章 93: 93 - The Manor (3,1k words)
╔═══ Author's note ════╗
Images below are just inspiration for easier imagination. I visualize their nest in a more traditional and rustic way. 😊
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YaYa's POV
A few months later...
The manor was built right into the side of a mountain, consisting of three rings: the Inner, Middle, and Outer Rings, separated by two layers of courtyards.
The majority of the Inner Ring was actually built into the mountain itself.
Compared to the usual simple hut houses and stoic stone castles, the manor was the very definition of opulence, reminding me of the old Chinese palaces.
Towering ancient trees surrounded the Outer Ring, and a dense forest hid the entrances with an intimidating vibe that would keep most people away (it was the boys' intention).
Once inside, a cobblestone path would lead you deeper into the imposing manor, which had well-kept grassy areas and small water streams.
The Outer Ring was where most of the business happened. This area had guest rooms, meeting halls, warehouses, and even a marketplace where goods were traded.
The Middle Ring was home to our cubs and staff. It had everything they needed─dormitories, study rooms, training rooms, gardens, playgrounds and a small medical clinic. There was also a kitchen and dining hall.
The Inner Ring was where the family heads retired at the end of the day. It was the most luxurious part of the manor, with a hot spring bathhouse and a deep cave system.
The Inner Ring had incredible views from both sides of the mountain. On one side, you could see the peaceful Hot Spring Resort, with steam rising from the warm waters and the infamous canal.
From the other side, you could look out over the mountain's inner valley, which was like a hidden paradise.
The valley was enclosed by high cliffs, making it feel completely cut off from the outside world. A crystal-clear river ran through it, fed by a stunning waterfall that tumbled into a sparkling pool below. Small paths winding through it were perfect for training or just relaxing by the water.
The bedroom, on the mountain's ground floor, had large sliding windows that looked out at the waterfall and the green valley inside the mountain. The sliding windows' frames were made of oiled paper, and a wooden veranda with a roof protected them against bad weather.
The bathroom next to the bedroom had a circular bathtub and a well filled with clean water from the nearby stream.
It's so beautiful... was all I could think when I entered the living room and gazed out of the sliding doors with a view of the whole manor, its beautiful garden, and the surrounding mountains.
The views were breathtaking. It looked like I was part of the nature surrounding us, not cut off from it.
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The location was rich with resources, and the only thing stopping people from using those resources were the colossals.
The vast territory the boys cleared up wasn't fenced by thick walls but by a network of rivers, stone bridges, and pillars with the family crest.
Most of the defeated colossals were fed to the hungry mermen. Any colossal eggs they found were transported to the isolated islands in the ocean.
Now, one could cross the region freely without resistance as long as they paid a small fee to Bart's and Skaris's wolves living near the stone pillars. The wolves served as your guards (tickets) during your stay in their territory.
One could occasionally spot groups of cubs running through the forest or playing on the riverbank, which was unheard of before. There weren't many predators besides Papa Curtis' snakes. Papa Bart's and Skaris's wolves chased away pesky monkeys, cats, wild boars, and bears that tried to settle in their territory. Papa Gold's mermen had eaten the rest.
· · ─────── · ⊱❈⊰· ─────── · ·
The ecosystem must have received a shock to be free of one threat just to be swarmed by a new one.
Mitchell's men continued to deal with colossals beyond the borders, hunting them for more clear crystals. They were a terrifying force at night, especially when they had mermen save them from muddy grounds and heavy rain.
At this rate, the colossal tide might never happen, and the dinos might go extinct (from around the area), but so could the scorpions if they continued their old ways.
Gold, silver, diamonds, and other precious ores they mined over the centuries collected dust in their lairs, meaning nothing to them. If they lived on Earth, they would have been the richest humans and have access to the most beautiful females. Everyone would kiss their feet and worship the ground they walked on for a few banknotes.
Yet here they were, risking their lives to be loved. Mitchell told me that they never really cared about having offspring as much as they did about having a mate.
I stroked the stinger that presented itself before me like a cat toy.
"Not my stinger, Darling!" Mitchell screeched, hugging his stinger as we walked toward the family store in the outer ring.
"You are mine now," I said, grabbing his stinger and kissing the top, "so is this. I will do with it what I please, whether you want me to or not."
Mitchell looked like he was about to have a heart attack. "You...you can't just..." He looked around to see if there were any witnesses and lowered his voice, "treat me like this when we are alone."
"Why?" I kissed the top of his head. "You love me anyway."
"Damn right I do," he hugged my waist, his pride gone in a blink of an eye. He looked up at me dreamily with a goofy grin before quickly hiding his face in my stomach, "please don't embarrass me. I beg you. I'll die. I'll shrivel up and die."
I dragged him along, not prying him off me as he continued to hide his expression, "Your cheeks will fall off if you keep that love-struck smile any longer."
"I'm not smiling." He picked me up and nuzzled his head into my back, "I think I might have a fever. I'm feeling a bit flushed."
I smiled, "Yeah. I can feel the heat coming off your cheeks."
