Beauty, the Beasts and Other

Chapter 48

The group ended their night having been unsuccessful in their search.

Luckily, they found a cave embedded in the mountain that was big enough to provide shelter for the night.

They got a fire going and had something to eat. Afterwards, the children were told to get some sleep for the next day while the men stayed up a bit longer to ensure Isa was as comfortable as they could get her.

Harvey had once more given her a full body check-up to ensure nothing was amiss. The rest of the men sat quietly in a circle around the fire while he worked. All that could be heard was the soft cracking of the fire. He fed her some water and held her in a comfortable position in his arms as he sat in front of a cave wall.

"She's losing more weight," the leopard said, breaking the silence. "We need to find that damn stone tomorrow. No sleeping, eating or taking breaks until we find it."

"Yeah, we can't let this drag on any further. I feel like we're failing her more and more as the days pass by," Damien said sadly.

The group sank into silence once more. Curtis, who was sitting close to Harvey, reached over and started undoing the two Dutch braids her hair was fixed in that have long since been messy. He slowly and gently ran his fingers through her hair to get out the knots and proceeded to redo the braids.

Marissa would be proud of his work. She was his teacher after all.

"Hey guys?" Winston said softly.

"Hmm?" Curtis hummed in response, still braiding, while everyone else simply looked at the white tiger, waiting to hear what he had to say.

"When we find the sapphires, Isa starts eating again and she has woken up, we need to put in extra effort to make sure she's safe. Most of us are penta-marked beasts but our mate still got swiped from under our noses."

The white tiger heaved a sigh, "I can't believe we let that happen. At least one of us should have been in the ocean with her."

The group was silent. They wanted to tell Winston not to feel that way. That it was out of all their control and that much couldn't have been done to change the situation. The mermen had both females in a chokehold after all, and Isa dearly treasured her friendship with the female fox. So, if they had decided to sacrifice Talia and make the effort to save Isa, it's highly likely that Isa would be in the depths of despair and a shell of herself.

At least she'd be safe.

The group all had the same invasive thought, but they didn't want to be the type of males that completely lost sight of reason to keep their mate safe. After all, Talia was a friend not only to Isa, but to all of Isa's family. Talia's men and her cubs were their friends as well.

They didn't regret their decision to let her be safely returned to her family.