The Cold Bath: Fear, Filth, and the Beast's Claim
After wolfing down the contents of the canned food the beast had torn open with its teeth, once the edge of her extreme hunger had finally dulled, Eunha’s senses at last began to register the horrifying state of contamination her body was in. Her fragile, naked form was little more than a walking biological landfill. A thick crust of sour green insect fluid and city dust coated her once-pale, translucent skin. Across her back and the backs of her thighs, rotten gore and bloodstains from the hospital floor had dried into ugly scabs that reeked of decay.
But nothing clawed at her nerves more viciously than the condition of her lower body. Between her legs, around the delicate sex that had been mercilessly ravaged by the beast’s massive bone shaft and knot, hundreds of milliliters of boiling semen that Taeo had pumped into her during their dozens of minutes of locked mating had surged back out. The sticky, viscous male fluid had hardened in the cold air like industrial glue, sealing her soft inner thighs and pubic hair together in an unbreakable mess. The slightest shift of her legs brought a sickening tug, as though her skin might rip away. And beneath it all lingered the pungent, fishy reek of the beast’s pheromones.
Taeo’s saliva had miraculously sealed the torn membranes and cooled the fever of infection, but if she left these clumps of rotting organic matter clinging to her, fresh necrosis or secondary infection would surely begin to burrow through her pores.
“Haa… I have to wash… I need to wash…”
Eunha pushed herself up from where she had been curled on the carpet. Her damaged optic nerves left her silver pupils cloudy, yet it was not total darkness. Through the hazy fog, she made out the gaping outline of the bathroom in the corner of the suite. On trembling legs she crossed the cold tile and stepped inside.
By some stroke of luck, the huge whirlpool tub still held a considerable amount of murky water—perhaps drawn by the room’s last guest before the world ended, or simply what had pooled in the pipes. It carried a faint tang of disinfectant and stale lime scale, but compared to the filth coating her now, it might as well have been pristine.
Splash.Whoosh.
Bracing a hand on the tub’s rim, Eunha slid her slender leg into the water. In the unheated dawn of the ruined city, the liquid was ice-cold.
“Hik…! Nngh…”
Goosebumps erupted across her skin; her jaw shook violently. Still, she did not hesitate. She crouched and lowered her entire naked body into the freezing bath. The moment the water touched her, the dried insect fluids and blood dissolved in cloudy swirls, staining the tub a murky red-green.
Eunha groped for the coarse shower towel in the corner and began scrubbing herself with frantic obsession—from neck to breasts, back, and belly. She rubbed until her skin burned scarlet. The worst agony came when she attacked the beast’s traces on her lower half.
Squish.Riiip.
The semen, softened by water, regained its grotesque viscosity and clung to her fingers like living glue. Biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, Eunha scraped at the sticky mess around her torn, forcibly healed entrance and the insides of her thighs. The delicate flesh, nerves still raw and unhealed, screamed with stinging fire at every pass of the rough towel.
“Ahh… it hurts… ugh…”
Tears slid down her cheeks and vanished into the filthy water. The wretched humiliation of having to wash away the rapist’s leavings with her own hands collided with the cold survival instinct that demanded she keep her body clean. The two impulses shredded her mind.
Just as she was splashing desperately, trying to erase every trace of scent and filth—
Thud.Thud.
Heavy, ominous footsteps crushed the marble floor outside the bathroom. Eunha’s thin shoulders jerked rigid. Beyond her blurry vision, a colossal black silhouette filled the wide doorway completely. Taeo.
Grrruuuh.Sniff. Sniff.
The beast’s massive snout violently inhaled the humid air. In the next instant, murderous rage ignited in his blood-red eyes.
GRRRRRRRRRR!!!
The roar shook the entire suite, vibrating through bone and marrow. Taeo’s jaws gaped wide, razor fangs slicing the air. The fur along his neck bristled like needles.
In the wild, a male wolf marking a female with his fluids and pheromones was the most sacred, absolute declaration of ownership. Yet here was his chosen female, deliberately washing away that sacred proof, erasing his claim. To the beast, it was outright rebellion. Betrayal.
Clang!Bang!
One massive forepaw slammed down on the tile. In a single bound he was at the tub’s edge. A head the size of a grown woman’s torso thrust forward. Scorching breath blasted Eunha’s wet face. The killing intent was so thick it felt as though those merciless fangs would rip into her slender throat at any second and cram his mark so deep into her bones that she could never wash it away again.
“Hik…! N-no! Stay back!”
Terrified, Eunha scrambled into the farthest corner of the tub. She hugged her wet breasts with both arms, trembling like a leaf beneath the predator’s fury. Her quick mind—the mind of a former pharmacy student—understood in a heartbeat what instinct she had triggered.
The scent. She had tried to remove his scent.
“Please… spare me… I wasn’t running away! I swear…”
Even while certain those fangs would tear into her flesh at any moment, Eunha reached out with shaking hands and cupped the beast’s wet snout. Then she tilted her pale, slender throat toward his jaws in perfect submission.
