Yelena nodded and smiled up at Reaver as they looked at her plants. “This room is one of the few rooms warded against Ivan. I just didn’t have my key nor do I think I was fast enough to lock the door. If he messed up this room Mama would really kill him.”

She paused for a moment and thought about it. “I was away for almost six years. I masqueraded as one of our allies’ wives before I shape-shifted into another woman to seduce the son. Luckily, I only had to spend three years as his girlfriend.” There was a shiver up her spine. “He was really a bad man… You know? But we needed him in power for this to work.”

Pushing out a craft she popped it open and grabbed a mouse out of it. It squirmed in her hands before she tossed it to the Venus flytrap. It snapped shut and a squeal happened eventually a snapping of bones happened. “These are larger and more deadly than regular ones.” She put mice in different ones. “You can tell which ones are ready for food again by the way their little teeth look.”

There was finally a knock at the door and Celeste came in. “I leave for two days and my daughter comes home…” There was a soft smile on her face as she hugged Yelena. “You’ve been well? You look like you haven’t been feeding as you should.” As a concerned mother, she was looking Yelena over.

“I was masquerading as a human, unfortunately… So I didn’t get to go hunting like I needed to.”

“Yelena, your jobs are important but please don’t hurt yourself doing them. If a job fails because you need to take care of yourself so you don’t die… We would understand, Nemesis would understand. You are precious to us.” Celeste put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders before looking at Reaver. “I know it’s a lot to ask of you but I just got done yelling at Ivan.” They hadn’t even heard her… So was it really yelling asked Yelena as she tilted her head. “Can you take her hunting and keep an eye on her tonight?”

“…Mama, I can take care o-”

“You are a very capable vaewolf but Ivan is very upset at you and he’s killed older than you. I’m not going to take my chance of him going off the deep end.” She pushed Yelena’s hair back. “He’s in full belief you’ve betrayed the family and until he learns otherwise you’ll just need to be on guard.”

Yelena nodded and looked up at Reaver. She was hesitant about wanting the help to protect herself but not teach herself. Maybe it was because she saw herself as weaker than the others. “Yes, Mama.”

“I see. It’s been a while since you were home. No wonder a peabrain like Ivan would have thought otherwise.” Reaver still couldn’t understand that man, not that he’d lose sleep over it. He’d rather remain sane himself than to swim around Ivan’s mind and lose it completely. He still didn’t quite get the idea of how he could have a lover, let alone a wife without her having killed him a hundred times over.

“I’m sure the experience was bothersome, but at least you are home now.” He stepped to the side as Yelena started to feed the plants with rodents. “If only you could throw your former friend in there…”, he humored lightly her. He was sure that the experiences she had with him were horrific, to say the least. His eyes shifted to the madam of the house coming in and greeted her daughter. Just as motherly as he had come to expect out of her, and he was sure that she gave Ivan a nice little tongue lashing. Shame that they didn’t get to hear it.

“Hunting? I guess I can.” Wouldn’t it be more suitable for an experience vaewolf to accompany her? Reaver was just getting the hang of his lupine form, as foreign as it had been from the start. Then again, he seemed to have a knack for handling the idiot of the family well. He had heard of Ivan’s tendency to be ruthless once he had reached his limits. Perhaps that’s was the dangerous side of him that kept his place secured in the Volkovs. Reaver was slightly unsettled in the idea of him possibly being an easy kill for him under those circumstances.

When she was ready, he led them towards the woods close by. The cold evening air was only made chiller as he stripped himself down and brought forth the change in him. A large black wolf stood in place only moments later as he arched and stretched his back out, cracking some bones in the process. Olive eyes lingered at her as he awaited before they would start to prowl about, occasionally sniffing for the scent of prey about.

Yelena frowned a bit and shook her head. “Oh, it wasn’t as bad as my biological father used to be. I still remember the shape of the bruises he would leave.” She was rather open about it as Celeste had taught her how to manage what made her scared at night. Yelena thought about it and nodded. “Yes, that would be an acceptable form of death for him I think.” Crushed by the plants she very much loved.

Celeste was thankful for it. “In return, she can help you get used to your form. She took to it like a fish in the water.” Yelena held a blush on her face as her mother complimented her. It was one of the few things that Celeste always complimented her on. Yelena was an excellent tracker which is why she was selected to be the family spy.

Once it was time for the hunt she followed him outside. She was a tad nervous about being in front of him showing her skills. If it was one thing she didn’t want was the expectations of her mother to go to waste. Slowly she stripped and folded her clothes as she placed them in a tidy pile. She covered them up with some foliage just in case Ivan would be by later.

