The Beauty's Hidden Beast

69 - The Cubs (3k words)

Mitchell's POV

Half a moon later...

We were traveling through the desert when I spotted a familiar figure, "Isn't that Skaris?"

"What are you doing here?" Skaris stopped before Bart in his wolf form, "This is not a place for little ones."

"Vick let us free," Bart stood in front of his cubs defensively, "If I left them in any of the villages, they would be taught how to act and what to think by the beastmen's rules, and I'm not having any of that again. Also, what is the chance of me seeing them again? Their home is by their father's side, and we will learn how to survive the harsh environment together."

I couldn't help but agree with Bart. I would rather stay with a loving father than a mother, who wasn't actually my mother. It came to me as a surprise when Bart told me that she didn't give birth to them.

She seemed to love them so much, yet the males left the cubs with Bart instead of taking the cubs with them? No matter how much I analyzed them and tried to figure them out, it was still hard to wrap my head around their actions.

"Well, I can't stand those places either," Skaris nodded, then said. "Follow me. Fast." He scooped the cubs onto his back.

The cubs yipped and bounced happily, clutching onto the thick rope on Skaris's body with their jaws and claws as we sprinted behind him in our beast forms. I laughed. They looked so funny, their little round bodies jiggling from side to side.

Skaris stopped when we reached a small oasis. A group of palm trees surrounded a lake, and a single mud hut stood next to it. The desert was hot, and the sun was scorching, but the wind here was cool and gentle.

"Were you living here this whole time?" I asked, curious about the hut's structure. It looked like a wet pile of sand with holes, similar to the one she and her cubs created on top of us when they played with the beach sand. Did he take inspiration from it?

Skaris nodded and nudged the cubs off his back, "Stay close to Papa Bart. No running."

The cubs whimpered but returned to Bart, who had just shifted into his human form. Skaris then jumped into the water and returned with two small golden bubbles containing a malnourished lion and a tiger cub.

I looked around with a frown, searching for a sigh of mermen. Do not tell me those fish heads plan to take over the desert, too.

"Dear gave me some of Gold's substance that he produced for her," Skaris said, popping the bubbles with his nail and letting the little ones out, "You coat your fingers with it and blow a bubble then let the air enter it before closing it." He took a container from his shoulder bag and gave it to Bart, "I'm telling you this so you can hide your cubs during emergencies too. Gold's substance is strong enough to withhold the cubs' claws, but you should still educate them not to scratch at its surface."

"What about me?" I asked, "I know how to swim. I can hide them too."

They looked at me with a deadpan expression, as if the King of the Desert needed such a thing and couldn't just order the ferals and the rootless to bow down.

· · ─────── · ⊱❈⊰· ─────── · ·

Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the lion cub was born rootless and the tiger cub a normal beastman. Did someone kidnap a pregnant female?

Finding beastmen cubs in the Flame City was rare. The cub's ribcages were showing, and their bodies were covered with bite marks, similar in size to their own. They clearly fought amongst some other cubs or small beasts, and whoever was the victor fed on the other one.