Nikita and Nikolai arrived at the eastern slums, where she guided him with rapid movement through the dark passageways.
"Haa... ha... Soon, this place will be redeveloped; the government want to get rid of the slums and confine them into a small district that will be walled off from S-city and pushed out."
Nikita's words were like gentle bells dancing in the air while the pair dashed with a measured pace towards the bar that she mentioned. Nikolai felt his chest start to hurt after thirty minutes of straight sprinting, yet Nikita only seemed winded.
'Damn, she's really powerful and fit! All those times she lost to me in the past were acting!'
He watched as her left foot stepped along the wall. The lovely werewolf began to run along the wall before she leapt onto the second floor with no issues. Nikolai's eyes widened as he tried the same, feeling a sense of adrenaline and competition towards Nikita, his old friend, as he made the jump.
"Phew.... god... that was amazing!"
"Right?! It's so exciting. Are you feeling good?"
Nikita's face pressed close to Nikolai's as she began to speak in an excited tone that he hadn't seen before.
"Let's take a rest while we assess the situation, Nikolai."
"Okay... god....haa... I'm a little spent."
Nikolai noticed she was watching across the street over the wall. Though she was so short, she needed to stand on a wooden box to reach it. He couldn't help but notice her white tail swaying happily, making him curious.
"Are you having fun hunting these scum?"
"Because Nikolai is here, hehe."
'Because I am here? Then what if I wasn't...?' He couldn't help but feel good hearing her words while noticing that she would constantly peek at him with her golden eyes filled with a shimmering sparkle.
"Do you see all those buildings to the left?" Nikita's hand flicked across the left of the slums. Almost all of it, which made Nikolai curious.
"Yeah?"
"Hehe, they are all my dads; he owns them all!"
'How big is her clan?! I know she wasn't poor, but there are more than a hundred buildings and several businesses here! If her father owns them all, then that means their gang... it's likely bigger than I could ever imagine.'
"I never knew my little Nikita was a little mafia princess."
"Ehehe~ I am also a werewolf princess; my blood is very pure, they said."
"Well, you are a pure beauty, after all."
Nikolai ignored the swooning of Nikita because he always said these kinds of things to her that he learned from Television or other stupid romance dramas and shows while growing up.
Maybe that's where he went wrong.
However, that wasn't important right now. Nikolai felt that he should have been shocked or disgusted to know she was a member of the mafia.
Yet to him, he didn't feel it was such a big deal anymore; the first thing was those were human values, and can he, as a monster, really judge someone who is a gangster when he needs blood to survive?
"Nikolai... are you alright?"
"Alright, with what?"
"Me... and the things I kept hidden. Do you hate me now?"
"How could I hate you? After all we've done together, everyone has their secrets."
'Like me and Selene... or the pendant on my neck.'
"Thank you... it means a lot."
The next moment, Nikolai felt a slight moment of warmth as something extremely soft, like a marshmallow, pressed against his cheek.
A moment later, the cold breeze returned, an icy chill flickering across his cheek, now stained with a light pink kiss mark from Nikita's lipstick.
Nikita then shifted away and climbed over the wall as she pointed to the men who looked strange with slight gills on their necks.
"Nikolai! They are shapeshifters; beware, they can turn into anyone that they kill or ingest the blood of!"
Nikolai now understood the monster world was more than just the noble races like vampires and werewolves as he watched the distant shapeshifters changing shape while fighting against what seemed to be the wolves from Nikita's gang.
He no longer felt foreign to this world. While standing on the roof, his blood began to boil, the surge of adrenaline and desire to fight constantly increasing for each moment he watched.
"I'm going to fight!"
Nikita's body changed slightly.
Her fluffy ears grew longer, the tail behind her puffed out, while all her muscles became more defined, her abs, thighs and arms now like an athletic girl along with her sharp claws as she flung into the huge brawl of various werewolves and shapeshifters.
'I wonder if she knew about me and my dad from the start?'
[Well, the Volkov and Fenrir family had a marriage agreement in the past—your father chose your mother instead and cut ties with his family.]
[This caused a slight rift between the two families, as it was something that happened every two generations for close to ten thousand years to avoid inbreeding and genetic issues.]
[Though it seems they didn't request to have you and Nikita marry...]
[But...]
'But?'
[This girl... she is likely the one that tried to turn you into her squire... Werewolf females only mate with one male in their life, even if they divorce or die. The same goes for males—it is something unique to the werewolf clans with pure blood.]
[It seems she wants you to become her mate and never leave her side. I mean, you aren't that dim to know she loves you, right?]
'I know... it's just I wasn't in the position back then to answer her feelings... and now. Love isn't quite on my mind...'
[Yet you were moments from sticking your meat in both of them tonight.]
'Shush... It's not like I have to marry them because we have sex.'
[I know you don't mean that in the scumbag sense, but in a realistic sense that most people don't marry someone they slept with once.]
[But it still sounds like a scumbag train of thought!]
'Yeah... Sorry, Eliza. I just meant that even if she confessed, I don't know if I could answer her right now.'
[Oh yeah, well, you have a thing for that little submissive vampire... I hope you make the right choice; otherwise, you'll regret it.]
Nikolai didn't answer her. Instead, he watched as Nikita's claws tore the face off one monster, revealing a strange fishlike monster under the human skin, which made him feel a little conflicted.
'If I was dating someone and they looked like that... Oh god...'
With that thought, Nikolai's right arm turned into a large silver beast's arm with a clawed hand as he jumped down into the fray.