Consciousness returned, and the surroundings around me sharpened with every passing second. I could hear the muffled voices surrounding me. Suddenly, the voices sharpened, and I heard a familiar voice speak.
"No way, I found her, she is mine. Back off!" The loud voice hammered against my skull.
My eyelids felt as if they were sewn shut. Forcing them open felt like my skin was ripping. There were fuzzy figures in front of me, moving slowly as they came into focus. Three men stood in the room, arguing.
"W-where am I?" I attempted to sit up, but a white-haired guy came up and pushed me down gently with a firm hand.
"No. You stay rested. I just healed you. You lost a lot of blood. My name is Luman. What is yours?"
I seemed to have forgotten something important. I could only remember the dead Hyenas and the Lion. I pressed my palm on my head and rubbed it. It hurt too much to think right now.
A small jerking motion caught my attention, and I blinked. My focus shifted to the top of his head. Not only did his unique, long, white hair catch my eye, but resting on it were a pair of matching white, twitching ears.
"Ivy, Ivy Cross," I mumbled, my attention fully consumed by Luman's ears.
Unknowingly, I reached out. My hands aimed for his ears. As I touched and pinched them in disbelief, the room fell quiet.
Oblivious to the change in atmosphere, I continued to try to figure out if I was dreaming or hallucinating. The soft, velvety feel of the ear and the coarse, tough hair surrounding it felt incredibly realistic.
He was already red in the face and in shock at this unseemly, strange girl touching an intimate part of his body.
Wanting to examine it closer, I gave the ear a deliberate tug, expecting it to come off, but instead the man winced.
"Hey! That's my ear, stop pulling." Luman hissed, instantly pulling back and rubbing his ear as it twitched.
Before I could apologise and ask him about them, a dark-skinned male, different from the other two, came between us.
"What do you think you are doing?" The dark-skinned male asked Luman, who took a few steps back.
"The girl started pulling my ear. You need to calm yourself down, Thalen. Your fight is with Zarun. It can't be helped if she wants to touch me." Luman gave me a quick, smug grin.
Making his claim, Thalen's arms encircle my waist and nuzzle into it like a cat claiming its toy. He did not look back at Luman and made sure I did not have the chance to either. Looking up at me, he grinned, "I am Thalen. You can touch my ears instead. Just... go easy on me."
The way he spoke as he said this made me blush red. He held me tight, his hand placed on my back, so naturally leaning and looking up towards me. I could hear my own heartbeat thumping rapidly, watching this exotic, dark-haired man with golden eyes caress me.
I swallow hard, trying to maintain a calm exterior despite the tingling sensation riding through my body. This man was dangerous.
"W-what is going on here?" I decided to change the subject.
"I found you being chased by some Hyenas. You are lucky I was hunting near the area. A second later, and who knows what could have happened to you." He gripped my chin, his index finger digging into my chin, his sharp eyes looking at mine. I gulped. "Since I bonded with you, you now belong to me."
"I keep telling you she can't stay. She is a weak female from some tribe we don't even know. Look at her, what kind of beast is she?" Zarun growled, pointing right at me.
Beast?
The thought was absurd. I look at Zarun as if he were crazy. These men, dressed in their unusual historical attire as if it were some weird Halloween party, got me baffled.
What the hell did I get myself into? What is this bond they are talking about? Seriously, no matter how handsome one may be with weird fetishes like this, it's just... weird.
I sighed.
"Alright, backup! I don't know what's going on, but I don't belong to anyone. So back off." I rub my temples and let out a sigh of frustration, "So now... can anyone tell me where I am?"
"You are in the middle of the Southern Kaelfen forest, where the Lion tribe resides. How can you not even know where you are? Are you lame? What tribe do you come from?" Zarun asked with a raised brow.
"What? Kaelfen? Where is that? And tribes? Is this the mother continent or something? I don't come from a tribe..." I look at them in confusion.
"Then she must be a snakewomen!" His voice crackled, "I already said this and will say it again, we won't take such coldhearted, scheming beasts in this city!" Zarun made the declaration, stomping towards me with anger.
His breathing increased rapidly as the vein on his forehead looked like it was about to pop. He quickly locked his fingers around my arm, forcefully until my skin underneath turned white, and tried to pull me out of the bed.
Thalen tried to protect me, but Zarun was quicker as he pushed him off.
I felt the pain from my thigh shoot through my body from the sudden movement. I was in sheer panic. A stranger, bigger than me and stronger, looked at me as if I were a vile creature. Something inside warned me that my life was in danger.
