Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 140: brought to you by FINALLY!!!!!!

Okay, we got author notes from both authors today. First, Lowefantasy here. I'm updating early because Tyndali is going through a divorce with her abusive child of a husband and needs some moral support. SO! Everyone harness your chi and let your love be heard! Via comments or her email...should I give you her email?...would she kill me?...Probably. Well, if you send messages to me for her, I'll forward them to her. On my author's honor. I do that anyway with any comments sent her way, so it's nothing I ain't use to.

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

Now, Tyndali, who doesn't know about Lowefantasy's note, for the intro do her chapter: Ok, Guys, this is it, the chapter we've been waiting for since Winston was introduced, the lovable hunk of striped man-flesh is finally GETTIN' SOME!!!! Three cheers for the patient readers who wanted to strangle Neara but persevered to the end! (Not the end of the story, but the end of the slow-burn).

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"Neara..." Winston gasped, the word pulled from the depths of his soul.

"Huh, what?" Neara shot upright and looked around for her alarm clock. The smell of smoke hit her, along with sweaty bodies and deep forest. "What's... who..." She blinked and the trees slid into focus, along with a campfire and a half-naked man. Winston? His name... Winston. She shook her head slightly and reached out a hand to comfort him as her thoughts swirled into place. Beast World, anime land, whatever, here with Shay, Shay dead, sex with NOT animals, but kind-of-cat/sheep/bear-boys? cat/sheep/bear/rabbit...-men?

"Forgive me," he whispered, his eyes still shut against the grey of a new morning. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"Wake... you're fine, it's ok. You're safe now." Safe from what? The Scorpion Tribe, maybe? She hadn't seen Orson around, but the food and everything was always refilled when she woke up, so she knew he was keeping watch. Probably wouldn't talk to her until she did the horizontal line dance with Winston.

"Please, remember, that I care for you." He winced, a slight wrinkling of his eyes and a curl of his upper lip. "I was close to death; I felt it. The last thing on my mind was the knowledge that you wouldn't know how special and wonderful and intelligent..." he trailed off into a dead sleep, not even snoring.

"Winston?" She waited for his response. "Winston?" Still nothing. "Ugh, Orson!" She stood up and scratched her scalp furiously. Small hairs and bits of dirt bounced off the hide, some crackling into the fire. "I'm not going to have sex with him, so you can come out now. Orson, we need to get away from the Scorpion beastmen, so just... hurry up! Orson!"

Silence. "Ugh, fine! I'll just wait until I'm almost dead, then force you to move us." She looked down at Winston and balled her fist into the nape of her neck, twisting the hair into her fingers. "He's alive, so that's good, and his wounds are healing, which is also good. Great, even. He'll be able to move soon enough, and he'll just pick me up and move me and we'll wait for everyone else to catch up." Her teeth scraped against the scab on her lower lip, gently prying it off and spitting it out. "How the hell are they keeping Tony away though..." The mark gleamed in the sunlight like rich brown oil. "If Shay was here, she'd say something sassy like, 'We should just start walking; if Winston's awake enough to talk, he's probably good to travel.' Then Curtis would be all 'My Shay, if travel is what you wish, I will carry you faster than that beast can run' and he'd shoot Ryan a dirty look or whatever and Ryan would snarl and lash his tail around and Parker would jump around wanting to be in the fight."

Her chest tweaked like she broke a heart string. Her hand clenched the leather over her heart, fingernails digging into the softened hide until it hurt. No sense going down that path.