“If I don’t wash… the insect venom and the rotting corpse water… I’ll get sick. I’ll become infected and rot from the inside out…”
Thick tears fell from her cloudy silver eyes, soaking into Taeo’s fur.
“If I die from illness… you won’t be able to mate with me anymore. So please… let me wash. Please? Taeo…”
The name slipped out again, unbidden. This time, instead of rage, the beast’s heaving chest slowly calmed. The bared fangs slid back behind thick lips.
Grrrl.Sluuurp.
Taeo buried his nose against her wet neck and inhaled deeply. Though the surface pheromones had been rinsed away, deep inside the cracks of her torn flesh and within her very bloodstream, the hormones from his semen still pulsed with fierce possession. An imprint that could never be erased. After confirming it, he rested both forepaws on the tub’s rim, exhaled a heavy breath, and blinked once—permission granted.
“Haa… thank you. Thank you…”
Eunha’s shoulders sagged with relief. Her heart hammered so hard she thought it might burst. The miserable reality of begging a monster that could rip her apart for the right to clean herself settled over her like a shroud. She hurriedly splashed the last of the water over herself, then stepped out and dried her pale, thin body with the large towel lying on the floor.
But her work was not finished.
In her hazy vision she saw Taeo’s enormous silhouette standing beside the tub. His condition was just as wretched. Green acidic fluid from the pharmacy insects had dried across his black fur; thick layers of hospital blood and dust matted his coat. He could lick his wounds and groin with his rough tongue, but the rest of his massive body was impossible for him to groom alone.
If left like this, the bacteria and acid on his fur would soon begin to eat at her lungs and skin again.
“You… need to be washed too.”
Eunha soaked the towel deep in the cold water, wrung it out with both trembling arms, and approached the giant predator completely naked.
Taeo turned his head and watched her quietly.
“Stay still… I’ll wipe you.”
Her slender arms rose, spreading the wet towel across his massive neck.
Swish.Scraaape.
The towel scraped over stiff, waterproof outer guard hairs. The blind girl’s terror at having to perceive this monster’s full bulk through touch alone was absolute. Beneath her palms she felt trapezius muscles thick enough to shrug off bullets and latissimus dorsi like living steel. Insect fluid and clotted blood dissolved from his fur, filling the air with a foul stench.
Grrrr.
Taeo made a low, pleased sound—half purr, half ticklish rumble—and leaned his enormous body into her hands. The sudden press of ninety kilograms nearly knocked her off her feet. Yet Eunha braced her legs and kept scrubbing, moving from chest to forelegs, then back, flanks, and the blood-caked snout. She rinsed the towel again and again in the tub until the wild, musky scent of wet beast filled the entire bathroom.
Each time her cold, thin fingers traced his burning muscle lines, Taeo closed his eyes like a wolf accepting grooming from a packmate and surrendered completely to her touch.
The final, most dangerous place remained.
Eunha carefully slid the wet towel between his hind legs, into the massive inner thigh. There hung the thick black sheath—thicker than a man’s forearm—that protected the monstrous shaft and knot which had torn her apart.
“Hut…”
The moment her fingertips met the hot, heavy leather, a flashback of that rigid os penis ripping through her belly and the crushing weight of his semen exploded behind her eyes. Her lower abdomen clenched involuntarily. The sheath’s surface was crusted with her own dried blood and the beast’s precum.
Holding her breath, Eunha wiped the terrifying organ with careful, obsessive strokes.
Twitch.Squish.
The cold touch of a female’s hand on his most sensitive flesh made the sleeping pillar inside the sheath jerk violently. Scorching heat radiated outward, nearly burning her palm. Taeo’s breathing grew rough and heavy; the tension in the air thickened until it felt as though he might mount her again at any second.
Eunha froze, eyes squeezed shut. But after two savage releases, the beast’s need for rest proved stronger. He snorted, relaxing the tension in his hips. Eunha quickly finished cleaning the last traces of filth and tossed the towel aside.
“Haa… haaa… it’s done…”
Her lips had turned blue. She panted hard. Cleaning every inch of a ninety-kilogram monster while blind had drained the last reserves of a body already ravaged by malnutrition and anemia.
The instant all tension left her, the final strength in Eunha’s slender legs vanished.
Thud.Flump.
“Ahh…”
She collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, sprawling limp across the cold tile. Dizziness spun through her skull; her vision flashed white. Exhaustion claimed her completely. The chill of the floor seeped into her naked skin, but she could not move a single finger.
As consciousness sank helplessly into darkness—
Swish.Plop.
She felt the huge, hot mass of fur she had just meticulously cleaned press down over her. Taeo had lain beside her, wrapping her bare body completely in the furnace of his broad chest and belly. The boiling heat of the monster who had violated her became, paradoxically, the warmest and safest cradle left in this ruined world.
Buried beneath that bizarre, cruel warmth, the blind female slipped into the deep, black swamp of unconsciousness.