Her Men Of Ruin

Yule

city, Yule country.

Yule

National School of Dance.

“Your

project lacks the emotions required for such a heart-friendly piece,

Miss Litotes. Dance that to a person with cardiac arrest and they

could die. You

need to wield passionate and subtle feelings when portraying a

swan-like

character, which is something you do not seem to possess. Stiff

movements are meant for robotic showcases, not ballet or contemporary

dances. You should have learned more about that instead of focusing

on technique. You are dismissed. Next person.”

Eighty,

or less than eighty words, yet they carry such venom that stabs

Heaven’s heart like a blade.

She

bites her lower lips to stop herself from bursting into tears, yet

that doesn’t help as she grabs her bag and hurries out, slamming

the classroom door behind her.

Reaching

her lodge, Heaven tosses her bag aside, tucking out her phone and

chewing the nail of her shaking index finger as she dials her best

friend’s number.

After

several tries, her bestfriend, Lulu, doesn’t pick up, so Heaven

resorts to calling her boyfriend instead.

He

too doesn’t respond. But, thankfully, Lulu calls back.

‘Heaven,

are you alright?’

the girl raps from the other side of the phone. She sounds

breathless, as if running while talking.

Heaven

shakes her head, though Lulu couldn’t see her, bawling her eyes out

as she rants into the phone. “I’m

not okay, Lulu! All my hard work… they… they are for nothing! The

board rejected my project! How am I supposed to cope now?”

‘Hold

on. Is it the one you’ve been working on for months now?’

Lulu says with short breaths again, earning a shriek from Heaven.

“Yes,

Lulu! That’s the one!”

‘Isn’t

it your final year project?’

“It

is! Now I have to repeat a damn year, and I can’t get a job in the

National Dance Company anymore. I can’t even get a job in any top

companies, because I’ll have a red marker on my certificate! This

is so unfair, Lulu! I’ll end up scrambling to survive now!”

‘It’s

alright, Heaven. Can’t you get other jobs? I told you dancing

shouldn’t have been your career—’

‘Lulu,

hang

up.

You don’t have to teach her everything,’

someone mumbles from the other side of the call right before it

disconnects.

Heaven

stares at her screen speechlessly. The person who just interrupted

Lulu sounds too much like Hector, Heaven’s boyfriend. That makes

her uncomfortable, added to the fact that Hector’s not picking up

his call.

Hector

lives just

across the bridge,

so

Heaven quickly hails a cab.

As

she arrives at her boyfriend’s studio

apartment, she calls him again even though she has been doing so the

entire time in the cab.

He

still doesn’t pick up.

Now

she stands on the last step that leads to his door, about to knock

before her hand hangs in the air on hearing faint noises coming from

inside. Curses. Constant body slamming body. Moans and pants.

But

she can’t be too sure.

Heaven

goes ahead to place the knock.

No

response. The noises persist.

She

knocks harder, and the noises suddenly stop.

Then,

after a while, the door opens to reveal Hector standing akimbo and

sweating profusely.

He

looks tired, but the first thing Heaven notices is his dick standing

tall.

“Are

you here to rant again, Heaven?”

he asks boorishly.

Heaven

huffs, her brows creasing with a frown of disbelief as she replies.

“Are

you serious? I’ve been calling you.” She

glances

past him to the room and

finds no one else. But

there’s his laptop on his bed. “Did you put the porn so loud you

couldn’t even hear your phone ringing?”

“I

guess my phone’s tucked away somewhere.” Hector shrugs.

“I

was going to tell you I failed my project.”

“Well,

Lulu told me that already. But why go about telling us? We weren’t

the ones who asked you to choose

dancing as a career.”

“Lulu?”

Heaven asks, her eyes squinting with curiosity as she tries to get

into the house. But Hector slides into her way, casually blocking

her. “Why aren’t you letting me in?” she queries again, about

to force her way in before Lulu steps out from behind the door,

standing naked at Hector’s back.

“Heaven,

hi,” she says nervously, her shoulders tense as she hesitantly

waves at Heaven. “I didn’t expect you’d come, but it’s a good

thing you did.”

Heaven

analyzes the Blonde with a dirty look. “Are you guys doing what I

think you’re doing?”

“Yes?”

Hector chips in, then adds mockingly, “given the fact that we are

in a

‘boring

relationship’.”

Heaven

looks at Lulu with unbelief

streaked on her face. She had told the girl how she was slowly losing

interest in her relationship with Hector. But she thought her

‘bestfriend’

would keep such matters between them.

“That

was a private thought that I trusted you with, Lulu.”

“If

you want to term it as private, you should have come to me. It’s a

matter of you and I, after all,” Hector scoffs. “Well, since the

relationship was uninteresting, why don’t we spice it a little

then? You, Lulu, and I.”

Heaven

huffs. The next second, she turns and walks away, but not without

hearing Lulu calling behind her.

“Come

on, Heaven, don’t be a coward. It’s going to be fun!”

“Leave

her be. Let her go dine with her sordid misery,” Hector spits. “I

don’t need such a bad vibe with me anyway?”

