Chapter 22: 1.4.9
koen gets a couple small hits on both lira and amelie before they’re able to make koen submit. after koen submits he’s less like a bloodthirsty feral wolf and more like a mildly aggressive puppy
The months that followed were a tapestry of small, ordinary threads. Koen woke to the smell of Amelie’s tea brewing. He worked the docks, the heavy crates and tar-slick ropes becoming a familiar language. He came home to Lira’s sharp observations from the speakeasy, her pockets sometimes heavy with extra coins from patrons who liked her galaxy-eyed stare. They ate stews, shared wine, slept tangled together. The scar from the winch was a faint silver line now, a memory almost smoothed away by his body’s relentless healing. The collar remained tucked in the drawer by the door, a secret totem from a night of profound surrender, only mentioned in passing with a shared, warm glance.
The change began not with a roar, but a whisper. A wrongness in the water.
It was Amelie who noticed first, tasting the tea one morning and wrinkling her nose. “It tastes… sharp. Like metal and sour grass.”
Lira, sipping her own cup at the window, nodded. “The city water always tastes bad. But this is worse.”
Koen drank from his own mug, the taste registering as a vague, chemical bitterness on his tongue. He shrugged. “Probably just the pipes again.” He finished it anyway. It was water. He’d drunk worse.
By midday, a low-grade fever buzzed under his skin. It wasn’t sickness; it was a simmering, a coiling in his muscles. At the dock, moving a crate of engine parts, his grip tightened until the wood splintered. Gurney yelled at him for damaging goods. Koen just stared at the crushed crate, his orange eyes feeling too bright, too hot in his skull. The world’s sounds—the shouts of men, the groan of winches, the slosh of the harbor—seemed both too loud and strangely muffled.
He walked home through the smog-choked dusk, the neon signs bleeding their colors across the wet cobbles. The sharp smell of diesel from a passing truck didn’t just irritate his nose; it sent a spike of anger through his chest. A group of dockworkers laughing outside a tavern made his teeth ache. Their laughter was a provocation. Their happiness was a taunt. He wanted to silence it.
He pushed the door open to their apartment. The usual warmth smelled wrong. The herbs Amelie used in her cooking were now cloying, overpowering. The fire in the hearth was too bright, its light scratching at his eyes.
Amelie turned from the stove, a smile on her face that faltered as she saw him.“Koen? You look… flushed.”
Lira, coming down the stairs, stopped mid-step. Her galaxy eyes narrowed, assessing. “Your eyes are glowing.”
He stood in the doorway, breathing hard. The coiling in his muscles was now a twisting, a wrenching in his gut. A primal scent flooded his senses—not the herbs, not the tar, but them. Their skin, their hair, their unique, comforting smell. It now screamed at him, a scent simultaneously delectable and infuriating. It was his scent. And it was everywhere, taunting him, claiming the space.
“The water,” he managed to say, his voice a gravelly rumble. “Something’s in it. It’s… it’s doing something to me.” He clenched his fists, feeling the tendons strain. “You need to go. Get out. Now.”
They didn’t move. Amelie set her spoon down slowly. Lira descended the rest of the stairs, her posture wary but rooted.
“Go where?” Lira asked, her voice flat. “The city is full of this water.”
“Just… away from me.” The words were hard to form. A red haze was creeping into the edges of his vision. The warmth of the room felt like a cage. Their calm faces felt like an insult. He was a spring winding too tight. “Please. Run.”
“We are not running from you,” Amelie said, her voice firm but gentle. She stepped towards him, her hand reaching out. “You are our husband.”
Her movement was a trigger. The scent of her, the approach, the claim—it shattered the last thin pane of his control.
A sound tore from his throat, not a word, but a raw, guttural snarl. The rational part of him, the part that loved them, screamed inside a shrinking prison. The rest of him, the infernal blood ignited by poison, surged forward.
He moved not with his usual lumbering grace, but with a predator’s explosive lunge. He wasn’t trying to hit her. He was trying to clear her, to remove the obstacle, the taunting scent. His open hand, meant to push, connected with her shoulder with far more force than he intended.
Amelie cried out, a sharp gasp of pain and shock as she was thrown backwards. She crashed into the low table by the hearth, sending the bottle of anniversary wine and the glasses clattering to the floor. She lay there, stunned, clutching her shoulder.
