Beauty's Beasts
Chapter 103: The wanderer.

Chapter 103: The wanderer.

In the deep forest, the winds shuffled the trees roughly sending them bending. A naked man lay on the forest bed with bruises marked on his bronze skin and his breathes were really shallow.

Slowly, he opened his blue eyes and looked at his surroundings weakly, he scoffed at himself and shut his eyes.He didn’t deserve life, if only he could exchange his own life for her to come back, he’d do so without worry.

As he lay there, he heard the sound of approaching paw steps.

A pack of wild dogs had surrounded him.

*

"If you plan to reprimand me then I do not want to hear it." Sydney stood up from her seat and walked out of her brother’s office.

"Syd..." He wanted to call her back but held himself. He felt back in his seat with a sigh and closed his eyes. ’Three years is still a long way to go!’ he whispered to himself.

Sydney let go of her anger as soon as she was outside. All the little ones surrounded her once more letting out cries of excitement as they told her to go with them.

Hamp walked over and looked at Sydney. "They are going hunting. Would you like to come along?" He had been assigned to handle the snakelings and since his batch were the extremely young ones, they wouldn’t be going far. He had also noticed that Sydney seemed to be in a bad mood and also her mates kept evading her since morning.

Sydney looked at the bunch of expectant eyes cast in her and her heart melted. How could she refused these little guys. "Okay!" she nodded and bent down to pick her favourite cub. He was a leopard cub.

The little guy snuggled in her arms and let out a purr. Sydney giggled happily and gestured for them to leave.

All right. Everyone get in your lines!" One of the teachers instructed and the little ones obediently went into their lines. The snakelings were the ones that were slightly awkward at first but soon figured out how to get in lines without entangling with the others behind them.

Sydney went to join the male teachers but halted when she noticed Caden from a distance.

He really couldn’t hold himself back and chose to show himself. Ehat he didn’t expect was Sydney not paying regard to him and heading off with the group that was going to hunt.

The path they took didn’t require them to go through the city and walked behind the snake castle where a big forest stood.

The breeze was a little too rough and it kept tousling Sydney’s hair all over the place, some of the strands going into her hair. This made her hiss at the pain.

"Are you alright?" Hamp heard her soft cry and rushed to her side. He saw her eyes tear up and she tried to reach for them but because of the cub in her hands, it seemed impossible. Let me!" He said and gently took the cub from her hands. "Sydney’s hurt. Be a good cub and go hunt!" he said to the cub. The leopard cub looked at Sydney then at Hamp, his big eyes were immediately full of understanding and he didn’t throw a tantrum and went off to hunt on his own.

"I brought some water! Wash your eye." Hamp said as he took his water bag from his waist but before he could hand it to Sydney, it was slapped away by a rough hand and it went tumbling pitifully.

Ken who couldn’t stand watching stepped forward.

Sydney bared with the pain and looked up to see Ken’s hostility toward Hamp. She frowned.

Ken came and stood before her. He reached his hands to check her eye but Sydney slapped his hand away. "what are you doing?" She harshly rebuked.

Ken didn’t take her rejection to his help at heart and reached for her again. "Does it hurt?" He asked.

"That’s none of your business. Stop bothering me." She walked past him and went to pick up Hamp’s water bottle. All of the water had poured to the ground since his skin bag was knitted wrongly. She observed the poor bottle and turned to look at Hamp who had his head bowed.

"I’m sorry." Sydney apologised as she looked at the bottle in her hands.

"It’s okay." Hamp said quietly.

"I’ll give you mine." Sydney said as she reached for her waist to get her own bottle and give it to Hamp.

"Ah!" Hamp looked up at Sydney with dazed eyes. She was going to give him her own bottle?! Him?

A protesting growl escaped Ken’s lips. He snatched Hamp’s bottle from Sydney’s hands and threw it at Hamp. "Get lost!" He growled.

"Ken!" Sydney snapped. "Weren’t you ignoring me the whole day? Why are you showing yourself now?"

"I’m your mate! You are hurting so I should care for you!" Ken righteously gave his reason. "Why are you looking for another male to care for you?"

"Get lost!" Sydney hissed and turned to leave.

"Mate!" Ken cried out. "I’m sorry okay! I....I... didn’t mean to ignore you! I only wanted you to miss me and learn how important I am to you! I apologize for ignoring you. Don’t tell me to get lost! I’m not stupid so I can’t get lost. Only stupid ones get lost."

Sydney who was storming off halted in her steps when she heard Ken’s words. The last bit of his words were the ones that mostly left her aghast that she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Hamp had already carried his bag and given them some space. He had noticed it and so had all the other teachers, almost everyone had noticed it but they didn’t see anything. They led all the little ones away to give Sydney and her mates some space.

"Who asked you to ignore me?" Sydney asked resentfully.

"It was your brother!" Ken mercilessly exposed their counselor. "I knew that his advice couldn’t be trusted but when I refused to follow, he threatened me. I had to follow him anyway. He also told me that if I want to win you over, I had to impress him, your first family by following his words religiously. If not, he’d kick me out of your current family. You can see I had no other choice."

With every word that Ken said, Sydney’s face darkened.

Scott who was still at school felt his ears itch and his scalp go numb.

"Hey! Bros before whores!" Caden innocently commented from up close and Sydney’s ears bled. What was Scott teaching this group?

"Who are you Bros with?" Sydney gritted her teeth.

"Us and Scott. Brothers in law!" Ken pointed out.

Shawn almost passed out. Ash hid back behind the tree. Titan was nodding seriously.

"Hah!" Sydney sneered and almost jumped at Ken’s head. "And I’m the whore?" She asked.

"If not you, then who?" Ken asked.

This time, Titan melted into a puddle. Their representative had just sent them to their graves before their time. That’s an insult!!! Titan wanted to warn Ken but it was already too late.

She turned red then blue then green. She almost passed out from anger! She gritted her teeth.

"We are sorry!" Caden stopped forward.

"I’m still mad at you guys. Since Scott is your mate, go have these sort of talks with him. If he was the first person you sought then he should be more important than I."

"He’s useless." Ken hissed.

Sydney chocked. "That’s my brother you know!"

Ken cleared his throat. "I’ll apologize to him later." He muttered.

"When will your anger go away?" Ken asked gingerly.

"When you get lost!" Sydney walked off.

"I said I’m not stupid. How do I get lost?" Ken yelled at Sydney’s retreating figure. "What does it mean by the way?" He asked his comrades when he got nothing from his mate.

*

*

*

Sydney escaped from her mates feeling a whole lot better. She already had an idea that it was her brother who had probably advised them with this method but hearing how innocent they were and took his words for the law, she couldn’t even get angry anymore.

As she walked further and further into the forest, she could see the cubs jumping around with their lousy hunting skills. She couldn’t help laughing.

One of the stronger cubs came sprinting her way with his hunt in its mouth. It was excited since he was the first to catch his game for the day. The others were still struggling.

When he placed his game before Sydney, she couldn’t help praising the little tiger cub. He had hunted a wild dog which was almost twice his size. It was a sight. "Good job!" She ruffled his fur making the cub purr.

As she praised the tiger cub, the leopard cub she had come carrying also ran to her side but unlike his friends, he had flowers between its teeth. When it reached Sydney’s side, it placed them down and Sydney died.

This was the cutest thing she had ever encountered since coming here! She carried the cub into her arms and kissed him with a loud smooch that sent all males, young and old blushing.