Chapter 305: My Baby Beast

Ren carefully balanced her wooden platter of spicy garlic-butter crab and crispy lotus chips. She walked through the cool corridors of the obsidian castle, to the garden.

The garden had transformed under the veil of the night. High above, the natural openings in the rocky ceiling allowed brilliant, silver moonlight to filter down in ethereal beams. Beneath the moonlight, the flora had come alive with vibrant, breathtaking bioluminescence. The weeping ferns glowed with a soft, pulsing neon blue, while the massive, star-shaped lilies emitted a warm, golden aura that beautifully illuminated the soft grass.

Sitting directly in the center of the illuminated grass was the Snake King.

Syris was waiting for her, sitting cross-legged with his robe falling loosely over his broad shoulders. Sitting in his lap was the wooden platter Ren had prepared for him earlier.

It was untouched.

“Aww,” Ren cooed, a fond smile breaking across her face as she walked over to him. “Are we having a romantic picnic?”

Syris blinked, tilting his head with a look of confusion. “What is a picnic?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” she giggled, gracefully sitting down in the grass beside him and crossing her legs.

As she settled her platter onto her lap, she looked closer at Syris’s food. The fiery red crab legs were sitting exactly where she had placed them. The garlic butter had started to congeal slightly in the cool night air.

Ren frowned. “Syris, you haven’t touched a bite of your food. You don’t like it? Is the garlic too strong?”

A flush of embarrassment rapidly crept across Syris’s cheeks. He looked down at the grass, his long black hair falling forward to hide his face.

“I… I was waiting on you to come,” Syris confessed softly, his voice barely above a whisper. “I wanted us to eat together.”

Ren’s heart instantly melted into a puddle of mush.

“Aww,” Ren cooed, reaching out with a finger to affectionately poke his flushed cheek. “You can be so cute!”

Syris’s face reddened even further. He gently swatted her hand away. “I am not cute! Only baby beasts are cute!”

Ren giggled, picking up a cracked crab claw from her plate. “Well, you’re my baby beast,” she declared warmly. “Now, please, you need to eat before it gets fully cold! The flavor profile diminishes by over fifty percent when food drops below optimal serving temperatures!”

Syris’s eyes narrowed playfully. A smirk curved his lips. He leaned closer to her, his chest brushing her arm. “Since I am your baby beast,” Syris purred smoothly, “you should properly care for me. You should feed me.”

Ren rolled her eyes, though her smile never faded. “Nice try, your majesty,” she teased, expertly pulling a steaming chunk of sweet white crab meat from the shell. “I thought baby snakes were born independent?”

“I am very special,” Syris countered smoothly. “I require intense care from my mate.”

Ren laughed, unable to resist his demanding charm. “Open up, then,” she sighed happily.

She held the juicy piece of crab meat, dripping with spicy red garlic butter, up to his mouth. Syris leaned forward and took the meat beautifully from her fingers, his lips brushing sensually against her fingertips.

And, to Ren’s delight, Syris actually chewed.

His eyes fluttered shut as the explosive flavors of roasted garlic, wild thyme, and sweet crab meat coated his tongue. A deep groan of culinary ecstasy rumbled loudly in his chest. It was the most satisfying sound Ren could ever hope to hear.

“My turn,” Syris declared after he swallowed. He picked up a perfectly crispy, salt-speckled lotus root chip from his platter. “You are my baby beast, too. I should feed you.”

Ren blushed, a bright rosy tint covering her cheeks, but she happily opened her mouth and allowed Syris to feed her. The chip crunched loudly between her teeth, perfectly salty and earthy.

They took turns dropping food into each other’s mouths, occasionally sucking the rich, spicy butter directly off each other’s fingers, their laughter echoing softly through the glowing garden until both wooden platters were empty.

With a deeply satisfied sigh, Ren stood up and walked over to the small pond. She pulled a bar of her soap from her inventory and began thoroughly scrubbing the grease and sticky syrup from her hands and forearms.

As she watched the suds swirl in the water, her thoughts inevitably drifted to her Golden Eagle.

Where was Altair? She had prepared a platter of food for him, storing it in her inventory.

Ren let out a frustrated sigh, splashing clean water over her hands. She really, really wished he would at least tell her where he was going when he decided to leave. His silent, sudden disappearances always left an anxious knot in her stomach.

“I smell of the swamp spider,” Syris announced suddenly, breaking her out of her thoughts. He looked down at her. “I am going to go wash myself. Are you coming?”