Lira didn’t hesitate. She didn’t run. She launched herself at him, a void-elf’s speed meeting feral strength. Her fist connected with his jaw—a solid, shocking crack that snapped his head sideways. It didn’t hurt. It ignited him.
He roared, grabbing her by the front of her dress. He flung her. She sailed across the room, hitting the wall with a dull thud, sliding down to the floor. She coughed, shaking her head, her galaxy eyes blazing with fury, not fear.
Seeing them both down, hurt by his own hands, should have stopped him. Instead, it fed the fire. They were weak. They were in his space. They needed to be subdued. Controlled. He advanced towards Amelie, who was trying to rise, her eyes wide with a pain that was more emotional than physical.
Lira scrambled up. She didn’t attack again. She ran to the drawer. Her fingers closed around the braided leather cord. Not just the leash. The collar.
Koen was leaning over Amelie, his hand outstretched, not to hit her again, but to grab, to pull her up, to… he didn’t know. His mind was a red storm of possession and rage.
“Koen!” Lira shouted, her voice slicing through the haze. She held up the black leather collar. “Look!”
His orange, glowing eyes flicked to it. The black band. The simple ring. A memory, buried deep under the chemical rage, sparked—a memory of warmth, of firelight, of praise, of surrender. Of being good.He hesitated. His hand hovered over Amelie.
Lira moved fast. She didn’t approach from the front. She came from behind, quick and desperate. As he stared at the collar, she looped it around his neck. The cool leather touched his fevered skin.
He jerked, snarling, turning on her. She buckled it. The click was soft, but definitive.
The moment it settled around his throat, something shifted. The rage didn’t vanish.It… changed. It was no longer a wildfire seeking to consume everything. It was a contained blaze, directionless but shackled. The red haze receded from his vision, leaving his eyes still bright, but confused. He blinked, looking down at Amelie, who was staring up at him, tears in her eyes but her chin held high.
He panted, his chest heaving. He looked at Lira, who held the end of the leash now clipped to the ring. Her face was set in a fierce, commanding mask.
“Down,” she ordered, her voice trembling with adrenaline but absolute in its authority.
The word resonated in the deep, trained channels of his soul. He dropped. Not to his knees gracefully, but crumpled, like a building collapsing, onto the floor beside the shattered table.
He growled, low and continuous, a rumbling in his chest. But he didn’t move. He stayed on the floor, his head lowered, his eyes fixed on the braided cord in Lira’s hand.
Amelie slowly got up, wincing, her hand on her bruised shoulder. She looked at Koen, now collared and leashed, growling like a chained beast. The bloodthirsty ferocity was gone. In its place was a confused, possessive agitation. He was still fierce, still dangerous, but the target of his danger was no longer them. It was the world outside, the wrongness in his blood. He was theirs, and the collar was the proof.
Lira tugged the leash. “Stop growling.”
His growl subsided into a huff, a frustrated exhale. He nudged Amelie’s leg with his head, a rough, clumsy gesture. It wasn’t an apology. It was a checking-in. A claiming.
Amelie knelt, ignoring the pain in her shoulder. She put her hand on his head, his ashen black hair hot and damp. “Good boy,” she whispered, her voice thick. “You are still our good boy.”
He huffed again, but leaned into her touch. The glow in his eyes dimmed slightly.
“He is not… cured,” Lira said, keeping a firm grip on the leash. “The poison is still in him. But the collar… it is an anchor. It reminds him.”
Koen looked up at Lira. His expression was no longer murderous. It was scowling, irritated, like a petulant child or a dog that had been denied a bone. He snapped his teeth, a quick, warning click, but when Lira didn’t flinch, he just grumbled and laid his head back on Amelie’s knee.
“Like a puppy,” Amelie murmured, stroking his hair. “A very angry, confused puppy.”
Lira gave a short, breathless laugh. “A puppy that can throw me across a room.” She touched her ribs where she’d hit the wall, wincing. “We need to get him water. Not from the tap. From the rain barrel in the alley. It is old, but it is not from the city pipes.”
Amelie nodded. “And we must keep him calm. Keep him… here.” She tapped the collar.
Koen, understanding they were discussing him, let out another low grumble. He nosed at Amelie’s hand, his sharp canines glinting. It was not a threat. It was a request for more attention.
