Are Beast Nobles Supposed to Be This Lewd?

Chapter 156: A Duchess With Territorial Awareness

Eventually, the embrace loosened. Kaelith was the first to pull back far enough to actually look at her.

His red eyes moved over her face, down her shoulders — and stopped. His brows drew together.

"Why are you wet?"

Mirabelle blinked.

Lucien, still standing behind her, apparently only now became aware of the fact that the woman he’d just pressed against himself was completely soaked.

He pinched some of the wet fabric between two fingers. Water dripped from it.

"You’re very wet" he smirked.

The simple green dress had become several shades darker and clung heavily to her body. Water still ran down her calves and collected in the earth beneath her bare feet.

"Oh. Right."

The fabric clung to her curves, transforming the previously loose-fitting dress into something uncomfortably form-fitting.

Almost as clingy as the gazes of her males.

Both males stared at her.

The lynx female tried to explain:

"There was a lake."

Kaelith’s expression suggested that this explained absolutely nothing.

"In the forest?"

"Yes."

Lucien glanced past her toward the trees she’d just emerged from.

"There is no lake in this part of the forest."

"Well, there was where I was."

That earned her another look. Mirabelle pushed a strand of wet hair away from her cheek. How did it even get wet? She couldn’t remember...

"It’s a long story."

She grimaced. Even thinking that sounded ridiculously cliché.

"Tell us while we walk back," Kaelith said.

"You should get dry as soon as possible," Lucien added, a hint of concern in his voice.

So they began walking.

Neither Kaelith nor Lucien seemed particularly pleased about allowing her to move more than an arm’s length away from them, so Mirabelle found herself between the two as they followed the familiar path back toward the edge of the forest.

And while they walked, she told them.

About how the path had disappeared.

How the forest had changed with every step until she’d found herself somewhere that felt impossibly ancient.

About the sensation of being watched by the forest itself.

The black current.

The lake.

And the enormous crystal hovering above it.

When she explained that she’d realized the Territory Core was actually a Beast Core, both males stopped walking.

"A Beast Core?" Kaelith repeated. One eyebrow raised in surprise.

"A gigantic one."

"How gigantic?" Lucien couldn’t stop smirking.

Mirabelle rolled her eyes inwardly this time.

That fox was incorrigible...

Then she considered his question:

"Very."

Kaelith stared at her.

"Extremely very."

Lucien made a quiet sound beside her that suspiciously resembled a laugh. Mirabelle continued before either of them could demand a more useful measurement.

She told them about the water and what it had done to her body. About touching the Core. The golden space. The voice.

She even attempted to imitate its deep hohoho once.

Lucien laughed outright.

Kaelith didn’t.

He looked deeply disturbed by the idea that some ancient unknown being had apparently sniffed his mate.

Mirabelle wisely moved on.

She told them about the bloodline.

The strange comments about roots and territories.

About being the seed from which something new could grow. And finally —

"It said it wasn’t merely allowing me to govern Luchsenstein."

Lucien’s expression became serious again.

Mirabelle looked between them.

"It said it was allowing me to rule."

Silence followed. Only the soft crunch of earth beneath their feet and the rustling canopy above accompanied them for several steps.

"What does that mean?" the hyena Beastman eventually asked.

"I was hoping one of you would know."

Neither did.

’Wonderful...’

In return, her mates told her what had happened from their side. At first, they’d followed her normally. Then Mirabelle had begun to disappear.

Not suddenly.

Not completely.

She had simply become harder to perceive with every step, as though the shadows, trees, and vegetation had begun swallowing her presence.

They could still see her.

Then only glimpses.

Then nothing.

The mate bonds had remained, but even those had become strangely distant.

Kaelith and Lucien had continued forward. And gotten nowhere. No matter how quickly they moved, the point where they sensed Mirabelle never seemed to come closer.

"We tried separating," Lucien explained. "It made no difference."

"We also tried leaving the path," Kaelith added.

Mirabelle glanced at him. His shoulders had hunched as though the thought that even that strategy hadn’t worked was still devastating.

"That sounds like an excellent way to get lost."

"I could feel you. I would never get lost like this."

His answer came so simply that Mirabelle didn’t know what to say to it. Something warm moved through their bond. She looked away before he could see the smile threatening her lips.

They continued walking.

The forest around them was becoming increasingly familiar now. Sunlight filtered through the leaves in shifting patches, warming Mirabelle’s still-damp skin whenever she stepped through one.

Birds called overhead. Somewhere nearby, something small darted through dry leaves.

Everything was normal again.

Or it should have been.

Mirabelle’s steps slowed.

Her ears twitched.

Something...

Something was different.

She took another step: There.

A sensation moved through her. Faint.

So faint she almost dismissed it.

Mirabelle stopped.

Kaelith and Lucien immediately stopped with her.

"What is it?" Lucien asked.

Mirabelle didn’t answer. Her brows drew together. She turned her head slightly, although she had no idea what she was listening for.

