Her Beasts Volume Four

Family Bonding

For Fern's sake, Iris tried to befriend Alicia. She personally helped her to settle in and showed her around the area, even going as far as to help her mates find suitable jobs. Of course, not everything was as simple and as easy as Iris had hoped it would be.

Iris preferred to have fewer mates and had no plans of ever having an entire thirty mates. Really, she would even be fine with only ever taking in maybe one more mate. Iris didn't really feel like she needed to accept any more mates, but Iris was open to one more. The way things operated now, Iris could have seven mates and still make things fair with her mates. With seven days in the week, she could share her bed with her mates one day each before having the cycle restart the next week. Anything more than that would make things difficult as Iris had the feeling she would even begin to struggle to remember who each of her mates were at some point, which was certainly the last thing Iris wanted.

Still, Iris knew that most females struggled to live happy and fulfilling lives if they had so few mates. For many, the number of mates you had and how skilled and strong they were would act as a sort of status symbol. A female who had only a few males and had no plans to accept any more would be looked at as strange as if there was something wrong with her. Iris could get away with it due to being a special case, but Iris worried about her sister-in-law.

One of the ways Iris had planned to help with this issue was to gift her sister a set of beauty products. The males in her city had already grown to be used to the females here being clean and well-groomed. If the new females wanted to fit in and not be seen as less desirable, they would need to adapt to the way that the females here lived, including regularly bathing.

Alicia was also a half-orc, but this would only hinder her in finding mates when it came to new males who had yet to adjust to how their city worked. Being a half-orc female in Blue Springs City wasn't treated as taboo and was unlikely to hinder Alicia from finding mates in the long term. Although, Iris had to wonder if this would always be true since more complete females were, slowly, joining their ranks, but Iris chose to remain hopeful about the situation.

However, even though Iris had also brought Fern along and several varieties of sweets, Alicia had seemed a bit insulted by Iris gifting her something meant to clean herself. Iris supposed this was not entirely an unexpected response. Even in modern times, one had to be careful about gifting others hygiene items as it could be misinterpreted as insulting the person. Of course, it wasn't entirely untrue that Alicia did smell bad and really could use a bath, but Iris did mean well when she had gifted her the items.

Still, though, Iris did have one saving grace. Iris's young cubs were similar in age to Alicia's cubs, which meant she could use them to her advantage. Iris arranged playdates between the cubs and even gifted Alicia some of the toys her cubs showed interest in during said playdates. Of course, Iris had no way of knowing that most females would agree to such a playdate with ulterior motives.

Rosemary was a precious female and could, potentially, grow to like one or even several of Alicia's male cubs. This would make it more likely that she would accept them as mates in the future, which would be a relief to any mother of cubs. While Alicia had a daughter of her own, she wasn't even worried about her daughter growing attached to Iris's male cubs. Surely, with such strong fathers, these cubs were likely to end up being strong in the future too.

As Iris watched her cubs playing one day, Fern frowned as he watched his nephews being overly friendly with Rosemary. While siblings or direct cousins becoming mates was frowned upon, this situation wasn't exactly taboo. Rosemary was Basil and Iris's daughter, not Fern's, which meant it was unlikely there would be any extra birth difficulties caused by them becoming mates. Still, Fern had the feeling he should speak up and mention this to Iris as he didn't want her to be upset with him in the future.

"You do know why my sister keeps agreeing to playdates, even though she can be a bit difficult about other invitations you give her, right?"

Iris furrowed her brows before shaking her head in the negative. Fern sighed before explaining

"You should really be more careful about who you expose our daughter to in the future. Those with male cubs would love to get a chance like this as it means their sons get to be around a female at a young age and get an early chance to curry favor with them."

Iris's eyes grew big as she glanced at her daughter, but she felt hesitant about changing anything. She wanted to protest that their daughter was far too young to be thinking about such things, but she had a feeling that that was beside the point. The issue was with the mothers who would manipulate Iris and her kindness in such a way. Iris didn't want her daughter to be a pawn in their games.

Still, Iris wasn't sure that she could protect her daughter from everything. There were worse things than her daughter falling for a male and it affecting her choice of mates when she was older. Iris would need to be more weary of ensuring the males wouldn't fall for her daughter and cause trouble than she would need to worry about her daughter being happy and in love.

"I see your point, but I actually think sheltering our daughter is the wrong way to approach things. It would be better to expose her to more people her age so that she can't be so easily swayed than to shelter her so much that she can't know better than to fall for some pretty words."

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Did you know? There are still 107 chapters left before this series is over. However, if you head over to the Patreon you can get all 5 volumes as downloadable PDF copies plus 3 Patreon exclusive side stories featuring Holly, Fawn, and Pearl! It's only $10 plus taxes, which is about $2 / volume for a forever copy!