Beauty and the Beasts

“I’ll come with you.” Alva transformed into a human and said as he stood on a tree branch.

Winston merely glanced at him and said nothing, indicating his consent.

The two beasts speedily left the sights of the crowd of beastmen.

Although Alva could fly fast, he couldn’t follow and search, so he could only follow Winston. The two beasts followed the trail of scent to the desert. Winston’s tiger eyes narrowed.

Seems like Carl had been hanging out in Flame City. There, even if Carl wanted to protect Molly, it would depend on whether he had the capability.

They must find them before Carl entered Flame City. Else, things would be terrible.

As the desert sand was too soft and powdery, smells dispersed quickly. Thankfully though, it had just stopped raining, and the sand was damper than usual, so an obvious set of footstep trails could still be seen.

Not daring to delay any further, Winston transformed into a human and said, “Help to keep a lookout. Find Molly as quickly as possible.”

Gah—

Alva flapped his wings and flew to a higher altitude, reaching the desert ahead of Winston, with the latter following closely behind.

Not far away—

“Ooh!” A tuft of grass shook, and from within rang a soft moan.

Immediately after, a tall and muscular man walked out dragging a female who only reached his chest.

“Let me off, will you? I know I made a mistake. Haven’t I already accepted you as my mate? Why do you still want to harm me?” Molly said as she cried, looking extremely disheveled.

“Accept?” Carl raised Molly’s chin, forcing her to look up. He sized up Molly’s face and said, “Are you accepting the real me? Will you accept the current me?”

Molly swallowed her saliva in horror, then nodded and said, “So long as you don’t harm me. When we return to the village, you’ll still be my mate.”

“You’re lying.” Carl deepened his voice, a sinister expression upon his face. He pinched her chin tightly, admiring this petite face that had scrunched up due to the pain.

“During this one year away from the village, I deliberately learned how to seduce females. What you like is merely the snippets of those males I’ve seen before.”

Molly froze.

Carl laughed and caressed her face with his other hand. “Using this method, I successfully seduced many females before trying it out on you. To my surprise, the fussy you turned out to be the fastest to fall for it amongst all of them.”

Molly widened her eyes, a string of tears rolling down her cheeks and falling on the coarse large hand before slipping to the ground.

“Sorry…” Molly said between sobs. “What will it take for you to let me off?”

Carl lowered his gaze at his chest, then clawed at it ferociously, making a bloody imprint. The pain from his body was like a shot of anesthetic, bringing relief to the lost feeling in his heart for a fleeting moment.

There were several scars both faint and deep, a common thing on rootless beasts. Some beastmen even dug out their hearts and died because of it.

“I’ll probably only be able to let you off when I die.” Carl lifted Molly onto his shoulders and walked into the desert.

As there were plates tied to his feet, he didn’t leave any trace behind as he walked in the desert, in the reverse direction of the tiger king.

Winston and Alva chased for some distance but didn’t find any clues. Eventually, the footprints even disappeared.

“The smell’s probably dispersed in the wind.” Alva transformed into a human and dropped on his stomach to sniff the ground, anxiety evident in his voice. “I can’t sniff anything… Nothing at all… That stupid female!”

Never mind that she was playful, but she actually got herself abducted as a result of her playfulness. Her taste in males was terrible. She was so chummy with Bai Qingqing, so why couldn’t she learn a thing or two from her?

But at the thought of how he was one of the males Molly fancied, Alva felt like his knee had been impaled by a claw.