Heaven

looks back a couple of times, hoping her bestfriend would at least

come after her. She couldn’t care less about Hector. She never even

loved him and only tried to force herself to feel normal by being in

a relationship, since she kept feeling like she didn’t belong in

the human world.

But

Lulu… Lulu was like the sister she never had. Lulu was everything

to her, which is why it pains her that she would do such a thing.

It’s

not about her having sex with her boyfriend behind her back. It’s

more of she trying to convince her to have a threesome—even after

seeing how displeased she was about it—knowing well about her

history with men.

Sleeping

with Hector was hard enough, let alone having one more body rubbing

her. It would only remind her of those painful times when two or more

men took her at once. She had just gotten over the trauma of that and

doesn’t want to relive it again.

Now

she is well and truly lonely, and has no one she can rely on.

Heaven

approaches another apartment and sits down on the stairs leading to

the door, still hoping Lulu would come after her. But seconds soon

stretch to minutes, and minutes to hours.

Even

the weather curses her existence with striking lightening and

thundering storm as the earth rumbles, heavy patters of rain

flourishing all over the place and splashing on Heaven, who cares

less about it.

Just

then, a black limousine pulls up in front of the building.

On

her way here, she had noticed this same car following her cab, but it

was the least of her problems then. Now, it’s bothersome.

The

tinted window of the back seat winds down, and Heaven sees who is

being driven—a very unfamiliar face. Had he been stalking her?

Looking

in her direction, the stranger

slides off the pair

of black shades

he wore, revealing the full view of his rectangular,

well-defined face to Heaven.

Still

shocked and unable to move, she watches as he opens his door, slowly

stepping out while pulling free a black umbrella.

He

takes gradual gaits in approaching her. For a moment, Heaven sees him

walking in slow motion, the rain as mere showers of his glory.

She

has never seen a man look so ethereal—not the pure, empyrean kinds

that are dazzling, but the kind that seems like a spectral; the one

crawling into her brains and knitting together with her wits, leaving

her heady and spellbound by such a figure that has the aura of a

devil walking the night.

In

her state of amazement, the stranger stands in front of her, both his

body and his umbrella shielding her from the raindrops that once

lashed at her.

“If

things fall in place now, how would you feel?” he

asks.

At

first, Heaven doesn’t react. She lets the voice sink in. Low-toned.

Velvety. Sounding like an ancient being from the depths of an ocean.

Then,

the next minute, she shudders on realization while jumping

to her feet.

The

stiff

stranger

towers above her. And, despite that she’s gazing up at him, Heaven

can’t grip the actual looks of his face. One thing she notes,

though, is his expression. It

lacks a smile.

Doesn’t

a gentleman’s handbook instruct that a man should smile when

meeting a lady for the first time—at least to strike a feeling of

comfort that could urge her positive response?

Yet,

should she be surprised by that? It’s in the nature of her kind to

shit on politeness, after all.

She

can smell his essence, though it’s not as strong as she read an

Alpha’s would be. Surely, he sensed hers too before approaching

her. Any wolf would recognize another wolf even if it’s in the

human world.

“Happy?”

she responds to his question anyway, shifting

back so that her backside is now pressed against the door behind her.

“But it’s best not to hope.” Her eyes divert to his

left hand that holds the umbrella.

He has no scar on

the back of that hand.

“Even

so, do you believe in the possibility?” the man presses on.

Heaven

shakes her head. “Nope. My life is already ruined. There’s no

mending it, unless I can find a witch who would make the judges

forget what they saw, so I’ll redo my project. But a witch would

kill me on sight.”

The

man lets an echoing laugh roll out of his lungs, giving Heaven chills

for a moment. “Do you really imagine your wolf is growling,

princess? No witch would know your wolf nature unless she tested you

with silver, or checked your healing span.”

Heaven

squints her eyes at him. Is he trying to insinuate that her wolf’s

presence is too weak? Can he really say it out that loud without

considering how it would make her feel?

“But

you do not need a witch for this one,” the stranger continues, “all

you need is a place to stay, a job without certificate, and food to

eat.”

Heaven

huffs. What a nice way to add fuel to fire. “Can you even hear

yourself? Does a job without certificate sound realistic to you?”

“You

have lived too long in the human world, Heaven.” Wait. He knows her

name? “Why not return to the other world and refurbish

your mind on the existence of magic and wonders?”

The

man searches his coat pocket and tucks out a small black card. Pinned

between his index and middle fingers, he thrusts it to Heaven’s

direction.

“I’m

in search of a dancer, specifically a wolf. I watched you move

earlier, and have deemed you capable of teaching my kid,” he

mutters. “She is seven and not problematic. You just need to teach

her dance, and you will have food and a place to stay. Is that

understood?”

Heaven

nods hesitantly before taking the card with slow fingers. She stares

at it as the stranger adds, “I will give you time to think. Call me

with that number when you come to a decision.”

The

man turns to walk away. He had already taken about three steps before

Heaven suddenly realizes something.

“Wait!”

she calls. The stranger obeys instantly, but doesn’t turn back to

look at her. “You know my name. Don’t I get to know yours, at

least?”

Subtle

silence.

Whispering

wind.

Calling

birds.

“Ziason,”

he mumbles, still without turning. “Ziason Father is my name.”