Chapter 214: A Scandal in the Sky

Ren let go, allowing herself to fall from the tree.

Gravity claimed her instantly. The cold night wind roared, slapping viciously at her face and exposed skin as she plummeted. The sheer force of the descent immediately snapped the flimsy vine holding her messy bun together, freeing her fiery red hair to whip violently around her head in a chaotic frenzy.

Ren’s eyes were clenched shut so tightly they ached. Her heart was hammering a frantic, deafening rhythm in her ears, competing with the howling wind.

’I am going to die,’ Ren panicked, bracing for the bone-shattering impact. ’I am going to be a fleshy crater!’

But the impact never came.

Instead of slamming into the unforgiving earth, Ren felt a sudden, powerful jerk. A pair of extremely warm, muscular arms wrapped securely around her waist and under her knees, snatching her right out of mid-air. She was cradled effortlessly against a rock-hard, incredibly warm body.

The howling wind shifted, replaced by the rhythmic, powerful whoosh-whoosh of displaced air.

Ren cautiously peeked one eye open.

She looked up, and her breath hitched. Altair’s gorgeous, flawlessly sculpted face was inches from hers. A deep flush immediately rose to her cheeks as he stared down at her in his arms. His intense silver gaze locked onto hers, his expression completely and utterly blank, as if catching plummeting females from the sky was just a mundane Tuesday activity for him.

Ren had fully expected him to catch her in his giant golden eagle form. She had absolutely no idea he could simply sprout wings while still in his beastman body.

She shifted her wide eyes from his glorious face to the massive, beautiful golden wings protruding from his broad back. They beat steadily against the night air, moving every now and then with powerful grace to keep them perfectly stationary in the sky.

With his ethereal silver eyes, his breathtaking face, and those magnificent wings framing him against the moonlight, Ren couldn’t help but think that he definitely looked like an angel. A very hot, very muscular, wanted-fugitive angel.

She looked past his shoulder and gasped. From where they were hovering in the air, she could see the entire forest spread out beneath them, a sea of dark canopy stretching all the way to the silver ribbon of the distant river. It was breathtaking.

Altair finally spoke, his voice a low, smooth rumble that vibrated against her chest, pulling her attention back to his face.

“Were you trying to fly?” Altair asked flatly.

Ren bit her bottom lip, feeling incredibly stupid. “No.”

Altair furrowed his perfect brows. “Then why did you jump, if you cannot fly?”

Ren averted her gaze, her cheeks burning hotter. “I… I wanted you to catch me.”

Altair only looked at her for a moment in silence. “Why?”

[System: “Because I like you~ uwu!”] The System interjected in Ren’s thoughts, somehow using a sickeningly cute, high-pitched kawaii anime-girl voice that made Ren want to throw herself back towards the ground.

Ren’s face flushed a brilliant, atomic red. She mentally told the System to delete itself before answering the eagle.

“Because you were avoiding me!” Ren blurted out.

Altair tilted his head to the side, a distinctly bird-like motion, looking genuinely confused.

“I was not avoiding you,” Altair stated simply. “I was waiting for you to sort out the problems with your other two mates. The Tiger and the Snake looked very agitated. It would not have been good if I approached you, so I stayed away.”

Ren stared at him. She admired that he had actually thought about that. He had assessed the chaotic, testosterone-fueled drama unfolding and sensibly decided to give them space.

She hadn’t even considered that from his perspective; she had just assumed he was being a standoffish jerk.

Ren couldn’t help but swoon. ’He’s such a green flag!’

“Well,” Ren cleared her throat, suddenly very aware of how high up they were. “We probably should stop hovering in the air like this and get on something solid.”

Altair gave a single nod. With a powerful thrust of his golden wings, he carried her upward, soaring effortlessly to the entrance of Vex’s tree hut.

But down below, hidden in the dark underbrush of the forest floor, the food thief had witnessed the entire spectacle.

It was Vara.

The former White Tiger female looked absolutely dreadful. She was shockingly gaunt, her cheekbones jutting out sharply from her dirt-smudged face, her limbs resembling brittle twigs.

Yet, her stomach was abnormally, grotesquely swollen. She looked like a walking corpse because her unborn child was quite literally eating her alive. The demonic parasite inside her was growing rapidly, draining her life force at an alarming rate, much like a horrific, beast-world version of a Twilight pregnancy.

Vara stepped completely out of the shadows, her sunken eyes glaring up at the canopy. She was still stuffing her face with the jerk elk bites Ren had left behind, chewing the spicy meat with desperate, ravenous gusto.

Vara had originally dragged her sickly body to this specific tree to find Vex. She needed the Fox Shaman to heal her. Instead, she had stumbled upon Ren, Kael, and Syris. She had been forced to hide, listening with bitter disgust as they mated loudly in the nearby bushes.

She had no idea where Vex was, and seeing Ren—the pest who had ruined her life and stolen her King—living it up with two powerful mates made Vara’s blood boil with envy.

And now this.

Vara swallowed the last of the meat, her eyes narrowing as she wondered who that magnificent bird beastman was. But more importantly, why was that pest, Ren, with him? Why was she looking all cozy and intimate in the arms of a flying stranger?

A wicked, triumphant smirk slowly cracked Vara’s chapped lips.

Vara concluded that Ren had a secret mate. An illicit lover she was hiding from the Tiger and the Snake.

This was incredibly valuable information. She could trade this secret with the Fox! She would tell Vex about Ren’s secret, and in exchange, the shaman could help her get rid of this monstrous, life-sucking parasite cub inside her belly.

It was the perfect plan.

If only she could find him.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep