A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

It took a few minutes before Astrid finally drank her fill, though she didn't let go of Erik just yet. Instead, she carefully licked the two small puncture wounds she left behind until they closed by virtue of Erik's regeneration.

She looked like a vision of fragile love, who was afraid of anything happening to her beloved.

Erik smiled and just let her be as he continued to hold her in his arms. 'I'm glad she seems to finally accept it really is me, but I doubt this is the end of it,' he thought while inwardly chuckling. NovelBin-chapter

Finally, Astrid sighed as the turmoil of chaotic emotions finally appeared to be truly calming down. She still felt all the same things, they just weren't rushing around in her head, creating chaos anymore.

She gave Erik one final squeeze and then separated from him. They now held each other's shoulders as they looked into each other's eyes. Erik saw the rainbow of emotions in Astrid's eyes, but predominant among them were relief, joy, and anger.

'Wait, anger?' he thought, before remembering who he was looking at.

Suddenly, Astrid's previously calm expression twisted into fury as she moved with the speed of lightning and punched Erik's stomach as hard as she could.

A dull yet loud thump sounded, quickly followed by Erik gasping as air was forced out of his mouth. Under Elora's amused and Emma's surprised gazes, he skidded back a few meters, clutching his stomach

Astrid may still need a few more days to fully recover, but that didn't change her status as a powerful second-rank Runebound vampire who now had a belly full of very particularly potent blood.

Which meant she still punched pretty hard.

Erik's expression was surprised, but not too much. Astrid always had trouble dealing with emotions and preferred to just duke it out instead.

"Seven years!" Astrid yelled with a voice filled with her many conflicted emotions. "Seven years you let me think you were dead! And when you finally show your face again, the first thing you do is ask me if your room is just like I imagined?!"

"You think that's funny?!" She continued while charging Erik.

Erik looked at her approach. He briefly considered his next course of action, but then just grinned and did nothing as Astrid kicked him in the side, causing him to fly through the air.

Despite the situation, Erik's happy grin remained unchanged, even as he crashed through the wall right into the open air.

With Astrid still in recovery, Erik was confident he could stay in control of this fight, but all advantages were welcome, so as he tumbled through the air, his body began to change and morph.

In less than a second, he turned from a human tumbling through the air to a werewolf, before gracefully landing in the snow outside and grinning at Astrid through the hole in his house. "Actually, my first words were 'It's good to see you up and about again.'"

His words seemed to only make Astrid angrier as she jumped through the hole and charged him again while yelling, "Fuck you, you douche nozzle!"

Astrid was also a fan of colorful swearing.

Sure, he could stop this, but why would he? In fact, while Astrid's first attack truly did catch him off guard, he could have defended himself against her kick, he simply chose not to.

He knew Astrid was currently a pent-up ball of emotions, and while most people would want to talk that out, or just stew in them, Astrid preferred to vent through the age-old cathartic method of fighting and cursing. Luckily for her, Erik was more than happy to be her sparring partner.

After all, this also brought back many happy memories of his past interactions with Astrid, which usually involved a fight of some kind.

While the past him saw those interactions as a bit of a chore, the current him could only look back at them with fondness. Especially because he could now recognize the suppressed feelings behind young Astrid's eyes back in those days.

They clashed. Astrid attacked wildly, while Erik remained on the defensive. Even now, the grin never left his wolfish face, only infuriating Astrid more.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she did wonder about Erik's clear changes, as he was never this playful in the past, and he certainly never enjoyed fighting as he appeared to right now.

Yet, because of his blood, she was sure this was him.

She didn't pay much attention to these thoughts, however. Seven years was a long time, and people could change a lot in so many years.

Meanwhile, every person currently residing in Frostvik had become their spectators. The only person who wasn't there was Elora, as she had sneakily merged with Erik's body again to give him an advantage.

From inside the hole in Erik's old room, Emma had been joined by Nora and Emily, who had come running from the living room after they heard the crash.

Next to the hole, the four shapeshifters, who had been training with Erik earlier, were also spectating after they had run around to the back of the house to see what the commotion was about.

They were all looking at the current events with surprise, except for one person. Viljar, as the only person there to have known Erik in the past, knew perfectly well what kind of personality Astrid had.

So he just shook his head and thought, 'They're both over twenty-five, why are they still acting like this?'

Meanwhile, from inside the hole, Emily and Nora were about the go intervene when Emma stopped them. "Wait! Master just told me through our link to just… let them do their thing? I guess?" she scratched her head, as she was never a big fan of violence, so she didn't really understand.

But, if this was Erik's wish she certainly wasn't going to ruin it for him.

However, the spectators didn't seem to register with Astrid, as her only focus was Erik right now.