Page 9 of Plug and Drain

“Very well, Susanna. You have my attention. I’m intrigued by your offer.”

He waited expectantly, giving Susie—he couldn’t quite think of her as ‘Susanna’, though he would try—the opportunity to invite him in.

The silence stretched, the tension growing thick until it was buzzing in his ears. She stared at him, the green in her eyes mesmerising him; fragments of radiant lime green trapped within pools of gold.

Arken didn’t mind the prolonged eye contact. He had patience in abundance, and he noted her pointed wolf ears tipped in black.

Cute.

Finally, the wolf’s firm stare wavered, and she blinked and looked away. Her voice was unmistakably resigned. “Will you come in?”

“Yes, I’d like that very much,” Arken smiled cheerily, following her into her bedroom.

As Susie walked ahead of him, he was surprised to see she had a wolf’s tail.

Odd. Why a tail?

It was rare to see wolves half-morph, and when they did, it was only a pair of ears or a set of claws. Never a tail.

A tail, as he understood it, created all sorts of challenges when it came to clothing, which usually disappeared in the course of full transformation, reappearing upon return to human form.

It occurred to him that Susie’s flannel pyjama pants had probably been altered to accommodate her tail, which fascinated him as he admired the long silvery-grey plume. He didn’t mind it, especially the way it was lifted high suggestively. Or maybe only he found it suggestive, but the graceful way it swished side to side was having a similar effect on him as the gentle sway of her hips. Which, in turn, made it terribly difficult not to look at her ass.

He quickly looked away when she turned to face him, but he suspected she’d caught him staring.

“This is my room,” she said, stating the obvious.

She was nervous.

Arken wandered around curiously with his hands in his pockets. He sensed Susie hesitate behind him before shutting the door.

Her room was small, as all of the wolves’ rooms were. They had once been prison cells, although they looked far more cosy now. There were no windows, given that they were underground, but the single magical lamp on the ceiling continuously faded between a soft pink and blue light, the melancholy glow basking the white walls and reminding him of twilight.

Not that there was much of the wall visible behind the stacks of books lining the walls. He smiled to himself. Susie was clearly fond of reading.

Arken stepped around an impressive tower of books. It was arranged in a spiral of colours, and he took care not to knock it over. The book on top caught his eye, and he pointed at it.

“May I?”

Susie nodded and licked her lips. “It’s a fantasy book,” she mumbled, a faint blush appearing on her cheeks.

Arken soon realised why. Whilst the cover bore an illustration of a dragon burning down a castle, the swooning protagonists kissing each other in the foreground suggested the story had far more to do with romance than the dragon the heroine should have been slaying.

“So it is,” Arken mused, returning the book carefully to the top of the tower. He stroked his beard as he gazed around the room. “This is quite the collection.”

Susie smiled faintly. “Thank you.”

“Do you enjoy reading?”

A stupid question.

Idiot.

Suddenly, he was the nervous one.

“Yes, I do.”

“Hm.” He circled the small room. There was a desk with neatly organised textbooks, stationery, and a sheet of parchment with a neatly written essay.