Beauty, the Beasts and Other

Chapter 21

My right eye twitched as I heard her voice. I looked up, "Qingqing, hi."

The girl smiled and moved to take a seat next to me. The sour looking leopard that stood to her side watched me with blatant disdain. I raised a brow at him, daring him to make the first move. He scoffed and spoke to his mate, "Qingqing, I'll go get the wine. Don't go anywhere, okay?"

Qingqing nodded at him, and he left to join the line of males.

"It's been a while, how have you been?" the girl asked.

Not feeling particularly thorny today, I decided to entertain her want for mindless chatter.

"I've been well, thankfully. And you?" I replied.

Qingqing shifted in her seat, looking a bit uncomfortable. "I've seen better days, but I'm alright. The winter here is awful."

"Yes, it would put the winter we experienced back home to shame. I know our polar bears would've appreciated it though," I said.

Qingqing looked surprised as I mentioned earth and looked around briefly before facing me, "I've been wanting to speak to you about that, but the last time we saw each other didn't allow for it."

I turned my head slightly and side glanced her, I was still facing forward, "About what?"

She lowered her voice to a whisper, "About how we got here."

I looked at her, amused. "You do know that beasts have exceptional hearing, right?" She looked embarrassed and darted her eyes around to see if anyone had been paying attention to us. "I don't know how I got here, but due to my circumstances, I'm not looking to go back in this lifetime. You've been awaiting this conversation in vain because I'm afraid I'm not much help."

Qingqing sighed as she clenched her eyes shut and reopened them to give me a sad smile, "It's fine. It can't be helped." She sighed and leaned back into seat. "So, how did you learn Chinese?"

I raised a brow, "I don't know Chinese."

She looked surprised, "What? But you're speaking it right now and I've been speaking Chinese all along, same with everyone else, how else would you have understood me?"

I furrowed my brows and spoke, "I've been hearing everyone speak English all this time. I assume it has something to do with whatever brought us here."

Qingqing curled her index finger over her lips and looked to be lost in thought for a minute. "I suppose you're right and if that's the case, we won't really have the opportunity to ask unless it shows itself. Well which country are you from? As you might have guessed, I'm from China," she said.

"I'm from the U.S.," I said.

"Oh! I see. Um....you....um."

"What?" I looked at her.

She blushed and gestured towards my mating marks. I had taken off my shawl made from wool and animal skin, so my marks were on full display.