"Don't tease me. This is a serious medical emergency," he said, sounding completely serious as we passed by a few customers.
Mitchell could have hidden in his burrow somewhere, but he didn't. He acted as if I had made him cling onto me and forced him to carry me, showing off how obsessed I was with him and how benevolent he was to be my mate (exactly like in the rumors).
He was the boss, and I was his charity case. I had fun playing along, hugging his head closer to my stomach, causing him to groan and react exactly the way he shouldn't. He squeezed and inhaled my scent as if I were a drug he could get high on.
· · ─────── · ⊱❈⊰· ─────── · ·
"Yaya," Vick excused himself from a customer and approached me, "Do you need something?"
I felt my stomach churn at the way he addressed me. After the heart transplant, he stopped calling me Precious. He never looked at me the same way again.
When he tried to kiss me, I punched him in the face and broke his nose. I blinked at the blood seeping through his fingers as he covered his face in surprise. My hand started to tremble, and I pulled it back. Vick always parried my attacks and never allowed me to punch his handsome face.
Mitchell's eyes bulged as he quickly covered for me, taking the blame for punching Vick before the customers. He placed me down and stood between us, looking as if he was about to beat Vick into a bloody pulp (while praying not to be beaten up by Vick in the inside).
The customers in the store stared at the commotion, and Muir hurriedly dismissed them and led them out of the store. Having me and Vick in the same room right now would give any business a bad image.
I turned back. This was not Vick but the old shrewd Vicerion, the accumulation of his ancestors. Someone, who was always calculating his moves, thinking ten steps ahead, and using everyone around him.
The dragon hadn't awakened yet. What woke up instead was a dickhead, who didn't have Vick's memories but had already adapted to the new situation. I knew Vick hated his origins. He was never comfortable in his skin when he shifted into a half-beastman form. I saw his full beast form only once, and even then, it was when he was on his deathbed.
His ancestors must have been pulling at their hair when Vick decided to mate a barren female. The way he reacted when the boys told him about my condition after he asked when I usually go into heat made my stomach turn and my chest hurt.
"Is there a rule book I missed?" he asked, "I just wanted to kiss my mate. Is that wrong? If you tell me what I did wrong, I promise to make it right."
The same face, the same scent, the same voice. I should be helping him recover his memories, but every time he looked at me, I wanted to punch him. The deadly drive to pass on his genes and protect his bloodline was ingrained in his DNA.
How did Vick deal with it his whole life? I didn't know. It took every fiber in my body to keep myself from falling into the void and losing my sanity.
"Not this nonsense again." The dickhead finally parried my attack, "If I want to sleep with someone else, then I'll sleep with someone else. If I don't want to be with you, then I don't want to be with you. But see where I'm? I'm with you. That's where I am. Why is that? Because I chose to be here. It's a choice, and I made it, and I'll make it again and again. Now, do you want to hit me again, or are we done with your temper tantrum?"
Skaris and Bart arrived, assessing the situation. When they saw that Vick still hadn't regained his memories, they dropped their ears.
"Is this really Vick?" Skaris asked, "It can't be. Right?"
"It's Vick. No. I mean, he doesn't remember." Bart explained.
"But why would he want to befriend other females if he is already mated?" Skaris asked. "I thought he only lost his memories, not his intelligence."
"Maybe he reversed back to when he was a cub? I don't know," Bart pondered. "Let's ask Karrak later. It's him, who found Vick red-handed with another female and brought him back."
That dickhead must have been surprised that nobody took his side, his victim card, and instead were looking at him as if he was an idiot, "Yaya-"
I kicked his legs from under him, and he fell onto the ground, "Don't fucking Yaya me! You want to fuck other women, go ahead, but do it before my face and not behind my back, like a fucking coward. Don't use your memory loss to excuse your shit, or I'll make you lose a few teeth as well."
"Don't be paranoid," he said, wiping the blood from his nose. "You are all I want and all I need."
I felt my skin crawl. His words were making me want to beat Vick out of his skull. I could easily turn it into a paste, and the only thing that stopped me was that he was still a part of Vick.
"She's here," Muir whispered, quickly pulling me away. His sudden entrance saved my knuckles from getting dirty again.
She? Who she?
"Yaya? Are you there?" I heard Nivi's worried voice outside the window, "Is everything alright?"
I glared at Dickhead, who smiled at the window's direction, "Nothing's wrong. We are fine. How are you, Nivi? I didn't expect you to arrive so soon." He stood and fake limped towards Skaris and Bart, who guarded the doors.
Skaris raised a hand to stop him, trying to extinguish the fire between us. "Mitchell brought Dear here so you two could make up. Are you already giving up?"
"Our guests are waiting, Skaris," Dickhead sighed and pushed him to the side. He tried to listen to their advice but because they didn't bear much fruit, he decided to postpone them, "We will continue our talk later."
They weren't a match for him, and could only watch him walk out to welcome the visitors.
"Vick?" Nivi's voice hitched, covering her mouth, "Your face..."