Ren quickly dried her hands on her dress. “No, you go ahead,” she told him gently. “I have some work to finish in the kitchen.”

Syris nodded, stepping forward to press a soft, lingering kiss to her forehead. “Okay. Do not be too long. I will wait for you in the nest.”

“I won’t be long,” Ren promised, watching his towering, broad-shouldered silhouette disappear through the grand archways into the dark corridor.

Ren sat down in the soft grass right by the edge of the pond. She stared blankly at her own reflection in the rippling water. She felt bone-deep tired, but her night was still far from over. She still needed to clean up in the scullery, but…

Right now, she was waiting on Vex.

Ren opened her mouth with a yawn.

In the middle of her yawn, a smooth, arrogant voice sliced through the silence of the garden.

“I thought we were supposed to have dinner together.”

Ren snapped her jaw shut, her heart instantly spiking. She scrambled up from the grass, spinning around to face the towering Fox Shaman. Vex was standing there, his three orange tails swishing lazily behind him, a smug, highly expectant look on his handsome face.

“You thought wrong,” Ren stated flatly, crossing her arms.

Vex tilted his head, his gaze dropping to her empty hands and the grass around her. “Is the food invisible?” he mocked. “Or did you forget your end of the bargain again?”

Ren didn’t say a word.

The wooden platter of food materialized directly into her hands. Because the System inventory perfectly suspended time, the spicy garlic butter was still bubbling, and plumes of hot, fragrant steam wafted directly into the cool night air.

Vex froze. His orange eyes widened, sparking with genuine amazement. To him, the platter of hot food had literally just materialized from nothingness.

“Your ability is truly amazing,” Vex remarked, his voice dropping an octave in sheer awe. He took a confident step forward, reaching his hand out to take the platter from her.

Ren immediately took a step backward, pulling the wooden platter away from his grasp.

Vex stopped. He slowly lowered his hand, raising a brow. “Is there a problem?”

Ren took a deep breath, her fingers tightening around the edges of the wooden board until her knuckles turned white. Her heart violently hammering against her ribs.

She was about to do something either incredibly brilliant, or catastrophically stupid! At first, she had formulated a plan to give him the food, sneak out right behind him, and secretly follow him back to his hideout. But she scrapped it. She was no ninja and Vex was a predator with impossibly good hearing. He would instantly catch her.

The only way to avoid death is to stare it directly in the face, right?

Ren lifted her chin, staring into his eyes with a challenge. “Is this food for you, Vex… or is it for Vara?”

The smug, confident smirk vanished from Vex’s face.

His reaction confirmed everything Ren needed to know. She had caught him completely off guard. He definitely was not expecting that.

Before Vex could open his mouth to possibly formulate a lie, Ren cut him off.

“Don’t even try to deny it,” Ren spoke rapidly, her voice dripping with unwavering confidence. “I have a new ability. I can see visions.”

Ren lied brilliantly, her face unreadable.

“From my visions,” Ren continued, “I know exactly what is happening. I know Vara is pregnant. I know she is sick.”

Ren took another step forward, closing the distance between them. She looked the Shaman dead in the eye. “Only I can save that cub, Vex. If you do not let me help her, the cub will die. I have already seen the cub’s death in my vision.”

Vex stared down at her, speechless. His mind was racing. He didn’t know what to make of this human female. He had never, in his entire life, heard of anyone possessing the ability to see the future. But then again, he also didn’t know of anyone else in the entire Beast World who could make things disappear into an invisible storage void and reappear entirely out of thin air.

If her space magic was real, why couldn’t her visions be real, too?

What Vex couldn’t figure out, though, was her motivation. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“Why?” Vex asked. “Why would you want to help Vara, after everything she has done to you?”

Ren had that answer prepared, too.

“Because the cub is innocent,” Ren stated firmly, not breaking eye contact. “The unborn baby does not deserve to suffer and die just because his mother is a bitch.”

Vex stared at her for a long moment. The tension in the air was palpable. Suddenly, a low chuckle rumbled in his chest. The smirk returned to his handsome face.

Ren kept her posture calm and defiant on the outside, but internally, she was freaking out. Her stomach was doing backflips, and her heart was hammering so hard she felt a bit dizzy.

“Very well,” Vex agreed. “I will take you to Vara. But you cannot see the path.”

Ren let out a dry, nervous chuckle, trying to maintain her bravado as she joked, “What, are you going to knock me out or something?”

Vex’s grin widened. “How did you know? Did you see it in a vision too?”

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