Marigold and her father stared at the dark forest for a long time.
They held their breaths whenever they heard a rustle in the bushes or the cry of an animal nearby, but after a while, there was nothing but silence.
Eventually, Marigold and Jack looked at each other before hugging tightly like a devoted father and daughter.
“Daddy, I was so scared,” Marigold muttered amidst her sobs.
“I-I really thought I’d be eaten by a fox demon!” Jack patted his daughter’s head gently.
“You’re safe now, Mari.
But let this be a lesson for you.
Don’t hunt anything for a while, alright?” “Mm…” Marigold rubbed her swollen eyes.
“But what about Lily?
Without her, nobody is going to clean the house.
I don’t want to do that, Daddy…” “Oh, don’t worry about that.
We still have the white fox, right?
We can skin it and sell the hide to the governor tomorrow,” Jack said with a doting smile.
“Then we can get another kid from the orphanage to work for us, buy a new musket, and also get a beautiful shawl for you.” Marigold’s eyes glimmered with joy, and she nodded happily, almost as if she had already forgotten that Lily had ever existed in her life.
After all, Lily was just one of the fortunate orphans who had been picked to work at the barn.
She was replaceable, just like the rest of them at the orphanage.
Jack and Marigold returned to the house and rushed to check on the fox’s corpse they had left near the kitchen.
However, they both gasped when they found that the rare white fox they had been so eager to sell was gone.
There was no dripping blood, no stench from the corpse, and not even a single trace of fur left behind, as though the white fox had never existed in the first place.
“How am I supposed to get another orphan now?” Jack muttered as he thought about all the work at the barn he would have to do tomorrow.
Marigold slowly turned toward her father.
“Daddy…
did we just trade Lily for nothing?” — Gareth had been restless throughout his entire time in town.
He knew that Lily would adhere to his warnings, even if they sounded ridiculous to her, but something in his gut kept telling him that Lily could disappear the instant he took his eyes off her.
And a wolf’s instincts were rarely wrong, for they had been built through generations of surviving in the wild, whether it was to hunt, or to fight their enemies and protect their pack.
A gnawing certainty told him something had happened at the barn, but with his powers waning to the point that he could no longer shift, Gareth wondered if his wolf instincts had begun to dull as well.
Thus, he tried to push away the uneasy feeling in his heart…
Until last night.
He woke up soaked in sweat after dreaming of Lily running into one of his enemies and being taken away from him.
Yet, in that dream, he could do nothing.
He could not even shift while desperately trying to hold onto Lily before she vanished.
Unable to shake off the anxiety that had taken hold of him, Gareth rushed to return to the barn that very night.
He did not care if Jack scolded him for abandoning the milk carriage early, as long as Lily was safe.
After all, that barn was not his home, and he had no intention of letting Lily remain there for the rest of her life.
Once he regained most of his strength, he would…
Gareth gritted his teeth and spurred the horse to run even faster.
Please, stay safe, Lily.
I’ll be there soon.
– Dawn had arrived, yet Jack and Marigold had still not fallen asleep.
Perhaps the fright brought by that creature, which was akin to a fox demon, had been too much for them to close their eyes.
Or perhaps it was because the loss of the precious white fox fur meant that they had also lost their ticket to riches.
They sat listlessly at the dining table, each busy with their own thoughts.
Then, they heard the sound of hoofbeats rushing into the barnyard, which instantly alerted Jack.
He knew that the only good horse he owned was supposed to be pulling the milk wagon to town with Gareth right now.
He did not know what had happened to the milk since Gareth should have returned only after selling every gallon.
That task was impossible to complete in a single night because the market only opened after dawn.
Thus, Jack slammed the door open, only to find Gareth on the barn horse, leaping over the fence and heading straight toward the barn where he and Lily usually slept.
“Ugh, why is he back before all the milk is sold?!” Marigold complained.
She was already angry after losing an entire night’s sleep and the white fox, and now this useless man was about to make her explode!
Jack clicked his tongue.
He was also furious over the loss of his musket and the white fox, so he rushed toward the barn with Marigold, ready to throw a boatload of curses at Gareth.
“Lily!” Gareth hopped off the horse and rushed into the barn.
His deep blue eyes scanned the surroundings, searching through the many places where Lily usually slept.
But he could not find her anywhere.
“Lily!
Lily, where are you?!” His voice echoed throughout the barn, yet Lily did not answer him, much to his growing horror.
Instead, it was the grating voice of another woman that responded to his call.
“Why are you back so early?” Gareth turned his head to face Jack and Marigold, who were looking at him as though he were an animal lower than a pig.
Jack crossed his arms and demanded, “Where is the wagon, and where’s my money, Gareth?” Gareth was about to ask about Lily first, but then he caught a scent coming from Marigold’s body.
His expression instantly changed.
The smell was rancid.
His brows furrowed deeply as his wolf instincts began ringing madly inside his mind, warning him that something was terribly wrong.
“Mari, did you kill a fox while I was gone?” Marigold’s expression changed drastically, but rather than looking guilty, she immediately lashed out.
“Ugh, gone!
Just like that!
Now we’ve lost the expensive white fox and Lily too!
Who’s going to cook breakfast today?” CREATORS’ THOUGHTS Apup That girl’s mouth is really…