Chapter 165: Wolf Cub Invasion

Tera smiled. The cub looked so adorable. "I helped, yes."

He nodded once, climbed into the narrow space between Tera and Faelynn, and curled up as if he had lived there his entire life.

This apparently shattered whatever invisible barrier had been restraining the others, because what followed could only be described as a cub stampede.

’OMG. Not again!’

Three more tumbled forward immediately, wedging themselves into any gap they could find. One climbed directly onto Tera’s legs. Another attempted to burrow under her arm. A third bypassed the queue entirely and simply sat on Tera’s foot.

"Oh! Oh, okay, there are a lot of you—"

Even Faelynn and the other females were taken aback by this wave.

A cub appeared from somewhere behind Faelynn and launched herself at Tera’s back, tiny claws gripping the fabric of her top as she scaled Tera like a small, furry mountaineer.

"WHERE ARE THEY ALL COMING FROM?!"

The females were laughing openly now, making absolutely no effort to help.

Luth, who had been peacefully occupying Tera’s lap, was deeply unimpressed by the invasion of her territory. When one of the new arrivals attempted to sit on her, she unleashed a growl so fierce and disproportionate to her size that the offending cub toppled over backwards in alarm.

"Luth!" Faelynn scolded, but her lips were pressed together so tightly they had gone white from suppressing a laugh.

The grey-furred cub with the big ears had somehow migrated from beside Tera to directly on top of her thigh. He was now systematically patting every part of her arm with his small paws, as if cataloguing the texture.

"You really have no fur," he said, amazed.

"I really do not," Tera said absentmindedly while trying to count the number of cubs around her.

She could have sworn the system had said there were only fifteen, so where had all these ones come from?!

And which mother owned them?!

The cub gasped. "Anywhere?"

"She has hair on her head," another cub interrupted knowingly, as if this was a critically important distinction that needed to be established for the historical record. "Can’t you see?!"

"But nowhere else?"

Tera shook her head, trying to hold back a laugh. This was a serious situation. Why was she laughing when the cubs were about to drown her?

One particularly bold cub, a little female with russet fur and a crooked ear, had wriggled her way onto Tera’s lap beside the still-furious Luth and was now staring at Tera’s face with unblinking intensity.

"Why do your eyes look like that?"

"Like what?"

"They do not glow."

Tera blinked. "Are eyes supposed to glow constantly?"

The cub looked at her like she had just asked whether the sky was above them. "Yes?"

Aia shook her head and reached over, pulling the cub from Tera. "Leave the poor female alone. I told you the eyes do not glow consistently. Why do you keep forgetting?"

The others picked the cubs off Tera, who was grateful for the intervention, but that did not stop the cubs’ mouths from running.

"Do your eyes not glow at all?"

Tera chuckled. "No. But I can still see in the dark."

[In low light, most beast types possess reflective eye membranes]

[Host does not]

[Host’s eyes are, by beast standards, broken]

Tera fought back a frown that was about to show on her face.

’Why are you giving me information I already know?’

[( ꈍ◡ꈍ)]

Despite the females picking the cubs off Tera, six cubs were still across her body. One on her lap alongside Luth, one on her thigh, one on her foot, one latched to her back, and two pressed against her sides. She looked like a strange, furless mother animal that had been claimed by an entire litter of someone else’s children.

The females watched with a softness in their eyes.

The questions continued.

They asked about her cubs, about cooking, about the strange structures in her clan, about why she sometimes stared into empty air for minutes at a time with expressions that ranged from furious to mortified.

"That one is hard to explain," Tera deflected with a nervous laugh.

Faelynn had apparently also been chatting about what she had seen in Tera’s clan to the females, and they were so fascinated.

Most especially by the kissing.

The way Tera had pressed her lips against her mates’ faces in front of everyone at the Dow clan had confused Faelynn and the other wolves deeply, and she had also seen a few other beasts do so too in the clan.

This topic shocked Tera and made her slightly embarrassed.

"Why do you press your mouth on them?" Flora, the last female, asked with such curious eyes.

Tera had to remind herself that physical affection here had mostly been expressed through grooming, scent marking, proximity, and food. The concept of kissing simply hadn’t existed until she had come around, and the thought of it was so funny to her.

"It is... a way of showing someone you care about them. Where I come from."

"Does it do anything?"

"It feels nice."

"For you or for them?"

"Both."

The females mulled this over, looking deeply intrigued.

"It looked strange," Faelynn finally said, as if the words had been physically extracted from her. "But also... nice?"

She said ’nice’ like it tasted sour, and the other females immediately pounced.

"Faelynn thinks it is nice!"

"Did she do it?!"

"Shush! I said it LOOKED nice! That is completely different!"

"She wants to try it!"

"I will bite every single one of you!"

Tera was laughing so hard that the cub on her back lost her grip and slid down to the ground with a small, offended yelp.

"Sorry." She patted the young cub who had swiftly recovered from the fall and was once again scaling her back before Faelynn promptly took him off.

The warmth of the moment settled over Tera like a fur hide. She was surrounded by wolf females who were teasing each other about kissing, and covered in cubs who had decided she was their personal property.

She didn’t expect to have this sense of belonging this quickly after arriving.

Meanwhile, on the far side of the territory, Calis stood in a rough circle with the displeased pack elders.