"I'm fine, just a small disagreement," Dickhead reassured her and let her and her males inside, "I'm going to wash up. Make yourself at home. I'll be right back."
Nivi's males glared at me as I hid my fist deeper under my sleeves. They shielded Nivi from me, not allowing her to come closer.
"Ya..ya?" Nivi's eyes were glassy as she looked at me, her lips trembling. The sight must have opened her past scars where I almost killed her ex-boyfriend because he cheated on her.
"Nivi, long time no see," I said, my voice raspy. Pretending to be a polite hostess, I gestured to the wooden sofa, "Sit, have a seat."
Nivi nodded and sat with her mates. She stared at some droplets of blood on the floor and shivered again. Her males comforted her by petting her head, and Winston hugged her from behind. She relaxed a bit, her body going limp against his muscular chest.
I dropped my cloak and used it to wipe the blood with my foot, "Don't worry. It's not mine."
The boys chuckled while Mitchell burst out in laughter. They grew silent when they realized that nobody from the other side caught my joke.
Winston growled quietly, his stare directed at Mitchell. The mighty tiger was holding back from attacking my little bug for disrespecting his female again.
Nivi looked up at Mitchell with big eyes, "Why did you do it? To make fun of me?"
Mitchell scratched the back of his head, "Yeah? I mean... is having some fun a problem? Didn't you play around with me as well?"
"No, I didn't. I was honest with you," Nivi said, her voice barely audible, "I would never hurt anyone's feelings just for fun. To spread such rumors about Yaya and me... Do you have an idea how much that can affect someone?"
The little bug shook his head cluelessly, and looked at me, "Did I ever hurt your feelings?"
I paused, then shook my head, "Not that I can remember."
He grinned and looked back at Nivi, "See. It's not that bad." Nivi's males' beast pressure pressed down harder, and his grin faltered. "Or maybe it is. Maybe I should start getting butthurt over every silly thing. That way, I'll be more sensitive and won't offend anyone anymore. Or maybe I would have set the world on fire long ago, who knows."
"You are such a scum," Shuu scowled, not liking other people roasting his female for getting aggrieved over someone she began to genuinely care about, "What did Nivi ever do to you? She accepted and welcomed you into her home, and this is how you repay her. Picking fights and acting like a total prick?!"
"Oh, yeah. I remember now," Mitchell snapped his fingers, "I helped with the chores around the house, took care of her plants, and fed her livestock. And behold! I'm still the bad guy? Why? If she could reject me after 'knowing me better', I'm free to reject her after 'knowing her better' too."
Mitchell was a sassy little bug with his own little logic and way of seeing things. His moral high ground was as crooked as the road leading up to it.
I couldn't help but smile. Nivi didn't deserve that treatment that's for sure, but it was as if he was saying: you look down on my female, I'll look down on yours.
It was about the principle. What I did was secondary.
I hooked my arm around his, stopping him from falling under the beast's pressure, which was getting heavier and heavier. He was a very fair King with his own code of honor, and I respected that.
"You look tired. Go have a beauty nap," I said, "I don't like my males looking anything but their best."
"..." The beast pressure froze midair. Instead of defusing the situation, I pulled the aggro on me. My words must have sounded too shallow for their tastes, I guess.
"I'll accompany him to our room," Bart said and approached us, supporting Mitchell.
"Bart?" Shuu finally recognized his older brother, "Is that you? What are you doing here?" His eyes switched between us in confusion, "Where's Rosa?"
"Shuu," Bart said, pulling down his hood to reveal his long, blue hair in a half ponytail.
There was a small dispute between the two brothers. Bart was an ambitious beastman who wanted to take over the tribe his father ruled.
The best candidates for the next Kings have all been suppressed or killed in the novel (Parker, Winston, Bart, Shuu). Curtis was just one of the means to get rid of them all.
The Ape King caused Bai lots of trouble in the novel, but he ended up saving her life. I wasn't sure if he was pulling the strings to gain access to Nivi's influence through Shuu and his father or if he really had a change of heart.
Either way, Bart got shunned for becoming a rootless and killing everyone who had something to do with his banishment ─ Nivi, Rosa, his father..basically the whole Beast City (in Ape King's vision of the future).
Shuu tried to prevent that disaster and tracked down Bart behind Nivi's back. He challenged him into a fight and almost died.
Bart collapsed before it could happen. It was not surprising since he was still heavily injured after being shot in the chest with a laser gun. He was also stressed and exhausted from doing all the house chores during Skaris's absence.
Shuu was at his peak, supported by the most amazing female, trained by the most experienced fighters, and more importantly, he put his all into that fight. He was ready to kill his brother if that's what it would take to save Nivi. He jumped in rank, becoming a four-stripped wolf in the process.
Bart, on the other hand, became a wanted man. His new ambitions and dreams were again destroyed with the flick of a finger.
╔═══ Author's note ════╗
Yaya being lovey-dovey with Mitchell is such a mood. 🤣
Vick's ancestors are crazier than Curtis's. 🤧
That future was very much possible if her father was still alive.🫢
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