it's a nightmare but it's one exciting ride

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He fights, and he cries out, and he melts in pleasure all over the Beast's bed.

He wishes it didn't feel so good. It feels so good that everything else in the world fades away.

The Beast makes him come several times before he finally withdraws and snuggles down into the bed with him.

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Chu Wanning snuggles back. He's too exhausted to speak.

Beast is VERY FLUFFY. It's extremely snuggable. He doesn't make any attempt to say anything either, just holds him close.

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Chu Wanning falls asleep on the very fluffy snuggly beast.

ADORABLE. Beast curls up around him and takes a nap himself.

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Eventually he wakes up.

He supposes it doesn't feel all that different, having become A Whore. His body is sore and sleepy, but his mind remains clear.

He feels... disgusted by himself. He had wanted too much. He had fought too little. How can he be so lonely and desperate, to have enjoyed this?

It would be absurd to mourn his damaged marriageability. Chu Wanning was never going to marry anyone. No one was ever going to want to marry him. (Besides Shi Me. Wanning certainly does not mind if Shi Mei now find him less desirable.) Nothing is different. People in the town already avoided him. Having been deflowered by a literal beast might not have any impact on his social life at all. He was always going to be alone.

It's fine.

Wanning needs to get some fresh air. He attempt to quietly extricate himself from the sleeping beast.

The beast grumbles a little in his sleep but relinquishes his hold on him easily enough.

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Chu Wanning picks up his clothes from the floor and dresses quickly. He slips from the room.

Slips from the palace, if he can. Out into the woods, where he can think.

The forest is quiet and still and peaceful and very conducive to thinking.

(For now.)

(Perhaps too quiet?)

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Quiet is fine. He just wants to think.

He doesn't have to tell anyone, really. No one has to know, unless that person were going to marry him, and no one is going to marry him anymore. So it's fine.

This has in no way changed his future, certainly in no way more than being imprisoned by the beast in the first place. Nobody has to know and nothing is going to change and Chu Wanning is going to be alone forever as he was already aware. It's fine.

After some suitable interval of musing, his thoughts are rudely interrupted by the growl of a wolf ahead and to his left.

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The fuck.

Chu Wanning looks up sharply.

There is a wolf where he heard the sound from.

There is also another wolf, off to the right, and another, farther back, directly ahead of him.

They are approaching slowly.

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He backs away just as slowly, reaching for - for - a stick, anything, any useless thing.

There are sticks lying around!

There are also more wolves behind him.

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He reaches very slowly for a stick. The stick is absolutely not going to save him.

The Beast wakes.

He is alone in the bed. The sheets are cold.

He's disappointed, but not really surprised.

He reaches out for the mirror, hesitates, then picks it up and says, "Show me Chu Wanning."

He forgets all his privacy concerns in an instant, dropping the mirror on the bed and tearing out of the room without another thought.

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Chu Wanning holds the stick high and prepares - to swing it, to feel teeth in his throat.

The wolf lunges.

The Beast bursts through the trees and tackles the wolf out of mid-air.

The other wolves are suddenly VERY DISTRACTED from Chu Wanning.

If Chu Wanning had any doubts about whether the beast's claws and fangs were capable of inflicting serious damage, those doubts can now be laid permanently to rest.

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Chu Wanning stumbles back against a tree, staring. Breathing returns to him in unsteady gasps.