Villainess is being pampered by her beast husbands-Chapter 385 --
Kaya’s brows pulled together.
Her vision had always been good in the dark. She knew that. Streets, alleys, stupid corners back in her old world—she’d learned to move in shadows because she had to. But the way she’d walked that tunnel earlier? The way she’d seen every step when Veer, an actual vulture, had been half‑blind behind her? That wasn’t normal. Vultures are known for long‑distance sight in daylight, using dense receptors in their eyes to spot carcasses far away from the air, but they’re not built for pitch‑black caves. [1][2]
’So why the hell could I see better than him?’
It felt... wrong. Like someone had slipped a night‑camera into her skull. Those things wildlife people use to film animals in the dark—infrared, no‑glow, whatever the term was—turning nothing into clear images.[3][4] Her eyes had felt like that in the tunnel. Now, up here, they were still acting like they’d been tuned past human.
A sting ran across them with the next gust of wind, sharp and scratchy. Maybe it was just water. Maybe the air. Maybe she was tired enough that even blinking hurt.
Or maybe there was something else going on.
’Need a specialist,’ she thought. Someone who knew about eyes, about beast changes, about whatever this world had done to her. Because this wasn’t just "good in the dark" anymore. This was something else.
She looked back at Cutie over her shoulder as much as the position allowed.
His face was pale but not grey, lashes resting against his cheeks. The ugly slice along his scalp didn’t look as angry now; the blood had crusted, and under it she could see a thin, new layer of skin starting to pull across. Slow, careful repair. If she was right, by morning that wound would be all but sealed, just another faint line. Beasts in this world healed faster than humans, layers of skin closing over in hours instead of days when they weren’t pushed too far.[5]
She wasn’t worried about the cut anymore.
What twisted her stomach was something else: the way he’d dropped.
He wasn’t out because of the wound alone. Kaya knew the feel of someone knocked senseless and someone simply empty. His breathing, the way his body sat heavy—this was blood loss, exhaustion, being dragged too close to the edge and then forced to keep walking. He’d stayed on his feet for too long just to not trouble her. Idiot.
Her fingers clenched slightly against his ribs.
And the attack... that was the other problem. Today made one thing clear: the beasts that came were not there for her. They were there for the Sparrow. For ’a’ Sparrow—hers, the one Veer had dragged in, the one the jackals seemed desperate to either take or silence.
Her mind jumped to her pocket.
She couldn’t reach it right now—not with one hand on Veer and the other locked around Cutie—but she could feel the small weight there in memory. The second Sparrow. The one they’d thrown. She’d grabbed him on instinct, wrapped him in a scrap of cloth, shoved him into her pocket before the floor turned red. God knew if he was still breathing. She’d done what she could with a quick touch, a check, a clumsy bit of first aid before everything exploded around them.
Right now, she couldn’t do more. First she had to survive this flight. Then land. Then see who was still alive to help who.
She glanced down at Cutie again. No point in waking him just to shove a half‑dead bird in his face and ask for answers. His body needed the little rest it was stealing right now. And her other Sparrow—the loud, arrogant one—was already gone ahead with the vultures, flown out that morning after their argument. If the attack had hit while he was in the hotel, they’d have torn him apart. The fact they’d come for the room ’after’ he’d gone meant they didn’t know he’d left.
So at least one thing was in their favor: the Sparrow up in vulture hands was safe. For now.
Which meant their path was set whether she liked it or not.
They had to go to the vultures. To Veer’s people. To whatever nest or cliff or damn sky‑burial perch he called home. At his full speed, alone, he could probably reach it in three or four hours of hard flying. With her and Cutie on his back, though, wings loaded and every move careful not to jar them, it would stretch. Six. Seven. More if the wind turned.
Kaya breathed out slowly, eyes narrowing against another sting.
’Seven hours stuck on a bird,’ she thought. ’With a half‑dead rabbit and a pocket full of problems.’
Fine.
Her arm tightened around Cutie’s waist by a fraction, holding him closer against the cold, and she forced her eyes to stay open, to keep tracking the land below. If something was wrong with her sight, she’d use it until it broke. Then she’d deal with the pieces.
The air evened out after the first jump.
Veer found a current and settled into it, wings spread wide, barely flapping now—just riding. Real vultures fly like that for hours when they can, gliding on whatever rising air they find so they don’t burn out their muscles.
Kaya could feel every tiny shift he made through the bones under his feathers, the way he tilted a wing here, flexed there, chasing invisible pockets of lift. For a while, it almost felt steady.
Then the sky dropped.
No warning—just a sudden hole in the air. One second they were floating; the next, everything lurched. Veer’s body dipped hard, like the world had been yanked out from under them. Kaya’s stomach tried to climb into her throat. Cutie’s weight slammed into her again, harder this time, knocking the breath out of her chest.
Her arm locked, dragging him up before he could slide. Her other hand clenched in Veer’s feathers so hard a few ripped free.
"Veer," she snapped over the wind. "What was that."
