The Beauty's Hidden Beast

Yaya's POV

I sat on the grass and watched the boys interact with each other. I couldn't tell if our peas understood what their Papa was trying to tell them, but they seemed to be enjoying it.

Not for long though.

Peanut was the first to get bored, and started crawling on the ground, searching for new things to entertain him. The poor thing was too young to understand what was happening, and his attention span didn't last more than thirty seconds.

Curtis scoffed at the scorpion Pea and turned to his own snake Pea, who was busy watching the colorful aurora across the sky, "..." He paused, staring at the oblivious baby in front of him. His eyes narrowed into a glare, and the corners of his lips fell.

The fact that they found the clouds more interesting than their Papa made me chuckle and feel bad at the same time.

"Pay attention," Curtis ordered, and Cherry Pea's gaze flicked to him. He tried to demonstrate the shifting process once more. And this time, our pea was paying attention.

Peanut crawled up to me and tried to climb my lap. When his stinger got stuck to my onesie, he began to whimper again. He was a bit of a drama boy. He liked to exaggerate his whines, and get what he wanted.

I picked him up and placed him on my lap, making him relax immediately.

Curtis kept his gaze on Cherry Pea, waiting for a reaction.

A moment later, Cherry Pea's body began to shift, and instead of a tail, there were two little feet. He did the exact opposite of what his Papa wanted.

"..."

"..."

Curtis lifted him by his feet and looked at his naked butt and the rest of him.

I covered my mouth, trying hard not to laugh, "Congratulations."

Curtis's gaze shifted from me to the crying Cherry Pea. He didn't look pleased, "He is broken."

I guffawed when Cherry Pea shifted his legs back into a tail in order to escape his Papa, "Could you shift like him when you were his age?"

"..."

"..."

His gaze flicked back to the hissing cub, catching him before he could fall, and then at me, "He is still broken."

"Because he doesn't listen to his Papa, and can't do what his Papa wants him to?" I asked, and he nodded his head. I didn't tell him what he said was bad, and was just curious about his thinking process.

Curtis had no idea how to connect to his offspring. He didn't have the instinct that would tell him to take care of the cubs, or have the urge to protect them from everything.

Cherry Pea wasn't used to having others teach him and tell him what to do, and it wasn't in his instinct to obey, either. Curtis would have to release his beast pressure and force him to submit, like he did earlier, to make him pay attention.

Unlike Bart's Sweet Pea, Curtis's Cherry Pea would hold a grudge against his Papa for the littlest things and would try to avoid him at all costs. Like now. He outstretched his palms toward his mama. The moment Curtis tried to pull him into his arms, the cub would begin to hiss, and get cranky. He'd only calm down once he was securely perched on my lap, where he could give his Papa a stinky eye.

I wiggled my pointer, smiling at the sulking redhead to come and join me, "Just shift back and take a rest before you try again."

Curtis smiled, plopping down next to me. His serpent form wrapped around us, and his massive head bent to rest on his curled tail.

"Broken or not, he is still our cub," I said, and he nodded, his eyes on the peas playing on my lap, "Thank you for giving me such a wonderful pea." I continued, braiding a flower crown from the flowers Cherry Pea and Peanut had helped me gather. Once finished, I placed it on Curtis's serpent head, softening his fierce features.

His red eyes blinked, brushing his forked tongue against my cheek. 

I smiled and lifted the two peas by their wings. "They helped me gather the flowers too," I said, holding them up like little offerings. "And they want their Papa to know that."

His gaze flicked between me and our peas. Then, he extended his tongue, tickling their hands and faces.

They giggled and squeaked, their tiny palms trying to catch his tongue. I jumped into the air and placed them on his head, letting them explore his scales and the flower crown.

Their little fingers and hands tried to touch everything, and when they found a comfortable position, they plopped down on their butts, then began to crawl while chewing on his scales, teething and drooling.

I pecked his cheek, and he closed his eyes, letting us do whatever we wanted as he relaxed.

Our peas soon grew tired of chewing on their Papa, and yawned. Their eyelids began to droop, and within a few minutes, they fell asleep.

They hid between the creaks of Curtis' body, squeezing in as if they were afraid that they'd roll off. It looked like the most comfortable nest to take a nap, making me want to join them too.

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Curtis's POV

"..." I stared at the three bodies squeezed between my coils. It looked like I had just suffocated a few preys and was taking a rest in the middle of my hunt, wearing their belongings on my head.

I didn't know why, but my chest ached. Like it was being squeezed from inside, and I couldn't breathe. I didn't feel sick, or hurt. The urge to keep them close to me, protect them, and watch over them, grew stronger and stronger.

I looked up, watching the colorful lights, and listened to their breathing, trying to calm down.

She didn't know what she had done to me, and I didn't know what she had done to me, either.

