Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 94: brought to you by poor planning

Random fact about Taykumi, the author of this chapter: she has a freakishly long tongue that she uses for party tricks (p.s. I, the other author in this story, did not get permission to tell you all this). Because you TOTALLY wanted to know that and you've always wanted weird body facts rather than smexy story time. Which reminds me of the Guiness World Book of Records. I was always the most interested in the freaky body section. Who cares about who jumped the most or what horse had the biggest eyeball? There's a crazy chick over here who has curled up nails bigger than her body times five!

P.S. This is a big old skip in time forward with this chapter. Taykumi just wanted to skip forward to the fun parts while filling in what happened on the way.

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"What in the seven layers of hell are you doing here?" Orson breathed as if his chest was on fire, his eyes channeling the spirit of Beezelbub, Satan, the Dark One, whatever evil entity or fire spirit the beastman world believed in, it was embodied in his absolute rage-filled glare.

"The salt caravan." Winston said, his eyes still watching Benedict with apprehension wrinkling the corners.

"I'd insult your intelligence, but I'm about to rip myself apart from anger, so consider it pending. What is she doing here? What the hell are you doing here?" He screamed at Winston before directing the last sentence, in a somewhat calmer tone, to Neara.

"I got..."

"I'm not mad you got kidnapped, I just..." He ruffled his hair with one hand, a significantly darker scar visible as he furiously scrubbed at his scalp. "I literally broke... I destroyed... I... I found your cloak and your kids and..."

"What?" Neara looked behind him with wide eyes and noticed he carried a tiny cage where her eight sons lounged on top of each other, noses twitching in their sleep. "You killed Aetius?"

"No, but I beat the shit out of him a few times before he let me take them."

"You what???" Neara's voice hit a new pitch and she instantly went to her side.

"So that mark's a Rabbit. Figured it wasn't Mr. Social over there." Orson jerked a finger at Benedict, who stood still, looking like he wasn't going to make a comment any time soon.

"Jokes? Really? The first thing you say is yelling about how we got here, now you're making jokes?"

Orson shot a narrow look at Winston, then back to Neara.

"How did you get... how did you... why...." Neara felt the questions bubbling at her lips, each one trying to escape. She wanted the full story, but how did she ask for it when everything wanted to come out of her mouth at once?

"I can't go into it right now." He held out her cloak in a neat package; she recognized the rough sewing and wrinkled her nose slightly as she took it. It smelled like lavender. She shook it out and wrapped it around her shoulders, instantly flooded with security.

"So you're just not going to talk about how you got my kids?"

"Hey, if you don't believe me..."

"However you got the children and her cloak, I'm grateful. Are the children hungry? I have some fresh berries in the caravan, as well as some vegetables for the female." A frown barely wrinkled the delicate skin between Winston's eyebrows and he turned to the female next to him. "I will find you more before the sun sets, if you will give them up."

The female smiled, warm and sticky, and said in a breathy voice, "Anything for the babies."

Neara's indignant snort stuck in her throat and she coughed instead. Not that she should be jealous... why would she be jealous? For absolutely no reason, she went to Orson and untied her babies... ok, so she wanted them to be able to run around after the days on the road. Was that so wrong? And for good measure, she wrapped her arms around Orson's skinny frame, pulling the rib bones against her in a tight squeeze. "I missed you. Asshole." She murmured into his pale skin. She needed to invent lotion or something; his skin was cracking, probably from the cold mountain air, and it chafed against her lips.