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.”