Wanderlust Beastkin, Beauty and the Beastkin-Chapter 102: Secret Conversation
Elara said that she would tell me once we were alone but I couldn’t wait I needed to know how it happened right now.
"Hey guys, Elara and I are going to the property next door to check it out."
"Alright!" said Titus while standing up and walking over. The other guys started gathering too, as if this was going to turn into a huge outing.
"That won’t be necessary, the two of us can go alone."
"You’re pregnant, though! You shouldn’t be going anywhere alone! What if something happened to you? None of us would ever forgive ourselves," said Sam.
The others agreed while Titus had a thoughtful look on his face. They were planning to get up and insist on coming.
"Alright! First, I’m not going alone, I’m going with Elara. Second, your concern is appreciated, believe me, it is, but it’s also incredibly sexist to the point that I don’t know if I want to kiss you or slap you."
Titus cleared his throat. "She’ll be right next door, and if anything happens, Elara will let us know. Perla is a strong female. I’ve known females in the Adventurers Guild before. They do much more than walk to the vacant house next door, and this is a relatively safe village. Sugar is proof of that."
"Are you just going to roll over for whatever she suggests, because if you are, then we’ve selected the wrong leader," said Sam.
"This is about making sure Perla is happy, obviously that should be all of our top priorities, but we have to weigh the danger with our need to please her. If we restrict her movements too much, she’ll come to resent us. Healthy relationships are about give and take. If we don’t make a habit of unnecessarily restricting her, when the time comes that we insist something is too dangerous, she’ll consider our words seriously. I’ve been on the board of the Adventurers Guild for some time. She’s a female with spirit, just like the female members. You can’t tightly wrap up a female with that much spirit and expect her just submissively to agree," said Titus.
Both Perla and Elara were looking at him as if his words were the sexiest things they’d ever heard.
"Hey Perla, good job picking him up," said Elara.
"Yeah, I feel like patting myself on the back," said Perla.
"I’ll do it for you," said Elara.
The guys looked over at their interaction, and Titus flushed in embarrassment and pushed his hair out of his face.
"Do what you will, but if anything happens to Perla, you and I will be fighting to see who’s stronger. I don’t want to be the lead male, but I won’t hesitate to do what is necessary to protect Perla; she’s far too precious to risk. I’ll check the surroundings; someone has to make sure that there really isn’t any danger," said Sam while stomping out of the house.
Perla looked after Sam with worry. "Sam’s really strong, you saw his aura. What if he has a fit and challenges you? I don’t want to be prevented from even going into my own yard without being followed. Then there’s Kai, as soon as he gets better, he will probably also challenge you."
Titus ruffled my hair affectionately. "Don’t worry about Sam; he doesn’t concern me in the slightest. Having a stronger aura isn’t a substitute for extensive battle experience. Kai on the other hand, that could be an issue. There aren’t a lot of males whom I don’t feel completely confident in beating, but Kai is one of them. He isn’t the famous General of the Easter Alliance for nothing, but I’m also not an Elite Board Member of the Adventurers Guild for nothing either. We’ve both taken on large armies and colossal monsters in single combat. Even if he doesn’t desire to challenge me as the lead male, I would enjoy sparring with him. It isn’t every day that you meet a worthy opponent. That’s also why it’s shocking that he was found in such a state."
"Yes, we need to investigate this matter," I said.
"I need to stop into the adventurers’ guild to check out the state of things in this village, but afterwards, I will assign some excellent tracking specialist guild members to investigate the situation."
"Wow, there are so many capable members of the Adventurers Guild. I was wondering something. Would you be against me joining the Adventurers Guild?"
Titus paused while clenching his jaw and fists, but then he let out a resigned sigh. "I’m not all that surprised, but my desire to keep you safe is warring with my desire to see you succeed in whatever you wish. I will support you, but I ask that you wait until after you give birth to try to join. It’s impossible to join just because you want to; there are grueling tests that can become dangerous. I would like you to take a couple of classes before trying to take them on, and I want to be the team leader when you take on your first missions," said Titus.
I smiled at him broadly. "I’m not against any of that. I’ll feel safer with you coming along anyway. Thank you for being so accommodating and understanding," I said and threw my arms around him, pulling him to me and kissing all over his face.
He flushed and allowed me to cover his face with kisses. "It’s no more than I should do as your mate."
I had initially planned on mating with Titus after I mated with Kai, but after what we talked about, I realized that I wanted Titus to remain my lead male, and if that’s going to be the case, I should give him a permanent mate mark before I give one to Kai to make his position as my lead male solid. I don’t want Kai feeling entitled to take over, since he became my permanent mate first. Luckily, I have some more submissive mates, so that the harem isn’t an all-out constant war zone. I don’t know how females manage when all of their mates are alphas.
The two males that I did give permanent mate marks before Titus are the weakest of my mates and don’t have desires to become my lead males; they just want me to give them attention and treat them well, and I insist that my other mates treat them with respect without treating them as lesser. In fact, even though it wasn’t really planned to mate with them first, I believe it was a good thing to establish them as important members of our family because of the gap in their strength between them and the rest of my mates. Otherwise, they may have looked down on them and decided to treat them as servant males.
Now, though, with the hierarchy being decided between my stronger mates, it’s more important than ever for Titus to become my permanent mate before my other strong males. He’s shown that he can be reasonable while still being protective, and that’s what I want for my family. Also, it’s no hardship, ’cause yum!
I whispered into his ear, "Speaking of being my mate, shouldn’t we give you a permanent mate mark soon? My lead male should be a proper mate after all," I said, and then bit his ear roughly and tugged.
He let out a deep and guttural moan, digging his fingers into the couch behind me, accidentally extending his claws. Then I heard a tearing sound.
"Hey now! Claws out of the furniture. We’ll have to figure out a solution to that when the time comes."
"Sorry! Sorry!" Titus said and retracted his claws. He stood up and pushed his abundant golden hair off his face.
He cleared his throat and pulled me up into a hug. "I am willing whenever you are," he said and kissed me soundly on the lips. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶
I melted into his kiss, feeling overwhelming joy while sparks buzzed between us wherever we touched.
When we pulled away, I was gasping for breath and remembered that Elara was sitting on the couch behind us. I looked down at her, and she was smirking up at me. When our eyes met, she wiggled her eyebrows at me, and a chuckle escaped me.
"Come on," I said while reaching down for her. She took my hand and stood up too. "We’ll head next door then. We might be a little while, so don’t worry, we need to catch up too."
"Don’t worry, take your time. If anything happens, send a distress signal through your mating bond with Oliver or Milo; it’ll be stronger than the rest of us, so we’ll be able to respond quickly. We’ll come right away," said Titus.
I looked over to Ira, Milo, and Oliver, who all looked at me with big and sad faces as if I were going on a grand journey and would see them for ages. "Stop being so cute."
I couldn’t help but giggle again and give each of them kisses in turn, and then took Elara’s hand and pulled her outside with me. I felt so content holding her hand as we walked close to each other’s sides. It was only now that we were together again that a large weight lifted off my shoulders and I could breathe fully again.
"After I found out that you were taken to the Snatching Grounds, I couldn’t breathe properly. I was so worried," I said.
We walked along the path to the other house, and I opened the door, pulling her in behind me. As soon as the door shut soundly, Elara collapsed onto the floor with tears streaming down her face. I stared down at her in shock from witnessing her racking sobs that shook her whole body. My strong and spunky friend with a skip in her step was reduced to loud sobbing.
"What happened?" I said and sat down beside her, still holding her hand. I wrapped my other arm around her and held her close to my side.
Coming Next Time: Sisters
