Chapter 7

~ Everything is true. ~

When I opened my eyes, the blinding light was gone. I was still on the ground, the victim of a violent headache, facing two wolves fighting in a fight to the death.

The black wolf - Maxime - was in very bad shape. The white wolf in front of him largely towered over him, both in strength and size. Maxime was already a monster, a wolf almost as big as me and I was five feet tall, but the white wolf must have been six to twenty centimeters taller than him. I was in the middle of a nightmare!

I would have liked to be able to take advantage of their fight to flee far from all this madness, but my muscles did not respond to me anymore. I was pinned to the ground, forced to watch this struggle.

The growls, the gnaws, the claws...it was all real and yet I would never have believed it if I hadn't witnessed it. So much violence to know who would have the privilege of kissing me... Lord!

My kindness had led me to find a corpse, my curiosity and my relentlessness had led me to the gates of a world that I thought was only legends, tales. For sure, if I got out of it, I swore on the fields to change radically!

The black wolf lost moments later, lying on its side, it mutated again to take the form of the man I knew. The frail man I had met, not the one I had seen moments earlier.

Blood splattered around him as the white wolf approached me. He licked my cheek, before resting my head on my chest. He gave me a light head butt before laying down between my legs and wagging his tail. He squeaked a little, asking for caresses. What an incongruous situation!

I obey nevertheless, relieved not to be devoured and to still be alive. He had saved me.

The animal ends up mutating in turn, to take the form of a man... but not just any man!

Franotti!

- Alessandra, can I remove your jacket to cover my nudity? he asked as he lay on his stomach, his face close to my chest.

- You too ? I exclaimed. You knew ?!

- I'll explain, but not here, not now. Your jacket, please.

He straightened up to sit in front of me and, one hand on his gear, the other facing me, he reiterated his request.

I obeyed, tearing myself a grimace of pain and handed him my clothes which he placed on his knees.

His bare penis touched my coat... I didn't know if I should be disgusted or, on the contrary, flattered to have this naked Apollo in front of me.

- You're going to have a hell of a bump. You would have needed stitches, but it's too late now. I don't think you have a concussion...

My sobs - which I didn't know how to hold back - broke out. In me, everything shattered... my beliefs, my convictions, my whole world no longer existed. I had escaped death, I should have been grateful to him, yet I was angry with him for not having been able to protect me before this secret world imposed itself on me.

How to live with that?