Because it wasn’t a sound.

It wasn’t a smell.

And it wasn’t coming through any of her mate bonds. It came from somewhere else. Somewhere deeper...

Mirabelle slowly looked down at the ground beneath her bare feet. Something was different. She could feel it. For several seconds, Mirabelle simply stood there.

She could feel Kaelith’s attention settle on her from one side and Lucien’s from the other, but neither of them interrupted her again.

Whatever she had noticed was still there.

Faint. Almost impossible to grasp.

Mirabelle lowered her gaze to her bare feet.

The earth beneath them was soft and slightly damp, dark soil pressing between her toes where the path had become less compact. She could feel tiny stones beneath the surface, the uneven pressure of roots, the cool moisture that hadn’t yet evaporated beneath the dense canopy.

Normal things. Things anyone standing barefoot in a forest could feel. But there was something beneath that.

Mirabelle closed her eyes.

Immediately, the sounds around her became clearer.

Leaves rustled overhead as a breeze passed through the canopy. Somewhere to her left, a bird repeated the same three-note call over and over again. Insects hummed between the undergrowth, and farther away, something scratched against bark.

But beneath all those individual sounds was...

Mirabelle frowned.

She didn’t know.

It wasn’t exactly a sound.

More like a presence.

The same way she’d always been aware of her own body without consciously thinking about every finger, every toe, every patch of skin.

Except this wasn’t her body. Her awareness seemed to extend beyond it.

Only a little. A few meters, perhaps.

Maybe farther.

She could feel something large beside the path.

Mirabelle opened her eyes and immediately looked toward it.

A tree.

Of course there was a tree. There were hundreds of them.

But this on... She stepped toward it.

"Mirabelle?" Kaelith asked.

"Give me a second."

The tree was enormous, although nowhere near the ancient giants she’d seen around the Territory Core. Its trunk was broad enough that Mirabelle doubted she could wrap both arms around it.

She stared at it. Nothing looked unusual.

And yet... Something was wrong.

Mirabelle tilted her head. There was an uncomfortable pressure somewhere inside her awareness.

Not pain.

Not even discomfort that belonged to her.

Strain. That was the closest word she could find. A deep, persistent tension.

Mirabelle took another step toward the tree.

The sensation grew stronger.

Her eyes traveled upward along the trunk, following it into the canopy.

"I think something is wrong with that tree."

Lucien looked at it. His green eyes narrowed.

"What?"

"I don’t know."

Kaelith inhaled deeply, apparently searching for some scent she might have noticed.

"I don’t smell anything."

"Neither do I."

That was the strange part. Mirabelle hadn’t smelled anything. She hadn’t seen anything either. She simply knew.

Or thought she knew.

"This is going to sound stupid," she murmured, "but it feels... strained."

Lucien looked from her to the tree.

"The tree feels strained?"

"When you say it like that, it does sound stupid."

A smile briefly tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Mirabelle ignored him and concentrated again.

There. Pressure. Weight. Something pulling.

Something—

CRACK.

Mirabelle’s ears snapped upright. Kaelith moved before she even understood what she’d heard.

His arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her backward just as another sharp crack tore through the forest. This one was louder.

Much louder.

Wood groaned. Leaves exploded into frantic movement high above them.

"Back," Kaelith ordered.

They moved several steps away.

Mirabelle stared. Her mouth wide open.

It wasn’t the tree in front of her. It was farther away. Somewhere beyond it.

For one strange heartbeat, Mirabelle knew exactly where. Not far. Perhaps a few hundred meters.

She turned toward the sound before the next crack came. Then the forest erupted.

A deep, splintering roar rolled through the trees as something enormous gave way. Birds burst from the canopy in a chaotic wave, their cries filling the air while branches snapped one after another. Then—

BOOM.

The impact traveled through the ground. Mirabelle felt it beneath her feet. A dull vibration rolled through the soil and up her legs.

Leaves trembled. Somewhere nearby, an animal bolted through the undergrowth.

And then everything slowly settled again.

Kaelith and Lucien were staring in the direction of the sound.

Mirabelle wasn’t. She was staring at the ground.

Her heart had begun beating faster.

"What?" Kaelith asked immediately. Concern in his voice.

She swallowed.

"I felt that."

"The impact?" Lucien asked.

"No."

Mirabelle slowly looked up.

"Before."

Neither of them said anything. The lynx female was relieved that not even the slightest hint of doubt in her words trickled through the mate bonds from either of her males.

"I felt something before it fell."

She looked back toward the direction from which the crash had come. Now that the tree was down, the pressure was gone. That strange tension had disappeared as abruptly as if someone had cut a string.

Mirabelle’s skin prickled. She stepped off the path.

One step.

Two.

Three.

She concentrated.

Nothing.

She moved farther. The awareness shifted with her. Mirabelle stopped again.

That was...

’Interesting.’

It wasn’t as though she could suddenly feel all of Luchsenstein stretching around her.