Chapter 112: A Bitter Sip Could Save Your Life

Blair furrowed her brows, staring blankly at the red liquid in the glass.

Was he calling her a baby bird? Did that make him the mother? The bizarre comparison threw her for a loop.

"What?" Blair whispered, genuinely confused by the analogy.

Finding her footing in the only place she ever truly felt confident: academic logic, Blair took a breath and decided to answer the question seriously.

"Actually," Blair started, her timid voice picking up a bit of speed as she fell into her element, "altricial nestlings are born completely blind and lack developed taste receptors. They rely entirely on tactile stimulation to open their mouths and accept regurgitated matter. So, from a biological standpoint, no, they do not know what their mother is feeding them until it reaches their digestive tract."

Jack just stared at her. He watched her ramble on about bird digestion, his red eyes unblinking in the dim lamplight.

Eventually, he cut her off. "You are missing the metaphor, Ms. Willows," Jack argued, his smooth voice slicing through her scientific explanation. "The bird accepts the food because instinct demands blind trust in its provider. It swallows without question because it needs the nourishment to survive."

"But humans aren’t birds," Blair countered, her fingers clutching her bundled clothes a little tighter. "Blind trust usually just leads to parasitic manipulation. Like a cuckoo bird tricking another species into feeding its young. Transparency is safer."

"Transparency is a luxury for those who aren’t being hunted," Jack debated back instantly. "Sometimes you just have to swallow the bitter truth to stay alive."

Someone loudly cleared their throat.

Both Jack and Blair snapped their heads toward the staircase. Daemus was standing on the landing, shirtless and dressed in nothing but a pair of gray boxers.

He let out a loud, lazy yawn, stretching his muscular arms over his head. "What are the two of you arguing about so late in the night?" Daemus complained, rubbing his eyes. "Don’t nerds sleep?"

Blair’s face instantly flooded with a brilliant, fiery red. The sudden realization of how close she was standing to the professor in the dark living room made her jump. She quickly scrambled backward, putting a few feet of distance between herself and Jack.

"I—I was just going to the bathroom!" Blair stuttered out frantically.

Without waiting for a response, she clutched her toiletries to her chest and hurried up the stairs, practically sprinting past Daemus to escape the mortifying situation.

Jack and Daemus both stayed silent, watching her scramble down the upstairs hallway until she disappeared and they heard her close the bathroom door.

Jack turned his attention back to the Wolf Prince. He walked over to the bottom of the staircase and held out the glass of red liquid.

"Have her drink this," Jack instructed.

Daemus walked down the steps and took the glass from his hand. He looked at the dark liquid sloshing against the rim. "What’s in it?"

"A synthesized compound of poly-olfactory modifiers, diluted belladonna extract, and concentrated sulfuric ester bonds," Jack listed off in a dry, rapid-fire sequence.

Daemus stared at him, his face reddening slightly as the gibberish flew straight over his head. He blinked.

"I’m going to rephrase," Daemus said flatly. "What’s it for?"

"If Ms. Willows is going to go around looking like a beastman, she will have to smell like one too," Jack told him calmly. "Drawing that sort of attention to herself will only bring trouble. The drink alters her human scent."

Daemus furrowed his brows, looking down at the glass. "Won’t people be curious about how she was a human before, and is suddenly a beastman now?"

"Bored nobles do aesthetic alterations all the time," Jack dismissed the concern easily. "She can pull it off."

Curious, Daemus brought the rim of the glass to his nose and sniffed the liquid. He couldn’t smell a single thing. It was completely odorless. He tilted the glass back, bringing it closer to his mouth.

"I wouldn’t," Jack warned smoothly, stopping Daemus in his tracks. "Some of the chemicals in there are toxic to the stomachs of beastmen."

Hearing the warning, Daemus quickly lowered the glass, changing his mind about taking a taste.

"Excuse me," Jack said politely, stepping past Daemus to head up the stairs.

"Hey," Daemus called after him.

Jack paused on the steps.

"Thanks for looking out for my girl," Daemus said, a smug, teasing smirk stretching across his handsome face. "But you do know that relations between teachers and students is against the rules, right?"

Jack stopped. He slowly looked over his shoulder, his red eyes meeting Daemus’s silver gaze.

"I care for all my students that have great potential," Jack responded, his tone perfectly even and unbothered. "Even the annoying, despicable human ones."

Jack turned his head back to the stairs. "And rules are for children."

Jack continued up the stairs at a calm, composed pace. But the very second he turned the corner at the top of the landing and vanished from Daemus’s sight, the professor picked up the pace, breaking into a frantic, hurried rush straight to his bedroom to get to the bathroom.

Downstairs, Daemus chuckled, his smirk widening. Now he didn’t feel nearly as guilty about trading Jack’s nudes for favors. The professor definitely had a thing for his girlfriend.

"Cares for all students, my ass," Daemus laughed quietly to himself.

He looked back down at the glass of red liquid in his hand. He swirled it around, watching the dark liquid coat the glass. His curiosity gnawed at him. Jack had warned him it was toxic, but he was a wolf. He ate all sorts of stuff. How bad could it really be?

"Maybe a little taste won’t do anything," Daemus muttered to himself.

Driven entirely by his own curiosity, Daemus brought the glass to his lips and took a very small sip.

He swallowed.

Daemus immediately gagged. His eyes watered instantly. It tasted unimaginably disgusting. And it acted fast, too. A churning wave of nausea hit Daemus’s stomach like a freight train, having the Wolf Prince instantly sprinting for the bathroom.