The shift for her was effortless as the chocolate furred wolf rolled on the ground by him. Crimson eyes looked up at him as she let out a huff. A paw came up and smacked his snout before she rolled and took off running. She would stop as various trees and used her claws to put marks on the them. “This way. There is a good hunting spot up here, it’s my favorite and no one knows about it.”

Did no one know about it? It possibly could have been tree as she got them to a little river like area. She nipped at his ear and motioned towards a bush. “And now… we wait. When it shows up… Circle to the right. We’ll cut off its escape.”

Sure enough, a majestic large elk came from the forest. It was like she had scouted the area beforehand as she wiggled her butt and put her body into a go motion. “Wait for it…” She told him. “Wait for it…” Once the elk lowered its guard and went to drink she bolted. “GO!” She circled the left side as the elk got spooked.

The elk was other all huge compared to her but she had a leap as she got close enough. Her paws almost went around the elk as a cat would as her teeth sunk into the vulnerable part of its neck. It fought her and shook her off slamming her into a tree but she was back up in seconds. The elk fell from the damage and she trotted over to Reaver. “…It was much larger than I remember seeing and stronger.”

It hadn’t been like it was the first time that Reaver had hunted before. Of course, it had been few and far times since he was mostly busy with his priest duties and even afterward, he didn’t feel as though he needed to hunt frequently.

With a partner though, it was a strange concept for him to grasp as it was the first time since Nemesis merely showed him the gist of how it worked. He wasn’t too worried about being followed, but all the same, he spoke nothing when Yelena took precautions to make sure her nutty brother didn’t do anything foolish. In comparison to him, she was lithe and quicker than him. The beta snorted right after she pawed him and followed her lead deeper into the thicket. He watched her tactics carefully and lowered his body down as they stalked into a particular spot she fancied.

He hadn’t been in this area much so he had no idea of this place as he pushed himself through the bushes, stopping only when she nipped him. Reaver turned around slipped close to her at the bush. His head lowered, ears pointed the moment he heard the elk enter their territory. Of course, he knew better than to rush straight right in. Their prey looked pretty strong and seasoned despite being alone. Push came to shove, it would be foolish to go in without a plan. Fortunately, his companion knew what it would take and he waited for her cue before he sprung himself to the right while she went left. The elk was caught by her, but it fought back as its life was at stake. She got it good though even with being bucked off onto a tree. Reaver rushed in and corraled the wounded creature. His own fangs went to where she had been and chomped hard against it. It was a clean kill as he dropped it from his maw and licked at his chops.

“You alright?”, he asked, recalling her rough landing. She appeared just fine to the eye. “Didn’t seem like you lost a step, even after years of going without the change”, he nodded. For him, he was simply here to accompany her, hunger wasn’t a motivator at the moment.

Yelena laughed a bit as she padded towards it. “I… am bruised.” She had a bit of a limp too but she took it in stride. “I didn’t realize how big he was until I was on top of him. I knew he was big but his upper muscles sure gave me a run for my money. I am a little rusty, it appears.” She settled down to take in a big dinner for herself. Using her head she motioned some near Reaver just in case he was hungry.

Celeste was right she needed to keep up her strength. Once she was done she transformed right there and fell onto her butt. She was looking at her leg and then her ankle. “Look at it go,” she said in amazement as her skin had already turned purple. “It’s gonna be a few hours before it heals up.”

She reached up and pushed her chocolate hair behind her ear. “Can…” Her face which was covered in the blood of the elk looked up at him. “Can you carry me back? I don’t want to hurt it any more than I did. Mama will probably laugh though. The first time she took me hunting I got overzealous and went after a bear. The bear smacked me so hard it broke my leg. I thought it was a good idea to show her how strong I was.” Yelena blushed and laughed at the same time. “This is no different. I’m just not as hurt… though I don’t think I impressed you like I tried to.” She was at least honest about it.

“You can come here and hunt in my area whenever you want. I mark the trees so they know it’s mine. I don’t mind sharing. The elk are nice and big here.”

Once Reaver got her back to the house she cleaned herself at a little wash area near the back and got dressed after. Celeste was near the entrance waiting for them. Her eyes went to Yelena's leg and just like Yelena said she laughed. "I told you to stop going for prey bigger than you can handle."

"But I almost had it!" Yelena blushed a bit and looked up at Reaver. "Tell her!"

