Two more months passed after that, and the air already began to take on that familiar, crisp autumn bite.
Winter was coming.
Down in the textile district, the sheep tribe and the weavers were working overti. I’d seen the first batch of the new winter coats—heavy wool lined with soft rabbit fur and reinforced with cured leather. They were beautiful, functional, and far better than anything else I’d ever made.
I’m just glad the rabbit tribe had no issue with us using rabbit fur for the coats. Well, it wasn’t like they weren’t uncomfortable with the idea at the start.
But the sheep tribe tried their best to convince them. It was like when they shaved off all their wool to make clothes and provide warmth for others, only the rabbits are dead. They didn’t include that last part so don’t worry.
As I watched the entirety of the West Way from the balcony with a sense of purpose burning in my heart, I felt a familiar tugging at my ankles.
Marina, my little purple haired and silver-scaled terror, had successfully escaped the sheep girl’s hold and crawled across the stone floor with the speed of a high-speed projectile.
She reached , pulling herself up using my skirt, her tiger-gold eyes narrowed in a challenge.
"Up!" she demanded. It wasn’t a request. It was an order from a four-month-old who already thought she owned the courtyard.
I chuckled, leaning down to scoop her up. She was surprisingly heavy, her little body solid and warm, the silver scales along her ribs glinting in the autumn sun.
"How are you, my little terrorist?" I whispered, booping her nose. She responded by trying to grab my hair, her grip already strong enough to give a beastman pause.
I chuckled and snuggled her. She was warm. My daughter.
Despite the ’happily ever after’ vibe of the palace, a strange heat was starting to pulse in my chest.
I could tell it wasn’t just the stress of the impending winter or the constant worry about whether the heating system would be enough to keep Damar from slipping into his seasonal hibernation. I wanted Damar awake this year. I didn’t want to spend the cold months staring at a silver-scaled statue in the bedroom.
Anyway, the heat in my chest was—
"Ari," a smooth, vibrating voice called out.
I turned as Damar slid into the room, his human form looking as pure and lethal as ever. He leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead that made my toes curl.
"Where have you been?" I asked, shifting Marina to my other hip, but she was already reaching out so she could catch his silver locks.
"Scouting the North," he explained, his erald eyes bright and warm as he looked at her. He reached his hand, and she grabbed his finger.
The feeling made his heart flutter, and his lips curled in a soft smile. He looked very charming this way. Well, he doesn’t ever not look charming, but this is a bonus point.
"Did you find anything in the North?" I asked.
"Yes." He answered, shifting his gaze to . "I found a squirrel beastn settlent not too far from the border. They have a massive harvest stored, but their burrows are shallow. They won’t survive a hard freeze."
My heart did a little leap. "Squirrel beastn? Right under our nose?" How did we not notice they were at our borders this whole ti? "Anyway, it’s perfect. We need more herbivores for the farms and the granaries. Did you scare them?"
Damar shook his head, his tongue flicking out for a split second. "No. I stayed downwind. I knew if I poked my head into their village, they’d scatter to the winds. I just observed from a distance."
"Good. We’ll do this the right way. I’ll send Robin and Garam. A sheep and a rabbit are much less intimidating than a snake and a tiger," I said, already ntally mapping out the new settlent area. If we got the squirrels, Oakhaven would finally be the diverse agricultural hub I’d envisioned.
As I spoke, that heat in my chest flared again, turning into a heavy, sweet ache that made my breath hitch. I looked at Damar’s lips, his sharp jawline, and the way his neck moved when he breathed. Before I could stop myself, I leaned in and crashed my lips against his.
It wasn’t a gentle "welco ho" kiss. It was hungry. It was desperate.
Damar didn’t pull back right away, but when he did, his eyes searched mine, and his pupils dilated until they were almost as thin as a needle.
"Is that a ’well done’ kiss, Ari? Or is sothing else going on?"
