Bought A Wolf Husband To Replace My Ex Fox

Lucy goes to the clinic alone. The fox shifter scratched her again, and this time the cut is deep enough to leave a scar. The nurse mutters that no properly trained beastman should be hurting their owner like this, and Lucy's phone vibrates with a message from Dorian before she even leaves the exam table. She already knows what it says without opening it. "It's just a scratch. Did you really need to go to the hospital? Come home and cook. I'm hungry." She walks out of the hospital and heads straight to the Beast Man Registry Center.

At the center, a photograph slips from a folder and lands at her feet. The man in it has cold gray eyes with vertical pupils—a wolf. A werewolf. The staff member hesitates, then admits he's the most obedient beastman they have. The reason nobody takes him is simple: people are afraid of werewolves. His owner considers him a financial loss. If Lucy doesn't take him today, he'll be sold to a fighting arena, where they tear beastmen apart piece by piece. "He was raised to be gentle. An arena would be hell for him." Lucy studies the photo. His gaze doesn't look gentle. It looks restrained, like he's waiting for one chance. She says she'll take him. The werewolf will arrive in three days.

On the way home, she sees Dorian and Bianca from half a block away. The white-haired fox stands in the sunset glow looking almost unreal—beautiful, perfect, like a piece of artwork. Bianca is the high-born human next door, elegant and rich enough to never worry about money. She brings Dorian expensive supplements. The two of them have become unusually close. A year ago, seeing them together would have made Lucy's stomach twist. Now she simply slows her pace. Bianca notices her first. "Lucy, heading to another part-time job? You should really make more of an effort with your appearance. Look at what you're wearing. Honestly, who would believe the two of you are together?" Dorian doesn't even glance at Lucy. "She wouldn't look good even if she tried." A year ago, that sentence would have ruined her entire night. Now she only has one thought: two more days, and none of this will be her problem anymore.

Dorian wasn't always like this. Lucy remembers when he smiled and told her that meeting her was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to him. Everything changed after they ran into his old rival, a red fox who stepped out of a luxury car and planted his foot directly on Dorian's hand. "How did someone like you end up with such an ugly, low-born human? A defective beastman and a low-born human—perfect match." That night, Dorian locked himself in his room. Lucy sat outside the door until sunrise, telling him the ranking system was stupid, that the registry was wrong for labeling him defective. Hours later, the door opened. His eyes were red and swollen. "You've never been at the top. Of course you'd think being trash isn't that bad." That was the first time she realized Dorian had never truly seen them as equals.

Later he met Bianca, who had everything Lucy didn't—status, money, connections, the ability to give Dorian the life he thought he deserved. When Lucy once asked if he could keep a little distance from Bianca, his eyes were full of resentment. "If I didn't have a defect, do you really think you could have afforded me? You just took advantage of someone when they were vulnerable. What exactly gives you the right to act like my owner?" Lucy never mentioned Bianca again. Because she remembered something Dorian seemed to have forgotten: a year ago, he was the one who knelt before her, begging. "Please save me. I'll be good to you. I'll be your family. I don't want to die." She emptied her savings, took out a loan, spent everything she had, and bought him. He now calls it being taken advantage of.

The last time he hurt her, her arm slammed into the sharp corner of a table. The wound split open so deeply she could see bone. Dorian froze, then looked away. "If you hadn't been touching me, you wouldn't have gotten hurt. This is your own fault." He didn't offer to take her to the hospital. He was going shopping with Bianca. That was the day the nurse, stitching her arm, looked at her with sympathy and said, "You and your beastman don't seem right for each other. Maybe it's time to let go." Something that had been wrapped around Lucy's chest for an entire year finally loosened.

Back in the present, she tells Dorian she got him a gift. His tail flicks with something almost like anticipation. "What is it this time? Another one of those cheap supplements even dogs wouldn't drink?" Lucy looks up at him, completely honest. "No. It's the thing you want most. Freedom." He doesn't understand yet. Later, when he picks up the grooming brush and fish oil she bought, assuming they're for him, she says, "They're not for you." His hand freezes. "I've already filed a transfer request. In two days, you'll never have to see me again." The color drains from his face. The fox who swore she'd never leave is finally watching her walk away—to a wolf nobody wanted, who is about to get the chance Dorian threw away.