The subtle things she gave me were hard to describe and put into words, but the feelings I felt were so intense, so overwhelming, that it made me want to tear out the heart from my chest and show it to her.

Look how much I love you, how much I want to be with you.

How much you mean to me.

How much I want to give you.

Don't suffer because of me, don't sacrifice yourself for me, don't ever get hurt again because of me.

The damage our cubs caused you would take longer to heal than all of our injuries combined, yet, you never complained. You kept it to yourself and pushed yourself harder, giving away your life source to sustain their life inside your body.

Don't say you deserve the pain for hurting your males, because the pain of losing you would be far worse than the pain of losing an arm or a leg.

Don't say you love us when you allow yourself to suffer. Don't try to break us to make us feel better about you breaking.

Don't say you can heal, don't say you can regenerate, don't say you want to have cubs and it's about yourself and not about your males.

We know it's about us, about the family we are trying to build.

So can you just let us be the bad ones sometimes?

Allow us to make you shine in our eyes and in our hearts?

Make you the reason for our happiness?

I glanced at our cubs.

You are the only ones who have the power to make your Mama glow like an aurora. One that could overshadow the moons and the stars. One that could light up the world with its impactful existence.

Only in front of you would she try to show her best. Only with you would she try to be the best Mama in the world. One that would never make you doubt your Mama's love. One that would make you feel the safest, the warmest, the happiest.

Your Papas don't know how to repay your Mama for what she had done for us. Simply loving her just doesn't seem enough to express how we feel. Words and gifts can no longer do our feelings justice, only actions could.

Actions that would leave a permanent mark on her heart. Actions that made her notice us and see us as males worth her attention in the first place.

So, my cubs... Let's show the world that it's us, your Papas, who needs to improve, and that your Mama is, without a doubt, the best Mama in the entire universe. Together... Shall we?

Sweetheart stirred, cutting through my thoughts. She looked up at me, reflecting the sky above us in her eyes, and I wondered if I could ever make her see her beauty through my eyes.

"Hey," she called. "I think Mitchell is going nuts right now," she said, wriggling her leg with the scorpion imprint to show how urgent the situation was and how she needed me to cover her back.

"First me, then my parents, and now my cub," Mitchell yelled from the distance, "Is kidnapping your hobby or something? Do you know how much it takes to find a scorpion cub? They could go days without food and stay hidden anywhere. If he gets lost in the wild, we are all doomed."

Mitchell marched towards us, cursing and throwing a fuss. When I told him she was sleeping, he immediately shut up.

He saw the empty basket, the flower crown on my head, and the sleeping bodies in my coils. He covered his face, and his shoulders began to shake, holding back his laughter.

I glared at him, and he took a picture of our moment with Karrak's phone. "This is so sweet, my teeth are going to rot. Hey, let me in there too," he whispered, squeezing his body in the middle of my coils, taking advantage of my stillness, "This is a good position to sleep."

"..." One after another, the rest came with their cubs to look for Sweetheart and thought the same thing.

Before I knew it, all the cubs and their papas were in the middle of my coils.

Only Karrak and Romeo were missing from the group.

Romeo was working, and Karrak?

Karrak had a tendency to destroy everything in his path, and didn't dare to show himself in person yet. He was afraid that he might hurt Sweetheart by accident, and didn't want to take any risks.

Sweetheart didn't seem to mind, and let him have his way. We didn't mind either, but if he needed help, we would make sure he would get it. He was one of the keys that freed her and helped her gain her freedom and control of her fate.

He let us meet her and gave her a chance to be happy with us. We owed him a lot and we were not planning to turn our back on him if he ever needed us.

That's what we decided on when we talked about our plans during our long distance group chat on Karrak's phone, which Vick called "online meetings"; together with how we were going to raise our cubs among other topics.

We were ready to leave the world we were born in and start a new one with her if needed, but she seemed to love our world a bit too much.

If Vick didn't show the luxury and convenience their world could offer, we would probably be still living inside a cave and fighting off collosals on a daily basis; eat the same burnt meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and live with the bare necessities.

The luxury could be taken away any time and it was better not to get used to it, she would say.

Did someone take away her comfort and force her to live in a harsh, unforgiving, and cruel environment before? Did someone take away her happiness and make her life miserable? Yes. But was that reason enough to keep us from the luxury we could have? No.

We could enjoy it, but we should also be able to live without it. That's her way of thinking, and that's the mindset she built her life around. She was always reluctant to teach us anything, but we still learned a lot from her, and she learned a lot from us.

We were learning, trying, and growing together.

For ourselves, for each other.

╔═══ Author's note ════╗

This looks like the end of the story, doesn't it? 👋🏻👋🏻

Well, unfortunately, I still have a lot to show and can't end it yet.😩

Do you remember the ripped penta snake beastman who teamed up with Parker and the rest to save Bai? Matured Curtis is so yum, isn't he? 🥵

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