"I believe you," Celeste waved her hand at the young vaewolf. "You two should get some rest. I'm glad to have you home Yelena." Celeste kissed her forehead and disappeared. "My room is on the far side away from yours. I'm sure that Ivan wouldn't try to come into a girl's room so I don't need to stay near you tonight."

Reaver noticed her hurt leg but didn’t want to make too much trouble out of it. Despite the size difference, Yelena put in some good work in bringing down the elk. He himself wasn’t too hungry but he didn’t refuse going over to take a few bites out of the meat while she got her fill. Once the meal was over, he followed her lead and shifted back as well into his normal form. Gods, he still was trying to get used to it all, but that wasn’t the concern right now as his eyes laid upon her ankle. “Yeah, it got you good.” He kneeled down close enough to inspect before he looked up at her and gave a quick nod. “No trouble at all. Come on.” He got back up and reached down to help her raise up enough before he had her piggyback on him. She barely weighed anything to him as he started to march on back to their manor. “I’m starting to think you are danger prone, Yelena. Gonna make me a tad nervous if you don’t watch it.”, he said with a smug look.

“Don’t fret though, you hunted well enough for not having done it for a good bit.” Of course, she had no reason to impress him, at least as far as he was concerned about the matter. She was to show him some things and he was to protect her from the idiot Ivan. As far as he was concerned, they both held up their ends of the bargain. “Well, I appreciate that. Might just take that off for a while then. Will helped me get in touch with my wolven side.”

He was able to bring her back to the manor where the Female Alpha awaited them after they got dressed up again. “Yeah, she had it until it bucked her into a tree. But she got back up and got some payback and then some”, he confessed. Luckily Celeste must have figured what happened- she had a knack for that it seemed in his brief stay. Heavens knew how his brother was able to cope with that. Then he was reminded of the situation with them and Angela and it made him shake his head with a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll help her to her room.”

The trek wasn’t as long as it had been in the forest and within moments he helped her all the way up the stairs and towards the direction of where her room was, per her instructions. He assisted all the way until she was good enough to move on her own. “Alright, you be safe. And if Ivan tries something, let me know.” He bid her good night and headed towards his own room where he downgraded his attire and tossed off his shirt before taking to the relaxing pillow of his bed and laid awake for a good hour or so before he drifted away.

The idiot, though, had been waiting for her to come back and for the house to grow still before he went into the adjacent room to hers and started pounding and making “ghostly” noises. “Yelena…Yelena…we come to haunt you, little wolf. You’ve been a bad girl! Yelena! Yelena!” In-between lines, he laughed a bit, hardly able to keep up with the charade but he wouldn’t drop it and give it a rest. In Ivan’s mind, he was punishing her for her transgressions. “Oooooh, we are the spooky ghosts, Yelena. You will pay…Ooooooh!”

“Honestly, I don’t think you’re wrong. I do seem a bit danger prone at times,” Yelena let out a good laugh as she gave him a smirk. At least he was here to help her so she didn’t have to limp all the way home. She held onto his neck as she leaned into his warmth from the cold air.

“At least I have that going for me. The elk was mighty prey.” She seemed happy that he took her up on her offer to use her hunting grounds and left it at that for the time being.

Celeste seemed happy that the arrangement was working and so there was no real need for her to intervene much more as Reaver carried Yelena up to her room. “I will! You’ll be the first to know!” Hopefully.

Yelena changed into a little nightdress, braided her hair, and pulled herself into bed. She was reading a book when the knocking started. He kept it up for a long, long time before Yelena finally couldn’t ignore it anymore. Quickly she shadow stepped and sucked in air as she hissed at her ankle. Quiet, so Ivan didn’t know she was gone. She had her pillow in front of her as she appeared in Reaver’s room.

She gently pulled at his blanket and climbed into his bed. Her foot touched his ankle and she stared at him for a few seconds. “Ivan is banging on my wall and wailing like a ghost telling me I’ve been a bad girl. Can… I stay here with you?” Her head was already nestled into her pillow as a yawn left her lips. “I tried to wait until he gave up but he’s still doing it. I figured I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing I was gone.”

Sleep didn’t come easily for Reaver, with a busy mind of what he would have to do for the Chruch tomorrow. Hopefully, his cardinals were able to fulfill the tasks he set for them, by which, he met Isaiah and not his dim-witted brother. He could only pray that he wasn’t busy chasing skirts or caused any sort of trouble. If they were that fortunate, then everything would at least run smoothly. He barely conscious after a bit when he heard some slight movement in his room, though he ignored it since he didn’t hear the door nor the windows open. He figured that it was simply his own imagination up until Yelena’s voice came to his ears.