They worked around him, moving carefully. Lira fetched a cup of rainwater, holding the leash tight. Koen drank it when commanded, thirstily, though he spilled most of it, his movements still too rough, too clumsy. He allowed Amelie to check the minor bruises on his jaw and chest from Lira’s hit. He even, after a few tugs on the leash and sharp commands, let her press a cold cloth to his fevered forehead.
He spent the night on the floor by the hearth, the leash tied securely to a heavy leg of the cooking stove. He didn’t sleep. He shifted, growled at sounds from the street, huffed when the fire crackled too loudly. But when Amelie or Lira spoke to him, using his name, using the words “good” and “ours,” he would quiet, his glowing eyes fixed on them with a mixture of aggression and a deep, needy loyalty.
The poison in the water, they learned over the next fearful days, was a weapon. Someone had targeted the infernal community in the Warrens. Chaos erupted in the slums—snarling, mindless violence. The city guard cordoned off districts, their silver-tipped rifles visible at the edges of the fog.
But in the small apartment by the docks, a different containment was in place. Koen, collared and leashed, moved from a feral wolf to a mildly aggressive puppy. He obeyed simple commands: “Sit.” “Drink.” “Quiet.” He would snap if startled, but a firm “No” from Lira and a tug on the leash would make him sulk. He was possessive, following them with his eyes, growling if they moved too far from his reach. But he was theirs. And the anchor of the collar, and the deeper anchor of his need to be their good boy, held him fast against the storm in his blood.
Amelie’s shoulder healed. Lira’s ribs ached but held. They cared for their husband, their feral, collared puppy, bringing him rainwater, speaking softly to him, and waiting for the poison to pass, or for the world outside to decide their fate.
They cared for their husband, their feral, collared puppy, bringing him rainwater, speaking softly to him, and waiting for the poison to pass, or for the world outside to decide their fate. Three days of this. Three days of low, warning growls that vibrated through the floorboards, of his orange eyes tracking their every move like hot coals in the dim light. Amelie’s shoulder was a tapestry of purple and yellow. Lira moved stiffly, a sharp ache in her side with every breath. They took shifts. One would sleep, fitfully, while the other watched the length of braided leather, ensuring it remained securely knotted to the stout leg of the iron stove.
On the fourth morning, Amelie’s watch. The apartment was quiet, the only sounds the distant, alien foghorn and Koen’s rhythmic, heavy breathing. He was lying on his side, awake. He’d been staring at the dying embers in the hearth for an hour, his body tensed like a spring. The fever seemed to have broken, leaving a strange, brittle alertness in its wake.
“You are thirsty,” Amelie stated softly from her chair. It wasn’t a question.
Koen’s eyes slid to her. He didn’t growl. He just stared, his expression unreadable beneath the simmering intensity. He made a short, sharp sound in the back of his throat, almost a whimper, but edged with frustration.
She rose, slowly, and fetched the chipped cup of stale rainwater. She approached not like one approaches a beast, but as she always had—with a quiet, unwavering certainty. She knelt just outside the radius of the leash. “Here.”
He pushed himself up to a sitting position, the movement all coiled power. He snatched the cup from her hand, water sloshing over his fingers. He drank it in two greedy gulps, then crushed the clay cup in his fist. Shards clattered to the floorboards. He looked at the pieces, then at his wet hand, confusion flashing across his face.
Amelie didn’t scold him. She didn’t flinch. She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a small, dried fig—a precious sweetness saved from better times. She held it out on her open palm.
Koen stared at the fig. His nostrils flared. The aggressive tension in his shoulders seemed to waver, caught between instinct and a deeper, older memory. He leaned forward, sniffing her palm, his breath hot on her skin. Slowly, his movements losing their jerky violence, he bent his head and took the fig from her hand with surprising gentleness. His lips brushed her palm.
He chewed, his gaze locked on hers. The molten anger in his eyes was cooling, hardening into something else. Something needier.
“Good boy,” Amelie whispered.
A full-body shudder ran through him. The sound that escaped him then was utterly new. It wasn’t a growl. It wasn’t a huff. It was a deep, rumbling sigh that seemed to deflate him. The fierce, puzzled puppy was gone, melting away like the last of the fever sweat. What remained in his eyes was a pure, staggering vulnerability. The chemical rage had burned itself out, leaving only the raw, simple core of him: the part that needed them.
He nudged her knee with his forehead, a clear, deliberate request. Then he did it again, more insistently.
