Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 12: brought to you by a lack of dating

Trigger Warning: nonconsensual sensual activity (read 'attempted rape'). The female needs new clothes and sassy Curtis is sassy. A fist fight between a bird and snake... who actually don't have fists, so an inter-species throwdown happens in a bamboo grove and somewhere out there, a fish is missing a rib.

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Having a decent meal did wonders for the mind and soul. So much so that Shay was brought on track.

She laid back in the soft patch of grass.

"So, Curtis, why do you want to mate me so bad?" Gall, that was cringy to say.

There was a disconcerting pause before Curtis finally said, somewhat stunned, "I don't know what you mean."

"Are you, like, lonely? Hankering for kids? I mean, you've got four marks, surely you can swipe whatever girl you want." I sighed. "Don't tell me it's just because I'm pretty."

"You were the one who accepted my skin, and you weren't all that pretty when I first found you."

The power of dirt. "Well that's a relief."

"...I can't follow, I thought females liked to be found pretty."

"Generally, but not as the sole basis for a breakneck wedding."

The grass hissed as his tail twisted nearby. "Snakes do not break necks when they mate."

Shay sighed. "Sorry, my bad." Then, under her breath. "My entire slang bank is wasted on this place." She cleared her throat. "So are you saying that you kidnapped me because you thought I chose you or something?"

"That is only one factor. If I had found your personality to be wanting I would have sent you back."

Shay frowned. "Wait, so this is dating to you?"

"Dating?"

"Gack, damn it--courtship, getting to know one another, the final round of selection?"

When he didn't answer right away, Shay thought for a moment that she had once more lost him to the communication barrier. But then the dappled rays of sunshine were cut off from above her as his gorgeous face, framed by those impossible straight and untangled red locks, moved in above her. He put a hand next to her shoulder to brace himself.

His smile was the same soft one that was at odds with his snake-like eyes.

"No. I know I want you."

A bit of her recovered hope within her wilted.

"Aw, come on, it's only been a day. You don't even know me." She scowled. "It's because I'm pretty, isn't it?"

"Awfully cocky, aren't you?"

"Not so. Where I'm from I'm commonplace." The moment she said that, Shay regretted it, putting a hand to her mouth.

All she needed now was to be forced on a wild goose chase by a horde of men desperate to find the holy land of beautiful women.

But Curtis didn't seem alarmed. He only cocked his head.

"From the fox tribe, then? Though I see little point to this argument." He lowered himself to the point his nose brushed against hers.

Shay's breath caught. She clenched the grass.

"Your beauty is but an added sweetener," he breathed.

The moldy grass stench flooded from his mouth, muggy and humid. Her skin prickled.

She squeezed her hands up to his chest to push him off, mouth opening to tell him to get the hell off--

And he somehow took it as invitation to kiss her. Though, granted, the snakeman hadn't needed invitation to do anything so far.