are we?"

Apparently, that was all he needed to make my body his home. If he was asleep or awake, I couldn't tell, but an instant later, he threw his leg over mine, his arm, which was comfortably resting between our bodies, slipped around my middle, and his fingers buried themselves in my hair and brought my face close to his. Everything happened so fast that before I could process it and move away, Junjun started to devour my lips like he hadn't had a proper meal in forever.

What the fuck was happening!?

No. I wasn't panicking. I had left it miles behind. Right now, I was having a freaking meltdown.

My future flashed before my eyes. I could be sued for taking advantage of a barely off-age boy, damn it!

Who would believe me if I told them that I was the victim here!?

I tried to free myself, one limb at a time but failed miserably.

Insulting much?

Meanwhile, Junjun decided that kissing me was not enough. His hard, overeager junior started rutting into my thigh, and his nails dug into the flesh of my back. I could not hold back the pained moan that ripped through me as his nails broke skin and drew blood.

I had no way out. I didn't have a choice. I had to wake him up by hook or by crook. I stopped resisting his kisses and let him have his way. His lips turned gentle, though the same couldn't be said about the rest of his body. This was the moment I was waiting for; without my limbs to help me achieve my mission, I used the only weapon at my disposal: my mouth.

Was I unsure of his reaction?

Hell yes.

But a man's gotta do what a man's got to do to make the best out of a sucky situation, right?

With all-forgiving Buddha as my witness, I murmured an apology and went for the kill, nipping his bottom lip to see his reaction.

He smiled.

'Well, here goes nothing.' I thought and sucked the succulent lip between mine and bit as hard as possible.

Junjun's eyes snapped open and met mine, confused as hell.

My proximity must have been jarring for the idol, I concluded.

"I can explain," I stated matter-of-factly, intending to do (exactly) that. Unfortunately, that wasn't in the cards.

Junjun's dark orbs turned yellow and then amber.

The fuck!?

"Mine!" He growled and turned us around, pinning me under him.

Did he just say... mine!?

Excuse me, I don't belong to you or anyone-

The lips were back with a vengeance, and I couldn't think straight. If I believed in the supernatural, I would have thought that the poor fellow was possessed.

I was by no means a virgin, but at the rate at which things were progressing between us, I had little doubt that one of us was going to have a tough time doing anything that involved the use of buttocks come morning; Mua was ninety-nine percent sure that that poor fuck was going to be me.

When I had seen the prick, I had assumed that the perpetrator had injected Junjun with some kind of experimental steroid that gave him temporary bulk, but now I wasn't so sure. I gulped down my fear and applied what I had learned about the new Junjun barely minutes ago.

This time I was prepared; when he kissed me, I kissed back harder, pulled him towards me with all my might, and thrust my hips up.

It was not my fault that my ministrations had left me erect and throbbing, alright!

I was definitely not aroused.

'I am not so sure about that, Zhao laoshi.'

'Shut up, Bastard!' I countered, 'This is just my body reacting to a beautiful (probably human) person trying his best to get in my pants!'

Junjun purred and bumped our noses together, giving me an emotional whiplash I could hardly keep up with.

His body relaxed, and he smiled into the kiss before slumping atop me, snoring.

I had had enough of whatever this was; I was tired, sleepy, injured, and hard as fuck with a very important, albeit a smidgen-possessed, person snoring on top of me.

"Junjun?" I called just to make sure it was safe to move him, and when he continued to remain silent, I gently rolled him to the other side of the bed and left him to deal with whatever adolescent awakening he was going through.

[Chapter word count:1592;
Word count so far: 20397]