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Everard heard the agonizing scream that came from a distance.

“Ruby?” he mumbled in a breathless whisper, and he immediately coughed up blood again.

“Ru-” he tried to call her name so as to make her aware of his location, and to make her believe that he was doing okay. However, he entered a coughing fit again and vomited a lot of blood.

“Everaaaaard!”

He heard her desperate scream again. He could tell from her voice that she was also having great difficulty turning.

He pressed his forehead on the floor and spat out the leftover blood from his mouth. He then bit his lower lip and used his dislocated shoulder to push himself up from the floor.

It hurt so bad that he bit his own lips while trying to suppress the pain and the screams. The wound on his lips was, however, nothing compared to the broken bones and ruptured organs of his.

He was now crouching down on his broken legs, taking in short painful breaths, and contemplating what he was supposed to do next.

.....

“Argh!” he rested his forehead back on the floor when he felt his stomach hurling again.

He grimaced in pain and closed his eyes tightly to drop the tears that were making his vision blurry. He could now see the pool of blood that he had already vomited.

‘At this rate, I am going to die tonight!’ he screamed in his mind.

For a split second, he was able to recall his father and what he had said before he walked out of his father’s chamber.

He closed his eyes and lightly banged his forehead on the floor. ‘Right! I am not supposed to fight this pain and this overwhelming feeling.’ He kept on taking short breaths through his mouth and kept on repeating a word, ‘Right... Right... Right...’

Everard was trying his best to fight the pain until now. But now that he remembered, he decided to embrace the pain.

He clenched his jaw and shouted in his mind as if he was shouting to that other part of him that was eager to take control, ‘Hurt me as much as you can! Bring it on!’

He suddenly let his stiff body loosen up and whispered, “Take the reins...”

And as if on command, his whole body started to shudder.

In the next moment, he felt as if he was being crushed by a grown elephant because he could feel and hear almost all of the bones in his body breaking, cracking, and popping.

“Arghhhhhhh... Nooooo... Ughhh...” he kept on screaming in anguish and squirming on the floor.

He wished that his pain would go away, but it only kept on escalating. At one point, he wished that the angel of death would come to him and take his soul. He felt that death would be hundred times easier than going through with the transformation.

For a split second, the noise of his bones cracking suddenly stopped. He sighed and thought that he made it, he thought that he was now a wolf. But could he be any more wrong?

The very next moment, he could feel his bones reattaching and healing on their own. Not just that, he could feel his muscles tearing apart and then healing again.

The pain became so unbearable that he could feel his consciousness dwindling.

And suddenly, everything turned black.

Everard was scared by that sudden darkness. He looked around and tried to find at least a tiny flicker of light. But he was unsuccessful.

“Hello?” his voice echoed as though he was in a large hall. “Anybody there?” he asked, but there was no answer.

He then tried walking around in order to find a door, a wall, or anything that he could touch.

“Hello?” he shouted as loudly as he could.

But he couldn’t hear anything except the splashing sound that he produced while walking on what felt like water that came to his ankle.

Even after what felt like a couple of hours, Everard was still walking aimlessly in that dark room. Neither did he come across any door to get out of that room, nor did he find anyone to whom he could ask for help.

He became so frustrated and felt so enraged that he looked up and roared. And he screamed for help, “For heaven’s sake! If anyone is listening to me then get me out of here!”

“Your Highness?”

Everard suddenly felt goosebumps running through his whole body when he heard the most soothing voice in the whole world.

He almost teared up with happiness when he asked back, “Ruby? Is that you? Can you hear me?”

“Yes!”

He could feel the relief with which she said that word. And immediately after, he could hear her sniffling and sobbing.

“Ruby?” He furrowed his brows in worry and instantly asked, “Where are you?”

“In the dungeon...” came the short reply.

Everard didn’t know how he was going to get to her, but he instinctively replied, “Don’t worry. I am coming to get you.”

Out of nowhere, Everard suddenly saw a huge door forming in front of him.

The door unlocked on its own. A bright yellow light entered through the door, almost blinding him.

Everard looked around and realized that he was still there in the same dungeon cell where Jerome had locked him.

He blinked a few times because he felt as if something was wrong with his eyes. But nothing changed, so he didn’t dwell much on it.

Suddenly, he felt this unparalleled urge deep down in his heart.

‘What is this feeling?’ he grimaced and asked himself.

At first, he thought that he was hungry. But that was not it. Then he thought that he was in pain. But that was not pain either. The feeling was so new to him that he felt this extreme discomfort when he couldn’t figure out what he was feeling.

He felt as if he needed something... As if he wanted something.

However, he didn’t know what that thing was.

“Eve...” Ruby’s pain-filled whisper echoed in his head.

Almost instantly, he got overwhelmed by that new feeling.

His mind, his heart, his body, his whole existence desired something very badly.