Taming the Beast World with a Frying Pan

Ren stared at the empty treeline.

The ferns were still swaying where he had stood. Then they went still too.

"Ren?" Kael’s arms tightened around her.

Ren didn’t answer. Her brain was too busy flipping back through the last day and night, page by page, like a cookbook she had been reading upside down.

The tiger had turned his nose up at vegetables. He had eaten his rabbit in small, polite bites. He had tilted his head when she called him Mittens, as if he had never heard the word in his life.

Because he hadn’t.

And the scar. That round, pink scar right in the center of his chest.

She knew exactly where a scar like that came from. She had been standing right there when he made it.

’Oh no,’ Ren thought. ’Oh no, no, no.’

Around them, the village had gone quiet. The cubs clinging to her legs were looking up at Kael’s face. Barnaby had stopped chewing. Even the Caretakers had stopped scolding.

"Not here," Ren said quietly. "Put me down, Kael. Please."

Kael set her on her feet. He did not let go of her wrist.

Ding!

[Harem Manager Alert!] [Kael. Health: 94%. Hunger: 11%. Lust: 68%.] [System: Host, your tiger’s Hunger bar is critically low! A hungry tiger is a grumpy tiger!]

Ren glared at the screen. ’Not now.’

Then she looked up at Kael’s clenched jaw and the shadows under his eyes.

’Actually. Yes now.’

She had never once in her life explained anything difficult without a knife in her hand. She wasn’t about to start today.

"Barnaby!" Ren called over her shoulder. "Meat. Whatever you’ve got."

The badger swallowed his mouthful and pointed a finger toward the smoking racks. "The hunters brought in a deer this morning."

"Perfect."

She tugged Kael away from the crowd, around the back of the big tree, to the cooking fire where nobody could stare at them. He followed her without a word. His ears were pinned so flat against his head that they had nearly disappeared into his hair.

Ren cut two thick slabs of backstrap from the deer and trimmed away the silver skin with quick flicks of her chef’s knife. She salted both sides generously. Then she pulled out her pouch of red swamp-peppercorns, crushed a small handful under the bottom of her skillet, and pressed the cracked pepper into the meat until it formed a crust.

The skillet went over the flames with a fat spoonful of beef tallow.

When the tallow began to smoke, she laid the venison in.

TSSSSS.

She didn’t touch it. She let the crust form, deep and dark, before she flipped each slab with the tip of her knife. Then she tossed a handful of garlic-butter greens into the pan, tilted the skillet toward her, and spooned the sizzling, garlicky fat over the meat again and again. At the very end, she drizzled in a thin ribbon of honey. It bubbled and clung to the peppercorn crust, turning it sticky and glossy.

She set the steaks on a clean leaf to rest.

Then she took a deep breath, and she told him everything.

She told him about the swamp, and about leaving with Vex. She told him about Altair. About the poison, and the vines, and the lizard carrying him north to his father. Kael’s knuckles cracked as his fists tightened.

"The bird can fly," he said roughly. "He will escape."

"Not tied up. Not poisoned," Ren argued. "He couldn’t even lift his head, Kael."

Then she told him about the bears, and the bandits, and the white tiger who had come crashing out of the trees to save her.

Kael didn’t say anything at all.

Ren sliced the venison into thick strips. The inside was a perfect, rosy pink. She piled it onto a wooden plate and handed it to him.

Kael ate the entire thing in four bites.

He tore through the strips, licked the honey glaze off his thumb, wiped his chin with the back of his wrist, and held the empty plate out to her for more. All without taking his eyes off her face.

Ren looked at the plate.

There it was. Her answer, with a side of seconds.

She refilled the plate with the second steak. Kael set it on his knee and didn’t touch it.

"Where did you sleep?"

Ren considered lying. Then she remembered who she was talking to.

’Beastmen can smell lies. Probably. Can they? I’m not testing it today.’

"On him," she admitted. "It was cold. And I thought he was you. I curled up against him and I called him Mittens."

The plate in Kael’s hand snapped in half.

CRACK.

Venison tumbled into the dirt. Ren winced. That was a perfectly good steak.

"You called my brother MITTENS?!" Kael roared.

"I didn’t know it was your brother!"

"That is MY name! You gave it to me!"

"I know! That’s why I used it! On who I thought was you!" Ren threw her hands up.

Kael stood up so fast that the fire flared. He paced three steps away from her, then three steps back, his tail lashing behind him. Ren braced herself for round two. Kael never did anything quietly, least of all jealousy.

Round two never came.

He stopped pacing. He went still, the way he did when he heard something moving in the brush. The anger slid off his face, and what was underneath it was much worse.

"A whole day and a night," Kael said. "In his beast form. Beside you. And he never once shifted back to speak to you?"

"Not once."

"Kaelen can shift, Ren! I am the one who cannot!" Kael jabbed a finger toward the trees. "My brother told me to my face that he wants you as his mate. He would never waste a whole night alone with you wearing fur. He would have shifted."

Ren’s throat went dry. A male who shifted into his beast form while feral never came back.

"Ren," Kael said quietly. "You said he had a scar."

She nodded. She touched the center of her own chest with two fingers.

"Here. Round. Like something went straight through."

The color drained out of Kael’s face. He had been there too. He had seen his brother pull a bloody stake out of that spot and toss it into the grass.

"His eyes," Kael said. "What color were his eyes?"

"Gold," Ren said immediately. "Every time I looked at him. I checked, Kael. I checked the second I saw him."

Kael let out a long, shaking breath. Some of the stiffness left his shoulders.

Ren looked down at her hands. Her fingers were still shiny with tallow.

She had kept this to herself for a long time. She had told herself it wasn’t her secret to tell. She had told herself she’d find the right moment. There was never going to be a right moment.

"But I’ve seen them red before," she said.

Kael turned to look at her.

"The day he killed the goat beastman," Ren went on, forcing the words out before she lost her nerve. "His eyes were red. Both of them. He wasn’t himself. He stabbed that stake into his chest to come back."

The fire popped between them.

Kael stared at her for a long moment. His golden eyes searched her face, and Ren didn’t look away, even though she desperately wanted to.

"How long," Kael said, his voice low and quiet, "have you known my brother was feral?"