I wasn’t sure. I was confused. According to the biological rule of this world, a beast’s Estrus—their heat—was a yearly event.
But I’d already had my heat around early Autumn last year, and sumr this year, which was only a few months ago.
My own biological signals were ssed up.
And when I asked Taruna about it, she said it should co only once a year. Maybe the reason my heat did not wait for a whole year calculation before it ca in Autumn was because a factor affected it.
I just went ahead to think it was the pearl’s effect. But then why was it coming again in Autumn?
Why was my body so ssed up?
My skin was five degrees too hot for my clothes, and I wanted to rip them off.
’I don’t know why it’s so ssed up, but I can’t exactly fight it. This ans I’ll get pregnant again, right?’ I thought, and though the pains from the last labor were still so fresh in my mind, I wasn’t scared.
"Can you take the twins to Fenric for ?" I whispered, but my voice sounded so foreign, like it belonged to soone else. "And co back right away. Don’t stop for anything."
Damar blinked, looking at Marina as she tugged on my hair and Kaito sleeping on my bed. He didn’t ask questions. He gathered both purple-haired troublemakers into his arms, their silver scales shimring against his skin, and vanished out the door.
The mont the door clicked shut, I started taking off my clothes.
My fingers trembled as I unfastened the wraps. My body looked different now—the ’mother’s map’ of glistening stretch marks was more prominent across my belly, silver lines marking the places where my five children had grown.
But I didn’t feel self-conscious. I felt powerful. I felt feral.
The door opened. Damar stepped in, stopping dead in his tracks.
"Ari, I took them to—"
The words died in his throat as I kicked the door shut behind him and locked it. I stood before him, naked, my skin flushed a deep, rosy pink, the scent of my sudden heat filling the small room like a heavy perfu.
"Ari, this... your scent..." Damar gulped, his tongue flicking out frantically as he tasted the air. "You’re in heat?"
"Apparently," I said, flipping my hair over my shoulder and walking toward him, my movents light and predatory. My body wanted what it wanted.
And right now, it wants Damar.
I stopped inches from him, looking up into those erald eyes. "Tell , Damar. I want to know the gestation period for snakes."
He blinked, his hands hovering near my waist, afraid to touch and lose his control. "Snakes... we lay eggs. But you are a tiger. The life cycle will be different. It would be a live birth, but the cycle... it would be just as fast. About the sa span as the fish."
"So... fifty days?"
Winter was coming. The snow would fall, the world would turn white, and the heating system would be tested. But fifty days... that ant by mid-winter, I could have his child or children.
"I want to have just your baby this ti, Damar," I whispered, my hands sliding up his chest to tangle in his hair. "No extra genes. Just yours."
Damar let out a low, guttural groan that vibrated in his chest. The idea of not having to share the DNA—of having a birth that was purely ours, just like with Thalor—sent his instinct into overdrive.
He was greedy. And he wanted to mark as his alone.
"Ari," he rasped, his hands finally slamming against my waist and pulling flush against him. "Let’s do it."
I crashed my lips onto his, and the West Way outside ceased to exist. There was only the heat, the pale cool flesh against my skin, and the promise of a new life that would be born in the heart of winter.
The walls and doors of the palace weren’t thick enough to keep in the scent of a female in heat.
So, by the ti the sun began to dip below the horizon, the scent had seeped through the cracks, drifting into the hallways and the courtyard.
It was thick and sweet, triggering the predatory instincts of every beastman within a hundred-yard radius. But for my husbands, it was a siren call that made their blood boil.
Inside the room, the world was just the two of us, our skin locked against skin, and the heat of my own skin radiating around us.
Damar was usually so composed, so calculated, but the knowledge that I wanted only him had turned him into sothing primal. His erald eyes were glowing, his pupils re pinpricks, as he claid every inch of my skin with a possessive, silent intensity.
But then, the heavy thud of a fist hit our door.
"Damar! Open this door right now!"
It was Noah.
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