But he couldn't say that aloud, as even in the state she was in, she collected the evidence that might help him, if not for his real target being the umpire, which would naturally be unknown to this woman. So he just took it before looking at her and becoming more curious.
And this time, rather than her body scent, he seemed to see her in a new light... as a wise woman.
"What is your name, woman?" Javrian inquired, his silver eye studying the hollow crimson gaze that met his without flinching.
'For the first time...' he thought, watching as he gently picked the artifact from her trembling hand. 'A woman who doesn't fear me.'
"I will tell you... once," Luna uttered, her voice carrying that same hollow quality that had caught his attention earlier.
But then something shifted in her demeanor. Her crimson eyes turned away from his face, drifting toward the two cowering figures behind him.
Javrian watched, fascinated, as Luna's finger lifted with deliberate slowness.
'What is she...?'
There was something chilling about the gesture—not dramatic or emotional, but cold as winter moonlight. Both Victor and Livina flinched visibly under her pointing finger.
'They're more afraid of her than they are of me right now,' Javrian realized, his lips twitching with dark amusement, as he seemed to be starting to like this red-haired woman.
The woman who moments ago had seemed broken beyond repair now held herself like a judge delivering a final verdict.
Normally he had thought that she was a weak, frail woman with nothing except that strange physique, but she was beyond what he thought.
Her voice, when it came, was devoid of hatred or rage—just a simple, hollow command that somehow carried more weight than any scream of vengeance could have.
"Tear them both apart... kill them."
'Now that's my line...' He could just give her a last glance, moving forward, slowly leaning as his form started to shift, amused seeing a weak but brave, broken but not shattered, and hopeless but smart woman... for the first time in his life.
What followed was not a battle—it was execution.
Javrian had killed many, but rarely with such personal satisfaction.
Victor's struggles were pathetic, his strength meaningless against a wolf who had survived the wasteland wars.
As for the purple-haired woman, her terror was almost amusing.
Almost.
"Aaarghhh! Luna! Please!"
"I am your husband—AaaaRrrGgggHhhhh!"
But as he was plucking off limbs of Victor with his teeth while in his wolf form, Javrian's attention kept drifting to the red-haired woman.
To watch her reaction, if she showed fear or disgust towards him which prompted him to not show mercy but brutality.
"Aaarrhhh.... MY LEGS!" Even that purple-haired woman's cries, whom he thought was Luna's sister, didn't shake her as he intentionally plucked off her legs.
All just to see if she would hate him.
Strangely, it mattered to him at this moment.
Even drugged, even broken, she didn't cower. She didn't beg. She just... watched.
As if she'd moved beyond caring whether she lived or died... but more so showed no hint of expression while observing her husband and sister being slaughtered.
'Strange.'
When she earlier pointed at them and coldly ordered their deaths, Javrian felt something shift in his chest, like pride a king has in his queen.
The taste of their blood should have satisfied him.
Instead, he found himself studying the woman who was right now dripping nectar, her smell was so intense that he was using the metallic stench of blood to hide her scent.
The metallic taste of blood should have satisfied him. It always had before.
Javrian stood over the mangled remains of Victor, his chest still heaving from the transformation, but something felt... incomplete.
But his silver eye kept drifting to her in his beast form.
The red-haired woman sat there, breathing heavily—not from terror, but from the artificial aphrodisiac they had forced down her throat.
It caused her body to heat up, increasing her own scent and fragrance, which poked at his instincts rolling off her in waves so potent that it made his vision blur.
'She smells like...' Javrian's jaw clenched as he fought to maintain control, slowly moving while opening his jaws to bite off that purple-haired woman's head with his eyes fixed on Luna, inwardly guessing. 'Like wildflower honey mixed with moonlight... strangely calming yet addicting.'
He arrived and threw her sister's head at her feet, as if she were cataloging their deaths while that intoxicating sweetness grew stronger with each breath.
'So that Victor is already dead now,' he turned or thought to leave given the mission was complete and before the arrival of the Empire's hounds; he and the others needed to leave as per their pre-decided schedule.
Her body was singing a siren song that made his wolf pace restlessly beneath his skin, demanding he claim what smelled so perfectly like his own... as he slowly transformed into his human form.
'!'
But suddenly, when she stretched her arms wide in resignation—not embrace, but surrender to what she thought was inevitable violation—something cracked in Javrian's chest.
'She expects me to be like them.'
The thought tasted bitter, more bitter than the blood still coating his teeth. How many battles had he won through fear? How many enemies had trembled at the mere mention of his name? He was the shadow that stalked noble houses, the nightmare that hunted in moonlight.
He was supposed to be a monster.
So why did her acceptance feel like an accusation?
His cloak hit her shoulders before his mind caught up with the action.
The fabric, still warm from his body, still carrying his scent, would keep her safe from other wolves, given it had the property to stop the scent, especially what she was emitting.
"It will hide your body scent... stay here."
The words came out rougher than he intended, gravelly with emotions he didn't want to examine.
When had he ever cared about hiding someone's scent? When had he ever walked away from what he could easily take?
But then came her whisper: "Why?"
"What?"
That soft whisper stopped him cold.
He turned back against his better judgment, finding her red hair slipping from the cloak, those hollow crimson eyes searching his face.
"Why are you not doing anything?" she asked, and Javrian felt his control hanging by a thread, slipping, but a painful sigh escaped without letting his exterior make her fear him.
If he wanted to really let his mind have the better of himself, he would have uttered his thoughts: 'Because you smell like paradise and I'm trying not to be the devil.'
But he didn't, as if his instincts far superseded the vengeance he felt for that woman... a warmth burning even the lust to assess.
"Do you want me to do anything to you?" he managed, voice strained but with a chuckle.
Her soft "No" was like a blade through his chest—and also his salvation, a relief that calmed his eyes.
"Then rest, woman. Your people will save you once we leave," he replied, turning to flee before that sweet woman destroyed what little honor he had left.
But then came that whisper that stopped his heart:
"I don't have anyone to... call mine."
Five simple words that hit Javrian like a physical blow. He stopped at the doorway, his hand frozen on the frame, feeling something shift inside his chest—a tectonic movement of emotions he'd spent years burying.
'No one to call hers.'
He understood that particular brand of emptiness.
Had lived with it since his tribe was slaughtered under the Emperor's scheme, since he'd become a weapon instead of a man to take revenge.
But hearing it from her, spoken with such resigned honesty, made his own solitude feel suddenly unbearable.
Javrian had claimed territories, hoarded power, commanded fear and respect. But when was the last time someone had been his to protect? Not to use, not to conquer, but to shelter and cherish?
When he turned back to find her curled in on herself, red hair falling like a curtain over her face, something primitive and possessive stirred in his chest.
Not the usual predatory hunger—something deeper.
Something that whispered 'mine' in the same breath as 'protect.'
That sweet scent seemed to call to him, drawing him back despite his better judgment.
And next moment he found himself holding her chin, leaning towards her with the words.
"You are mine, Luna."