As he spent the whole night out, he didn't pay attention to what he ate. He ate a few beastmen, a few beasts and such. More than usual but nothing alarming, he'll just have to wait for digestion.
The pot was bubbling so he knew it was done. He extinguished the fire before reignating it elsewhere so that the den remained warm. The cold season was a few moon cycles away. Probably only three rotations left.
Suddenly he felt that beastwoman's presence behind him so he turned to look at her. She looked....tired?
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Inside the room, Bloom was sleeping soundly while Azrakai was wide awake.
Now that he didn't have any poison left in his body, he remembered every single detail from last night. The pleasure, the tears, the begging for her to continue.
He was slightly ashamed of his behavior yet he didn't feel wrong. He felt it only right to beg and cry for her. Then he remembered the snake's mark and looked down at his chest, wanting to see if he had one as well.
He didn't see anything. Now, he felt wronged. He too, wanted a mating mark. Then he felt something ripple on his back. A warm, comfortable feeling spreading from his back to his heart.
He turned his head around to look at his back, but he couldn't make out the shape of the lines on it. He wanted to get up and go to a waterfall to see his reflection in it but he decided to wait until Bloom woke up.
As long as he was marked, it didn't matter what it looked like.
But that was only his thoughts. The jellyfish and the screen were excited to see the mark, and like the first mark, this one was also breath taking.
The mark begins at the center of the back yet directly over the heart, and stretches outward like ripples through still water.
Inked in deep, smoky charcoal with silver undertones, the design is bold yet refined, elegant in its ferocity.
At its core lies the silhouette of a black tiger, rendered not in full form but in impressionistic strokes: a crouched predator, all muscle and stillness, poised in watchful patience. His black blue stripes are formed from jagged, lightning-like etchings that trail across his shoulders, each line whispering of storms barely contained. And on the tiger's head, a crown made of ice was sitting. Not as a title, but as a mark of ownership.
Unlike Crypt's coiled surrender, this beast does not bow. His head is lifted, eyes closed, not in defiance, but trust. His throat is bared, exposed, not from weakness but from unshakable certainty in the one who owns him.
Above his heart, faint claw marks curve over the skin, too precise to be random, too delicate to be brutal. They mimic the arc of a snow leopard's paw, pulled across the surface like a blessing.
The lines glow faintly when Rhaëlya's aura flares, as though the very memory of her touch stirs the beast within.
From the tiger's form, inked tendrils branch outward like spreading roots or veins of ice, reaching across his chest and wrapping subtly around his ribs and lower back.
They end in whisper-thin points that thrum when she's near, resonating with the pull of the bond.
Unlike Crypt's cold shimmer, Azrakai's mark burns low and steady, like embers under ash. It doesn't pulse in her presence, it steadies. Grounds him.
To power-sensitive eyes, it carries no threat. Only a promise:
"He will never run. Not from her. Not even from death."
And to those who understood the language of the heavens, it speaks a single truth:
"The Empress is his anchor. And even in the wild, the beast chooses her leash."
Orion and Ariel both sucked in a breath when they felt the meaning and power etching themselves into their very souls.
Crypt's mark warning did the same thing, so it's not like they didn't expect it, but still.
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Carmen was...tired. She spent the whole night guarding this cave since that damn snake left. And while she was guarding, something kept watching her.
She couldn't find out the source of the eyes but she felt them all around her and they seemed focused on her and the cave. It seemed to want to go in.
And that gave her the creeps.
She's been stalked and nearly forced to mate by some desperate males before, although females could also choose another female as their mate, some males were against that. They said that if that happens then there won't be any offsprings.
Which was true, but so what? She couldn't care less. She always avoided males ever since she saw her male father keep her poor female father* unable to care for himself in his attempt to keep him with him forever, even if the mating and making ritual* was completed since she's long been born.
She could still remember very clearly how he'll only feed him already chewed food from his mouth as he broke her female father's teeth when he tried leaving the den. How her female father didn't have any light in his eyes anymore due to her male father's antics.
And so many more disgusting things that he'd done just to keep her female father with him.
She took in a long breath before exhaling it.
All of that didn't matter now. Both were dead and she wasn't there anymore. She was now courting a pretty cat. One that wouldn't treat her mates harshly. Not for no reason at least.
But it's a shame, she'll never be able to have an offspring with her. Not that it mattered much anyway.
She threw herself on her part of the cave and decided to take a nap. Bloom will soon wake up anyway, and that snake and shi☆ty tiger were here too now.
And just like that, Carmen was asleep.
And Rhaëlya had opened her eyes to a sleeping tiger.
Finally, he's finally asleep.
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* Female Father: Male that can get impregnated
* Male Father: Male that impregnated his male mate, can possibly get impregnated as well.
The situation of who's getting pregnant between two males (who can do both) is usually decided by a battle. And who wins decides who does what.
* Mate & Make ritual: A "ritual" between two males who only mate (do the deed) to make and brith an offspring. Usually decided by the tribe heads to avoid going extinct.
Let me know if you guys want a page with how this beastworld works! (Like how genders work, etc...)