Chapter 230: Packaged With Love

’Eh?’

Tera was tied up.

She was lying on the floor of her shelter, bound from her shoulders to her ankles in thin, braided threads from one of those trees that was used to sow the silk leaves together, and she was bound so tightly that she could not possibly even untie herself.

’What the fuck just happened?’

Tera had left the wolf pack come to her mates to talk to them about what she was going to do. Surely, laying out the plan as she had done with the system was going to work. And Tera knew they would be ultimately pissed at her if she went off without telling them. They deserved to know what she was about to do.

Tera had expected a serious conversation, maybe even a light argument. What she did not expect was for her mates to smile at her, excuse themselves outside for approximately thirty seconds, and come back to tie her up like a gift package.

Then Xavi had kissed her forehead, Ermin had patted her head, and they had both told her to get some sleep. When she woke up, maybe her head would be working properly.

Then they left.

Tera lay on the floor of her own shelter, trussed up like a roast, and reconsidered every life decision that had brought her to this moment.

’Oh My God!’

She should have just lied to them and told them she was going to collect materials like rocks and leaves instead!

She wriggled against the bindings.

Nothing happened.

She wriggled harder.

The threads didn’t budge. They were thin but absurdly strong—the same tensile strength that made them perfect for stitching shelter panels together made them perfect for restraining a shiftless female who weighed about as much as one of Xavi’s beefy arms.

Tera thrashed on the ground, rolling from side to side, her legs kicking uselessly against the bindings. She looked like a worm that had been thrown into a lake of salt.

[Poor Host]

[? ? ? ?]

’Shut it! I know this makes you happy!’

[(? ? ??)]

[This system does not think that]

Tera grunted and twisted again, trying to find a weak point in the binding. There wasn’t one. Xavi and Ermin had tied her with the careful, methodical precision of two males who had spent their entire lives working with rope and hide and thread. Every knot was tight. Every loop was layered. They had done this with love, and it was infuriating.

A small sound came from the entrance of the shelter.

"Ma... ma?"

Tera craned her neck.

Althea was standing at the entrance, her tiny panther ears flattened with concern, her round eyes wide as she stared at her mother lying bound on the ground.

"Oh! Althea! Baby! Come here, come help mama. Quick!"

Althea toddled in, her small face scrunched with worry. She crouched beside Tera and grabbed one of the threads with both hands, pulling with all the strength her little body could manage.

The thread didn’t move.

Althea pulled harder, grunting, her face turning red. She braced her tiny feet against the ground and yanked.

Nothing.

She tried biting it. Her small teeth clamped down on the thread, and she growled — an adorable, squeaky growl that would have made Tera laugh under any other circumstances.

It worked!

But it had only been a few strands out of a hundred others.

"That’s it. Keep going!"

But Althea sat back, breathing hard, and looked at Tera with an expression that clearly said she had done her best.

Tera gasped. "What? No!"

Althea shook her head, yawned, and then she crawled onto Tera’s chest. The little panther cub curled into a ball on her mother’s breasts like a cat would, then closed her eyes.

Within thirty seconds, she was fast asleep.

Tera stared down at the cub nestled against her chest, her tiny body rising and falling with each breath, and felt a frustration so pure it bordered on spiritual.

’Just like that?!’

[To be fair, Host is very comfortable]

’I am tied up on the ground!’

[And yet the cub chose Host’s chest over every other sleeping surface available]

[That is maternal warmth at its finest]

[(????)]

’I hate you.’

[This system thinks Host should perhaps use this quiet moment to think things through]

[Host has a sleeping cub on her chest, time to reflect, and nowhere to go]

[This could be productive]

Tera wanted to scream, but Althea was sleeping, and she was not about to wake her cub over this. She lay still, fuming.

Damn it. She was just going to get scissors from the system shop and undo this mess herself.

The system was alarmed as it realised what Tera was about to do.

[Host!]

’Boy, you sure are useless at times.’

The scissors materialised in her bound hand, and she angled the blades towards the nearest thread, only for the shelter to open and for Xavi and Ermin to walk inside.

The scissors quickly disappeared.

She was about to talk when she noticed her mates looked tired, frustrated and sad.

Xavi sat down heavily, and his massive frame folded in on itself in a way that made him look smaller than he was. Ermin settled beside him, and he looked like he was barely holding himself together either.

Tera felt guilty.

"Why?" Xavi sounded lost. "Why do you want to do this, Tera? Why do you want to go to that thing and risk yourself like this?"

He looked at her with eyes that were genuinely searching for an answer he could understand.

"Do you not care about us? Do you not love us enough to stay?"

The words hit Tera in the chest.

"Xavi—"

"We are fine. We have food, and shelter, and everyone else. We are not suffering. What more do we need that is worth your life?"

Ermin hadn’t spoken, but his jaw was tight, and his eyes were fixed on the ground. His silence said everything his words didn’t.

Tera lay on the floor, still bound, with a sleeping cub on her chest, and felt her heart fracture.

She didn’t want them to hurt like this. She hadn’t told them to upset them. She had told them because they deserved to know, because she refused to be the kind of mate who disappeared in the night and left them wondering.

But looking at their faces now, she wondered if the honesty had been crueller than the lie.

"I love you both very much, and that is exactly why I have to do this," she said quietly.