Beauties and Beasts Pt 2

Chapter 160

Now to make up for the long hiatus, all of them are going on dates! This helps to get the juices flowing and is also fun :) Cute reintroduction to the characters. Obviously, first is Neara and Orson!

"Can I open my eyes yet?" Neara could feel the icy breeze on her neck and ears just peeking over Orson's thick fluff.

He transformed with a wheeze, ending with her in his arms. "I never told you to close them."

She waited until he set her on the ground, familiar and crunchy under her thick boots, and opened her eyes.

The icy sun reflecting off the snow instantly blinded her and she fell back with a yelp. Orson laughed and started kicking snow in a circle away from her, clearing the ground. It clumped and rolled down the slope, wet enough to form snowballs that grew until they disappeared off the edge.

"Why didn't you tell me we were going to freeze?"

"I thought the warm clothes and cold air gave it away." He set his giant pack next to him and started fishing piles of wood out of it, setting them alight with a tinder box and blowing the sparks to life. Once it was crackling pleasantly, he sat back on his heels.

The view was breathtaking: they were at the tallest point of the mountain, valleys stretching out below them. The air tasted different up here, sharper on the roof of her mouth and stinging her nose when she inhaled. Her fingers couldn't feel a thing, wrapped in soft, waxed linen stuffed with Orson's own wool. She'd suspected something like this, but living in such a tropical climate for so long... she'd forgotten what snow looked like.

She knew why, of course. Food and things grew better at lower altitudes and they liked the warm and wet. Their gardens were thriving, Shay had never been happier, and they never wanted for food.

But she was a mountain girl and always missed the smell of pine and spruce trees edging the dirt roads up a mountain, the lack of bugs, and lazy mountain streams edged with wild grasses. The bright berries were easier to spot on a dry landscape, the iron taste in your nose in a forest, the heavy smell of ozone dripping off leaves after a rainstorm, or the absolute black of mountain night, framing the stars with their jagged peaks. Living in Bunny Hell, she'd never really looked up at the stars... never had a reason to. She was looking forward to tonight.

"I brought that stones game."

"Mancala?"

"Whatever. I thought, since we're so far away from Curtis, I could show you my present."

She cocked her head to the side, then almost fell over again when he opened his hands. He'd somehow broken and polished emeralds and crystals to tiny thumbnail-sized pieces, cracks reflecting light like a gemstone's facets. She doubted anything on her world held the fire and shine of the sun like these did. He placed them in the board he'd made for her, worked from a timber kept from their first home together, and looked up with a smile.

"When you lose so badly your heart gives out, the medicine is right here."

"I'm not even mad, Orson, this is so beautiful!"

He half-shrugged his shoulders and nestled his chin against the crook of his collar-bone. "It didn't take very long. It's not much of a present, but I had to make sure I was far enough from camp so Curtis wouldn't sense these."

"No, seriously, this is the most wonderful thing you could've given me." She walked over behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his hair just like he hated. Her chin grazed the scar he tried to hide. "I love it. Thank you."

"You make too big a deal of this." But he didn't push her away. After a few minutes, he cleared his throat and finished the shrug, shaking her off. "We can play by the fire or go exploring."

"I thought you brought a blanket?"

"Snuggling is after dinner. I want you to work up an appetite so the only extra weight I have to carry back is you."

"You calling me fat?" The playful tone helped her remember it was seen as a good thing here. Body positivity was a chore all her mates joined in on.

"I could only wish. Look at those tiny bones; I could snap you like a not-chicken."

He placed a thin finger on top of her collarbone and pushed downward lightly. She looked at his long nose down to his thin lips, the slightest sheen of sweat catching the light. His fingernail traced up her collarbone to her shoulder, going under the strap of her top to rub at the skin underneath.

Breath in her throat, and everywhere else except her lungs, she didn't dare move as his hand moved down to the small of her back, grazing her exposed skin and leaving trails of ice. Their eyes collided at the same time their lips did, Neara's hands wrapping around his jaw and dragging him towards her. He grunted as he caught the back of her head before they fell. At an impossible angle, he held her suspended over the ground, the snow's chill radiating upwards, fighting against his hand on her back.

"Neara, wait..."

"No, no waiting," she growled against his mouth, securing her hands around his horns and trying to hold him in place.

"If you die of a cold because you couldn't keep your hands to yourself... you know what?" He wrapped her legs around his waist and blindly groped in his bags, pulling out furs and grasses and arranging them while she mauled his face, at one point shifting her to his back so he could flatten the bedding properly. Once he was satisfied, he grabbed her face and held it away from his, waiting until she opened her eyes.

The air felt like needles in her lungs but she couldn't stop gasping. His eyes bore into hers as she almost caught her breath. His thumbs brushed over her lips and she shivered.

"Now I can devour you properly."