“Oh,” Amelie breathed, understanding dawning. The shift was complete. She lifted her hand and placed it on his head, threading her fingers through his ashen hair. He practically collapsed into the touch, a low, continuous sound of pleasure humming in his chest. He pushed his head up into her hand, demanding more pressure.
She scratched behind his ear, the way one might soothe a nervous dog. He leaned his full weight against her legs, his eyes sliding shut. The terrifying, feral powerhouse was gone. In his place was a very large, very tired man who had been lost in a storm and was finally, desperately, home.
“Just a puppy,” she murmured, her own throat tight with a relief so profound it felt like pain. “A puppy who wants his pets.”
Amelie stayed like that, her fingers tracing slow circles on his scalp, until his breathing deepened into the ragged, even rhythm of exhausted sleep. The pre-dawn gloom softened the edges of the room, turning the wreckage of the table and the spilled wine into mere shapes, unimportant. Her legs were going numb under his weight, but she didn’t dare move.
The door clicked open an hour later, Lira slipping in from her final check of the rain barrel in the alley. Her galaxy eyes swept the room, noting the new quiet, her body still coiled for a sudden snarl or the snap of a leash. She saw Amelie in the chair by the dead hearth, and the large, dark shape pooled on the floor beside her.
Then she saw the details. Koen’s head was cradled in Amelie’s lap, his face turned into the soft fabric of her dress. One of Amelie’s hands rested possessively on the black leather collar, her other hand still buried in his ashen hair, which was mussed from her gentle stroking. His shoulders rose and fell with the profound sleep of the spent, the aggressive tension evaporated. He looked younger, the sharpness of his canines hidden by parted lips.
A breath Lira hadn’t realized she was holding leaked out of her in a silent sigh. She padded closer, her boots making no sound on the boards. “The fever?” she whispered, her voice scratchy from lack of sleep.
“Broke,” Amelie murmured back, not stopping her rhythmic petting. “The anger… it just burned out. Left this.” She glanced down at the sleeping form in her lap, her expression a complex mix of triumph and aching tenderness. “He took a fig from my hand. Then he just… folded.”
Lira knelt beside them, her own bruises protesting. She didn’t touch Koen, not yet. She just watched the peaceful surrender of his face, so starkly different from the glowing-eyed snarl of hours before. “The collar held him.”
“It did more than hold him,” Amelie said. “It called him back. When he saw it, something in him remembered. He wanted to obey.”
A low, sleepy sound vibrated in Koen’s throat as Amelie’s nails scraped gently along his scalp. He nuzzled deeper into her lap, a subtle, seeking shift. Lira’s stern expression finally softened. A faint, tired smile touched her lips. “Even poisoned and feral, he is still our good boy at heart.”
“What do we do now?” Amelie asked, her gaze lifting to the window where a sickly grey light was battling the neon-tinged smog. “The city is still sick. They will be hunting infernals.”
Lira’s smile vanished. She reached out, not for Koen, but for the end of the braided leash which was still tied fast to the stove. Her fingers toyed with the knot. “We keep him safe. We keep him calm. And we keep this on him, until we are sure the poison is gone from the pipes and from his blood.” She looked at Amelie, her face set. “Go sleep. I have the watch now.”
Amelie hesitated, reluctant to dislodge the warm weight on her. “He may wake confused.”
“I know how to handle him,” Lira said, her voice holding the quiet certainty of the one who had first buckled the collar. “Sleep. You are no good to him exhausted.”
Carefully, gently, Amelie began to extract herself. Koen stirred immediately, a frown creasing his brow, a low grumble building in his chest. His orange eyes flickered open, glazed and disoriented.
“Shhh,” Lira said, moving instantly. She placed her hand firmly where Amelie’s had been, on the collar. Her thumb stroked the leather. “I am here. Go back to sleep.”
His eyes found hers, swimming with a vulnerable confusion that made her heart clench. He searched her face, the worry in his own slowly fading as recognition filtered through the sleep-haze. He saw Lira. He felt the familiar pressure of the collar. The grumble died. He let out a long, shaky breath, his eyes drifting shut again as he surrendered to her watchful presence.
koen is still feral but has gone from mildly aggressive puppy to just a puppy who wants pets. amelie is watching over him when the shift occurs
lira comes in to take over the watch only to find koen curled up asleep in amelie’s lap while amelie strokes his hair