Beauty, the Beasts and Other

Chapter 14

I asked Curtis to follow the rejected tiger and we stopped some distance from the still booming city centre to see Winston walking, probably to his hut or something.

"Winston!" I shouted at the male.

He paused his movement and turned to face me.

Lord have mercy.

The man was a masterpiece. Tall, muscular, contrasting my current husbands as they were more on the lean side, but they all had a shared attribute of towering over my figure. Winston's shoulder length hair and his eyes were the same shade of silver, and he had two round cat ears atop his head.

The scar on his face only added to his rugged charm. He could easily fall under the 'mountain man' classification back on earth.

He looked at myself and my husbands with hard eyes, then focused in on me. Those eyes showed skilfully hidden pain and hurt. If I didn't know anything about him, I would believe him to be unaffected by the constant ridicule, but I knew better.

"Yes female?" He looked like he wanted nothing more than to walk away but stayed, due to the general hierarchy of how the sexes were treated.

I pushed the sudden anxiety that creeped up as far down as I could. He regarded me with such callus eyes, I was sure if I were a man bothering him right now, he would beat my ass.

I cleared my throat, tapped Curtis' chest to set me down, and slowly walked towards the tiger male to accommodate my soreness.

When I was a few feet away for him, I looked into his eyes, " Hello Winston. My name is Marissa, but you can call me Isa. Would you like to be my male?"

The tiger couldn't believe his ears, "Is this a joke?"

"I assure you, it's not. This is Curtis and this is Harvey," I gestured to the two behind me. "We would like for you to join our family."

Winston was in a state of shock and disbelief. A female was proposing to him, not only that, her males, that were quite loved judging by the mating marks that adorned her chest, wanted him in the family as well.

That almost never happened, no one wanted to share their female. The only reason Winston could fathom for such a phenomenon was that both mates loved her enough to want as much protection for her as possible, and he was right.

Winston briefly wondered if he could experience being loved and comforted enough to want the same for his female in the future. He shook the thought from his head. What female? No one wants an ugly male, no matter how capable.

I could almost see his every thought rushing through his mind.

Poor Winston. I want you. I promise.

Fiddling my fingers, I spoke once more, "You don't have to accept me because I may be the only one that proposed to you. Let me invite you to our home, you can judge the family for yourself and decide if you want to accept." This was my most self-respectful offer, if he refused, I would have no qualms with begging.