Rise Of The Beast Queen: Elizabeth

Ch 56 Female Punishment

Tabby slowly backed back out of her cave into the open and found herself pinned between a rock and a hard place; Jamina and her mates on one side and Liz, Tairen, Eryk and the remainder of both tribes on the other.

"You thought you could attack my tribe, offer us to rootless beasts and think we would do nothing. That we wouldn't come here and end you?" Jamina asked in a sickly sweet snarl as she took a step closer, that Tabby mirrored with a large step back.

"I... I... I didn't... and I... I'm female! You can't hurt me!" Tabby yelled boldly, trying to cover up her obvious anxiety.

"We could kill your mates... Though it appears that most are dead already." Jamina stated, making a point of checking over Tabby's exposed mostly bare skin.

"What do you mean, are there really no punishments for females?" Liz asked a little more shocked than she really should have been.

"Well, no, not really since..." Jamina began but was interrupted.

"Females are to precious, no male would possibly risk one getting injured." Tabby exclaimed righteously with a crazed smirk like she'd already won.

"Bullshit!" Liz snapped, "Just look at what you and your mates did to Serena. Your own female cub. If females are so precious that males wouldn't even think to let them be hurt then how do you explain what happened to her or what they did to me?"

"I... It's not my fault... It... It's them..." She stuttered unconvincingly.

"But they're males, right. Why would they purposefully choose to hurt a female, it doesn't make sense unless they did it on another females order. Your order." Liz accused, causing an eerie murmur to spread through the crowd.

"Wha... N... No... I... I didn't..." Tabby stuttered as she looked around in shock. "It wasn't me! It was them! They... They're just bad males! It wasn't me!"

"You're right." Jamina agreed in a sickly sweet, condescending tone, redrawing everyone's attention. "They are or were bad males. But you made them that way." She scolded, her pretty face scrunched into a snarl, her teeth and claws extended in her burst of anger that she only just rained in thanks to the satisfaction she felt at seeing Tabby cower away from her with fear in her eyes. Jamina calmed herself with a few deep breaths, before she turned to Liz. "What do you want to do with her then? How should she be punished?" She asked bluntly.

"Wha... I..." Liz stuttered in disbelief, caught just as off guard as everyone else, because honestly she didn't expect to be the one asked to come up with a punishment. Sure she wanted justice for what they did to her and Serena and for causing a war between the tribes. If this were the human world the law would handle it, Tabby would go to jail or prison for her crimes, but what would that equate to here? She wondered before her thoughts were interrupted.

"Yes! Good idea!" Tanya's voice rang out in a jovial laugh and all eyes turned to the five Fierce Claw Tribe females standing behind the wall of males, Teela recoiled nervously and tried to hide behind the much smaller Olivia, who met everyone's stares with a cold yet exotic glare. "Why not just expel her from the tribe." Tanya suggested, seeing that Teela wasn't about to repeat the comment she'd whispered under her breath.

"It isn't typically done... But these aren't typical times now is it." Jamina pondered then shrugged nonchalantly. "What do you think?" She asked looking back to Liz again.

"You can't be serious!" Tabby screeched. "You can't do that! I can't go out alone! I'll be taken! I'll die! I'm female! You can't! You can't!"

"I... I guess that is an option... do you think she'll really die if we toss her out of the tribe?" Liz asked as an uneasy feeling stirred in her gut.

"Well, maybe... With no protection. Probably." Jamina said and shrugged again, rubbing her slightly distended pregnant belly disinterestedly.

"It would depend on what kind of male she meets first." Tanya snarkily explained as she boldly walked through the males to get closer, with the other females hot on her heals.

"Right." Harper agreed with a sassy edge in her tone. "If what you claim is true and all the rootless beasts are really gone to the Rivers Bend Tribe then maybe she'll just get taken by a feral."

"Yes. Maybe she'll get lucky and the feral that forcibly mates her will be really strong too." Tanya laughed spitefully as her sharp gaze raked over Tairen from his feet up his thick body to his four marks, then to his head, where her eyes met his dark glare, causing a cold chill to run down her spin. Tanya looked away so fast she nearly got whiplash, the hair prickled on the back of her neck and her throat bobbed as she tried to swallow down the fear that threatened to surface.

"Maybe you're right..." Liz agreed, not even bothering to take offense at the attempted jab and obviously jealous words, instead she gave it some actual thought. "If we expel her from the tribe what would stop her from gathering a bunch of males together and coming back to attack us?" Liz asked, making everyone stop and think.

"Fine. What do you suggest then?" Jamina asked.

"Well... Umm... For now... Why don't we just confine her to a cave or something, with guards so she can't escape and no male will be allowed to mate with her... So i guess only mated males should be allowed to guard her... How does that sound, at least until we can come up with something better?" Liz suggested and looked around waiting for any questions, comments or concerns, but for now everyone seemed to agree.

Now that the theatrics had ended Tanya and Harper quickly left, neither wanting their males to be roped into guarding Tabby. Jamina agreed with Liz's assessment and respected her intelligence so she had Chief Noah assign mated males to guard her. Noah personally selected males from the Rivers Bend Tribe since he didn't trust anyone from the Fierce Claw Tribe. At Liz's insistence they guarded in pairs and switched every 12 hours or so, though it wasn't entirely necessary to swap out guards so often but the males did in fact appreciate being relieved so they could see their own mates.