I did not think. I had no time to think.
My hand automatically swung and made an impact. My hand swung like a whip and landed on his cheek with a sound that swallowed the room.
"I don't know who the hell you think you are, but I would stop with such blatant name-calling. I would also prefer you don't touch me, you ravaged beast!" I shouted at him.
His face was in shock. He dropped me and Thalen and held onto his now-burning cheek.
Thalen, who was serious just seconds ago, suddenly burst into laughter.
"I can't believe it! The almighty Zarun, slapped by a female he could not subdue." Thalen, who found this amusing, could not stop laughing. He clutched his smothch in sheer joy.
"You need to calm down, Zarun. She could be a fox. They are also beast people who do not have tribes. I'm shocked that you would attack without thinking like that," Luman tried to calm down Zarun, "I doubt snake beastwomen would willingly let themselves be captured by Hyenas and Lions."
"Luman, are you siding with this female who slapped me? I don't care if there are not enough females. If they are not a Lion, I don't want them anyway. Impure cubs are the last thing I want." He spat back and stared at me.
Cubs? Do they really think they are animals?
In the midst of my thought, another presence entered the room, and I looked up and saw a full-grown female Lion walk in.
The Lioness, enormous in size, waltzed in. The men did not fear it and instead welcomed her.
My face turns white in shock. My finger pointed towards it, trembling. I try to get a sound out of my mouth.
The Lioness walked towards us, then in an instant, it morphed into a human figure just like the men. Its fur retracted into her body until every remnant of a lion was gone, apart from her ears and tail.
D-d-did that Lion just turn human? Like that Lion in my hallucination...
Seeing the Lioness morph into a human, it suddenly triggered the last few seconds I had lost before I passed out.
The shadowed figure with golden eyes. I instantly shoot my look towards Thalen.
It was him!
"Luman, what's going on here?" The Lioness, now transformed into a rugged and muscular woman, looked around and then landed her eyes on me, "Is that a female? What tribe is she from? She looks so weak and breakable. Did her tribe not take care of her?"
"Oh, Thalen found her being chased by those hyenas up north in the hunting grounds. Don't know where she is from." Luman walked over and started to examine the Lioness.
"A stray female in these parts? I have heard of stray females escaping down south. A large number of women have been kidnapped over the years. Maybe she is the same?" The Lioness scanned me up and down with pity.
"Kaida, you seem to have some wounds. You must have come back from a hunt." Luman was no longer interested in us. He became more worried about the Lioness's wounds. "Let me treat that for you."
This is real. Not an act. Real beast people.
"This is not where I belong. This is not my world." I whisper to myself. A heavy drop in my stomach as I come to the realisation of my new reality.
"Oi!" A finger snapped at me, "Oi, female!" Zarun shouted.
I snap out of my thoughts and flinch away from him, "Get away from me!"
He rolled his eyes and leaned in, fingers rubbing his chin "What tribe are you from? Even when you passed out, you were in your two-legged form. I have never heard of a beast that does that."
"I am not a beast! I am just a human!" A high-pitched scream escapes my mouth, "This is not my world.. I am just a Doctor from the West." I whine as tears fall from my face, as reality starts to kick in. I quickly wipe them, embarrassed by this burst of emotion.
"It's obvious you are not from this forest." Luman, who was cleaning up Kaida's wounds, suddenly took interest, "What is a doctor? Is that a type of beast?"
"I told you I am not a beast, I am human." I repeated myself, my voice drained, "Doctor is my profession. The same as you are doing. Saving people's lives from illnesses and bending wounds." I burst out loud.
"A healer?" Kaida's ear flicked up in excitement, "A female healer. I have never heard of one before. That is unique... but what is a human?"
"It's.. my species." I did not know how else to describe humans to these beings who transform into animals.
"I don't think I have ever heard of that one before. Either way, look at her, she is practically useless. How is she going to hunt with no meat or muscles on her? She is so tiny." Zarun looked me up and down, "We should just throw her back to the forest, she will just be a waste of supplies. We don't want impure breeds anyway."
Luman and Kaida did not look my way. Kaida's fists clenched at his words, but she then dropped her gaze. It seemed like she had wanted to say something. However, with their conflicted silence, it was now obvious that they would not get involved in the matter.
"No, don't know me back there. You guys can't be that cold-hearted!" I stood up, ready to fight for my place, forgetting about my injury. The throbbing pain amplified with my movement, and my head started to throb, deafening me.
"Oh, not again." I stumbled and crashed onto the hard floor, and the darkness swallowed me whole.