Chapter 3
“This dream is incredible,” I whispered.
Then, before I could stop myself, I crouched beside the tub and kissed Adrian hard on the cheek.
“If it’s a dream, I’m going to enjoy it before I wake up.”
His whole face went red. Straight from his neck to his ears.
He shoved at me with one wet hand. “Look at you. So easily impressed.”
I grinned like an idiot.
Then footsteps sounded in the yard.
My friend Nora pushed open the gate and came in carrying a ceramic jar. Behind her walked her wolf beastman husband, big and handsome, with dark hair and black ears tipped alert over his head.
Nora’s family had money. She had been assigned a beastman two years ago.
She grinned when she saw me. “Ellie, look what I brought you.”
I hurried over, and she pressed the jar into my hands.
“I heard you’re keeping a siren,” she said. “I asked someone from the city to bring back premium body oil. Proper stuff. Better than rubbing him with cooking fat.”
My eyes lit up.
In that moment, even the floating comments seemed less shocking than my happiness.
Nora had always been good to me. If she had not looked out for me growing up, an orphan like me would never have made it this far in one piece.
I turned to call Adrian over, but when I looked back, he had already sunk all the way down in the tub until only the top of his head showed.
I frowned.
That was rude.
I took a step forward, intending to make him greet her properly, but Nora was already glancing around the room.
“Why is there water everywhere?” she asked. “I told you to move in with us before. If you had, maybe you’d have been assigned a normal beastman instead of…”
She did not finish.
She did not mean harm. Nora had always been blunt.
But behind me, the water in the tub rippled sharply.
I knew Adrian had heard.
I tightened my grip on the oil jar.
“I’m doing fine,” I said, more sharply than I intended. “And Adrian is fine too. Thank you for the oil.”
Nora blinked, a little surprised, then sighed and chatted a few more minutes before leaving with her husband.
The comments in front of me went wild.
Side character and her friend are both shortsighted. Comparing an ordinary wolf to a top-tier siren? Be serious.
He’s jealous.
He is absolutely jealous.
I set the jar down and leaned over the tub.
“Adrian? You sleepy? Nora brought you body oil. Let me put some on.”
With a splash, he surged up so abruptly I stepped back.
“No,” he said.
Then I saw the new pearls resting in the clean water around him.
My brows drew together. “You’re crying again? Why?”
He swiped water from his face and glared at me.
“I’m not crying.”
I held up the jar. “This oil should be better than lard. You used to complain about lard.”
His face reddened.
“It hurts.”
“What?”
“This oil hurts,” he snapped. “Throw it away. I want lard.”
I stared at him.
This man.
This impossible, dramatic, expensive man.
“Yesterday you said lard smelled gross.”
“Today I hate this more.”
I picked up the jar and started toward the door.
He panicked instantly. “Where are you going?”
“To buy more lard.”
He hesitated, glanced at the silver coins in my hand, then muttered, “Then come back quickly.”
I spent the whole walk to town reading comments.
And the more I read, the worse I felt.
That siren is dangerous. Sea predators aren’t harmless. She keeps touching him like that and one bad mood later he could tear her apart.
No, the sound he made earlier was definitely pleasure.
Shut up. His reverse scale hasn’t even responded yet. If he wanted her, the mating tendrils would’ve extended a long time ago.
Exactly. He won’t let her touch there because he hates her.
I stopped in the middle of the road.
Hates me.
The phrase hit harder than it should have.
Maybe because I had been secretly hoping for the opposite this whole time.
Maybe because under all the temper and tears and insults, I had started to care more than I wanted to admit.
I tightened my grip on the fresh jar of lard.
That night, I made up my mind.
I would test it.
I would find out, once and for all, whether Adrian truly hated my touch.
And if he did…
Then I would send him home.
No matter how much it hurt.