"I'll count down to fifteen, and if I'm still trapped in this suffocating silence, I'll shatter this wretched barrel!"

Cramped and hidden within a four-foot-tall, thirty-inch-wide water storage barrel was Thane. He wasn't trapped as he said; he was hiding, desperate to conceal his unholy deeds from prying eyes. His entire body squeezed into a space everyone, including you and I, would consider tiny, but it was somehow not so impossible for him to fit.

"How could he possibly contort himself into a four-foot barrel?" one might wonder. The answer is... it was pretty easy!

"Nine,"

"Eight,"

"Se..."

He hadn't even reached close to the final number when the barrel creaked open from above, freeing him from that claustrophobic prison. Thane squinted, his piercing ocean-blue eyes adjusting to the sudden light, before fixing a scathing glare on the person who opened it.

A statuesque lady, standing about five feet three inches, with long, curly brown hair and bright green eyes, stood before him. Her face flushed crimson as she tried to avoid his intense gaze.

"What took you so long?!" Thane growled, his gruff demeanor always on display as he pushed against the barrel, which fell with him still inside.

The lady rushed to his side, helping him out of the barrel. "I'm sorry, Tha—"

"Yeah? What will you tell 'Thane'?" he whined, interrupting, his tone dripping with sarcasm as he rolled out of the barrel, his movements funny yet fluid and powerful.

The lady gulped fearfully before rushing downstairs to assist him further. "I didn't mean to address you so informally," she said, helping him up with ease, her hands trembling slightly. "Lord Thane."

"Good!" Thane grunted gruffly as he brushed off the lady's helping hand. "What took you so long?" he growled in annoyance, his eyes already roving around her body.

The lady, flustered, fiddled with her rejected fingers in front of her body, her head bowed in submission. "M-my uncle called to inform me about my cousin's arrival soon," she stammered shyly, her voice barely above a whisper.

Thane wasn't listening, too busy ogling her curves and upwards with a hint of sweet fascination. Yeah, he had to look up – this lady was towering over him. Her statuesque frame was a stark contrast to his own.

"Kneel down, woman!" he commanded, not asking.

And, oh, she did – her face turning a deeper shade of crimson with each passing second, as if she might actually blush herself into oblivion.

Thane was worried she might actually turn into a tomato because so vivid was her coloration!

'Women,' he scowled mentally, shaking his head in exasperation. Can't live with them, can't live without getting tangled in their crazy hair... or in this case, their ridiculously long limbs.

Thane's hard-as-a-rock expression then softened a bit as he watched the lady blush deeply. Well, as long as she doesn't die from blushing so intensely that she turns herself inside out, he'd just be... less controlling and dominant. After all, they had been in the middle of something intensely intimate before the interruption, and now Thane himself was eager to resume.

"Now, where were we?"

"When are you finally going to join the God's Men? It should be soon, right?" The lady, instead of getting back to the business Thane wanted them to, decided to ask at that time.

While talking, her voice had even faltered at the last point, suspecting that he wasn't pleased by it.

And true to it, Thane was not pleased with that question in particular! His whole face darkened. "I'm going home," he interrupted, stepping back. "You suddenly smell like fish today."

He scrunched his nose in disgust, pegging it with his two fingers, making the lady really frown. It took her composure not to cry then and there.

A fish?! Calling a lady a fish in Sun Red City is as same as telling her her private part smells so bad. But Thane didn't care, 'I said what I said!'

"Why are you going all of a sudden? Is it because I mentioned my sister cousin, or because I mentioned joining the God's Men?"

Well, praise God she had a wide chest with good stuff because she took Thane's words in and not just that, she managed to ask yet another annoying question. Such guts!

Thane coughed, a harsh, mocking sound. "Your cousin? Who's your cousin? Is she God of the God's Men?"

Cousin?! He had barely registered anything about her talking about a cousin in the first place. He only came to suck some sweet nectar… sadly…

Oblivious to the real reason behind Thane's anger, or just being plain stupid, the lady boasted. "Oh, my cousin Gwynneth is coming back because she has been chosen to join one of the God's Men."

Thane slammed his hand down on the nearby table, the sound echoing in the small space. "Don't you know when to shut it?! Anyway, don't show your face to me again," he warned, his eyes flashing with fury. "There are many fishes in the water."

Without another word, Thane turned on his heel and strode towards the exit, his small frame moving with surprising authority.

At exactly three feet nine inches, Thane had the height of a nine-year-old, but his presence, aura, self, and being was anything but childlike.

When he got to the door, he turned back to cast one last scathing look up at the lady who anyone would call his aunt at that moment before disappearing into the shadows, leaving her kneeling on the floor, bewildered and alone.

Poor Aunty didn't even know what she did wrong!!!

*

Walking out of the built separate room of the lady, Thane made it carefully around the small structure and to the back so he couldn't be seen. Luckily, he was successful and now he was on the main road, sweet home on his mind.

"Hmph! Who sealed the mouth of a reasonable talker and gave that stupid woman the mouth to speak?" He cursed, his voice low, fisting as he walked on.

He had barely made it onto the full road when a big figure from the back hijacked him.

"Hey, ah! Let me go! Do you know who you're…"

Thane had barely made a reasonable statement of the second sentence when he felt himself being thrown over the man's shoulder, then landing on the built body like a small sack of beans.

"Quiet down, kid! Else I'd throw you down and you'd lose over ten bones," the gigantic man with a gruff voice threatened.

'Kid? Throw me?'

Terrible! Pewww!

Thane didn't even have time to react because next, he was bouncing roughly on the man's shoulder as the man walked, the ground seeming so far from up where he was.

'Uggh! I hate me!'