Beauty, the Beasts and Other

Chapter 23

When we exited the ape castle, I was greeted with hugs and kisses from my feathered husband. He really was such a sweetheart.

The ride home was quicker than the ride to the castle. I think that Winston wanted to ensure that I was out of the cold and back in our toasty home since he learned of my pregnancy.

I wondered if anyone would comment about my ability to give birth twice in less than a year. No one else besides my men knew that I was pregnant with snakes at the time, but winter was almost over, and the snakes would return soon.

If memory served me correctly, the gestation period for cats was about three months. If none of my men had noticed so far, I believe that I'm still in the first month or so, so we had some time to get our lives in order.

Curtis should be back in a month at most, and once he does, I'll begin discussions about moving. With the ape king now aware of my presence, I was itching to get out of this place more than before.

I'll admit that the news of my pregnancy is less than ideal right now, since I may have to wait until the newly cooking buns are out of me first, but we'll see how it goes. If the environment in the city turns hostile, then we dip. If it's bearable, then we'll wait until the cats can travel.

Once we got home, we found that Harvey had returned and had started on dinner. He had been out seeing some patients and was now cooking some of our preserved deer meat into a stew.

The short birds hadn't made it through winter by the way, poor things. Chicken stew was always one of my favorites though.

"Harvey!" I yelled in greeting and hopped off Winston's back to give my favorite leopard a hug.

He gladly returned my embrace and nuzzled his face into my hair, "Hello, Isa. Did it go well?"

"For the most part, I found out from the ape king that I'm pregnant," I looked up at him, "could you check?"

He looked surprised at my statement but nodded and quickly killed the fire under the pot to tend to me. Damien, having just heard of this, smiled widely at me.

"What? You're pregnant, Isa?" he asked walking over to me and placing a hand on my flat stomach.

I leaned into him and looked as Harvey prepped an examining area in our living room with Winston's help. "Yes, it would seem so. The ape king did say they were cats though, so it must be either Winston's or Harvey's. Do you want children Damien?" I asked him.

He looked confused at the word 'children' to which I offered a brief explanation.

He smiled at me lovingly, "I didn't want them at first, no. I've been rejected so many times because of my scar that all my hopes of having a family vanished with each 'no' that was yelled at me. Then I met you, my sweet, loving female. You give me hope again and the will to see another day as long as I'll be seeing you. Whenever you're ready to grant me the gift of bearing my children, I'll be ready to father them."