Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 66: brought to you by Endangered Species

What happens when you cross a chaste Rabbit with a prude? Well, nothing. What if there was only one bed? oH nO tHeRe'S oNly oNe BeD!

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Neara woke up to a hand around her mouth and at first thought it was her cat. She tried pushing it away and only when she felt the mass that definitely weighed more than six pounds did she begin to panic. Another arm slipped around her waist and dragged her backwards through the tent, leaving her cloak behind. Her arms pinned to her sides, she struggled against the bonds until Aetius's voice rasped in her ear, "Stop squirming."

He sounded scared, which she thought only Theo could feel in this world of testosterone, so she complied. From the sounds, they went into a hollow log, probably the same one from this afternoon. Her breath slowed as they lay there, his body angled away from hers until he stiffened. The sound of unglazed clay scraping against itself echoed through the camp, although it sounded like a herd of angry potters rather than the isolated noises from last night. The footsteps were deliberate, pacing themselves as hide flaps creaked open.

"I swear I smelled a female," a raspy voice said, sounding as dry as the desert they probably came from. "I smelled her from out there."

"Well, the only thing scented like a female is this cape, and it smells more like wild animals than a female." A deep, almost too deep to be understood, voice vibrated through the camp, like someone played the world's biggest cello string overhead. "I'm guessing she died and they carry this as a memento."

"But where are the rabbits, then? I smell rabbit!"

"Of course you would. But they would hear us before we smelled them; they're probably waiting in the woods."

It was at that moment the muskrats started to stir and Neara realized they were in the log with angry animals. She slowly rotated her body so her back faced Aetius and covered her head and neck with her hands. Well, this was it; she was about to be mated to a feral and never see anyone or anything good again.

Aetius brushed past her and she heard a shout as the muskrats exited the tunnel with a scream.

"I told you I smelled rabbit." The raspy voice pouted.

"So how did you not hear us coming?"

"I don't want to fight with you if I don't have to." Aetius said, and he didn't sound nearly as afraid as he should have been, in Neara's opinion. Her breath solidified in her chest when she realized he stood right outside the log, blocking their view into it.

"Why aren't you in the woods with the others," the deep voice questioned.

"It was my turn to sleep. And I guess they couldn't be bothered waking me up."

"We can kill him," Raspy said, followed by a clicking from other scorpions.

"You probably can, but I won't make it pleasant for you and the first one to make a move is the first one I kill. So, let's make an agreement; you probably smelled our dead female's clothing, and since she's not here, there's no reason to fight."

"We would have smelled a body." Raspy said.

"If the body was on the land, I bet you would have, but we sent her down a river to be with the ocean since she loved the coast." Aetius sounded on the verge of tears; considerably more emotion than Neara had seen from the Rabbit Clan in the two days she'd been with them.

"And yet none of your tracks crossed water." Cello thrummed with a hint of a threat.

Aetius openly scoffed, "You think your desert noses can track all the movements of a Rabbit? You found us, and smell us, because there is more than one of us. I assure you there are more Rabbits in the woods around you than you anticipate and judging by the fact you haven't killed me yet, you know we're dangerous."