Barely did he open his eyes to see her, but she was clearly there in his bed. God, he was going to kill Ivan in the morning. He wasn’t sure why she hadn’t gotten Celeste or Nemesis on the fool, but he wasn’t about to question it. That and he knew her ankle was still bothering her so he didn’t want her to keep moving on it. “Sure…”, he spoke sleepily. He threw the covers onto her with one arm before he tried to go back to sleep.

It didn’t bother him to have her sleeping in his room, especially to get away from Ivan. Seriously, he was going to kill that man if he did anything else.

“I don’t get him. Never had and I fear to understand him means I’d go insane as he did.”, he spoke with a yawn. “But at least he wasn’t trying to stab you again. If he did, I would have stabbed him right in the leg.”

Yelena smiled and snuggled in as he threw the blankets over her. It was always cold in Kurayo and it was actually nice to have a source of warmth, that being Reaver this time around. She fell asleep with no problem and in the morning she had weaseled her way under his arm in the warmth more. Though she spooked herself off the bed once she realized what she had done. Had she really been that comfortable? “SORRY! I haven’t slept in a bed with anyone since Gabe when we were ten!” She was super embarrassed as she put her hands to her face. She got back up and finally acknowledged what he had said to her.

She sat back up on the bed and chuckled. “He’s always been like that even when I was around all the time. He would go out of his way to scare me and he would get punished for it. When I was fourteen… I lied! The last time I slept with someone in their bed I was fourteen. I ran away to Gabe’s house and climbed up his house, opened his window because he sucks at locking them, and climbed in his bed. Startled the crap out of Gabe in the morning when he noticed me.” She chuckled a bit. “Ivan had put a snake in my bed trying to be funny. I freaked out and jumped out of my window and took off. I still don’t really like snakes. Nemesis put him in a hole and dumped a lot of snakes on him asking him how he liked it and left him there for a bit when Gabe finally brought me back home.”

Speaking of Gabe, Yelena got really quiet and sort of sad. “Gabe was my best friend. We’d known each other since we were four. His parents were always taking me cause they hated my parents but it was good business with them. Gabe was always yelling about how he was going to marry me to save me. He ran away from home when we were just becoming adults. Couldn’t stand the responsibilities of being a lord or so he said on his way out. Nemesis is still business partners with the Byrkyns. His sister Esme is in charge of the family now.”

Her stomach growled and she put her hand on her belly and groaned. “I guess it’s time for breakfast…”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the mansion, Celeste was pulling herself out of bed to a startled Ivan. “Calm down…” Her pink hair was a mess and she was about ready to throw a shoe at Ivan. “I SAID TO SETTLE. Now, why are you screaming?”

He apparently fell asleep much easier this time around because when he woke up, he couldn’t recall much after Yelena came to join him. He noticed that she was up close to him than she had been. Apparently this was also something that she figured as well from her reaction. Reaver thought she might have overreacted a little and went to help her up. “It’s fine…” He didn’t make much out of it, and neither should she had.

Ivan was a thorn in her side for some time it seemed, either that or the worse big brother he’s heard about. But when she kept referring Gabe, he didn’t really piece it together until after he elected to get up himself. “Gabe…You don’t mean Gabriel Byrkyn, do you?” He could hardly imagine that man ever having been innocent even in his youth. He just seemed like one of those troublemakers that fathers warned their daughters about. But she had to have meant him- after all she mentioned the Byrkyns. But gods, he didn’t seem like the marrying kind. He slipped into a robe nearby and tied it around his being, still wondering about how the hell that marriage would have worked out. He was familiar with how Gabriel had seemingly slowed down in his wanderings with that one woman he found on the mainland though. “Well, he’s been home for as far as I know now. Doesn’t picture me as the marrying sort though.” But she would know him much better than he could, so he would believe her words.

Meanwhile, Ivan had been nervous ever since he let the charade go on for hours until he got bored and peeked inside her room to gloat. Only she wasn’t there and after frantically searching about, Yelena remained to be seen. That would cause him a lot of trouble if she wasn’t found. His mind went back to the snake pit the elder Volkov put him in the last time he messed with her. He eventually went to his mistress on his knees with fear in his eyes. “I may or may have not been acting like a ghost, wailing and knocking on the walls next to her room. I may or may not have also scared her badly and now she’s not in her room. I didn’t hear anyone leave so…” He would have been biting his nails, but Ivan didn’t feel much like getting his hand slapped for that as well. “I don’t know where she’s at…I’m sure she’s not at the Byrkyns this time…”