Nyx || ATEEZ OT8

14| Living warfare

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 4,700 words

𝐘𝐮𝐧𝐡𝐨

The man's hand rested on the handle for a long time before he eventually pressed down onto the cool gold-plated steel. A longing howl for more freedom filled his head with so much blather that he was slowly turning insane from the ringing tones. Shut up, it's only been a few days - besides, who's the actual reason for our imprisonment?

Yunho whipped his head around again and sniffed the air another time out of pure dread of the heavy smells still lingering around his room and clinging to the clean clothes he had just picked out from the wardrobe he had found inside his given chamber. An irritated growl escaped his throat as the many hours of scrubbing the many pheromones off him with the strongest scented soaps he could find in the bathroom had not paid off at all. Anyone with a decent sense of smell would be able to detect the fever still hanging around him like a cloud.

He still smelled like two fucking whole days of pain and sperm. Embarrassing.

The werewolf's pride in being a prince had been lowered completely, and he prayed by the moon's power that none of the other princes had caught a whiff of what he was going through - although that wish was difficult to be fulfilled in a place like this full of sketchy, dark creatures. Somehow, and it was still a mystery to Yunho why his rut kicked in nearly 4 months earlier than it was supposed to. The feverish signs he always used to have before he would be down hadn't been there either as well as the duration of the rut itself had been incredibly short. Normally they lasted about a week.

Yunho was just glad that he at least had his own chamber to handle everything inside, even if his wolf had contemplated the reasons to lock the door instead of finding a potential mate. He cursed himself at that statement and sent a downturning signal to his wolf when it began getting a little too excited about the idea of someone to claim as theirs. Shall I make it even more clear for you? It's a bloody no!

"Stupid wolf," the prince muttered to himself as he wandered down the long empty corridors.

It was a bit of luck his sense of orientation held up even after a couple of days locked up inside a foreign room - but his wolf was simply a master at figuring out labyrinths. Soon his legs kicked him down the enormous main stairs into the segue before the dining room, hunger biting his insides and making instincts emerge the closer he came. Almost as if he already could taste the delicious dishes on his tongue..

But the enormous dining room displayed no food. His eyes wandered down the wooden table, finding every gilded chair empty. Yunho was alone.

Full of disappointment, Yunho pulled out one of the heavy pieces of furniture and slumped down into the seat. That moment exhaustion for real hit him - he pulled his elbows up to rest against the table's stern surface and rubbed the tiredness out of his face, although to no alteration than before. He could survive with this if it could not be otherwise.

The second he felt the pull, the wolf had no chance against the force of his overtired eyelids slowly sliding close, so he let himself shut off the world around him, lightly easing the headache throbbing in his brain as he rested his head on top of his palms. And yet, his wolf had the audacity to even growl at him for not finding any food to satisfy it with. Well, you do something about that then!

"Hmm.. Out of energy?"

Yunho suddenly tensed from the tonations vibrating into his sensitive ear, a shock falling into his features as he raised his head from where he had been resting it. His nose caught up on the heavy smell of darkness floating around his form and making his neck hair raise. His eyes flared gold, filled with signals of 'I see danger coming!', his wolf practically screaming at him to turn around and lunge at the devil standing so awfully close up against him.