The drums began at dawn, a rhythmic pulse that vibrated through the wooden walls of our home and pulled me from sleep with an insistent thrum. I sat up, pressing one hand to the small of my back as the cubs shifted inside me, their movements growing stronger with each passing day. Through the window, I could see the village center already transformed, banners of iridescent fabric strung between the meeting hall and the central fire pit, catching the morning light in flashes of turquoise and gold.
"The peacock delegation has arrived," Ravin said, entering from the main room with a cup of steeped herbs in his massive hand. His golden eyes were still heavy with sleep, his golden hair unbound and wild around his shoulders. "They have brought a female to select a mate."
By midday, the entire village had gathered in the central clearing, the air thick with anticipation and the sweet scent of roasting meat prepared for the occasion. I sat on a raised platform beside Leon, his tail curled protectively around my ankles, while Soryn stood behind us like a shadow cast in obsidian, his emerald eyes scanning the crowd with predatory alertness.
The peacock tribe emerged from the tree line in a burst of color that made me blink. At their center walked a woman who seemed to have stolen the sunset and woven it into her very being. Her hair cascaded in waves of deep violet and indigo, threaded with pearls that caught the light with each step. Her eyes were lined with kohl that made them appear enormous, luminous, and when she moved, the gossamer layers of her gown shifted like the tail feathers of her namesake, revealing flashes of emerald and sapphire beneath.
She carried herself with the arrogance of one who had never been told no, her chin tilted upward, her lips painted a deep crimson that curved into a practiced smile as she surveyed the gathered males.
Her gaze swept past the younger lions, dismissed the wolf warriors with a slight curl of her nose, and landed with deliberate weight upon Ravin. She approached our platform with hips swaying, her eyes traveling over my first mate with an appraisal that felt more like ownership.
"Such strength," she purred, her voice carrying the distinctive trill of the mountain tribes. She reached out as if to touch Ravin’s chest, her fingers hovering just above the fabric of his tunic. "And such presence. You would make magnificent children."
Ravin’s expression remained neutral, though I felt him tense beside me. "I am honored by your interest, daughter of the peacock clan," he said, his voice carrying the formal cadence of diplomatic refusal. "But I am already claimed."
Her smile faltered, the corner of her mouth twitching downward before she could catch it. Her eyes darted to me, sitting there with my rounded belly and my plain woven dress, and something ugly flickered across her perfect features, a flash of confusion giving way to irritation.
"Already claimed," she repeated, as if the words tasted foul.
She turned before Ravin could respond, her attention sliding to Leon with the same assessing hunger. She circled him slowly, her fingers trailing through the air near his mane, close enough that his ears flattened against his skull.
"And you," she murmured, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper meant to carry. "Such fire in your eyes. Such promise in your shoulders. Tell me you are not also... taken."
Leon’s lip curled, not quite a snarl but close enough. "I am second to our mate," he said, gesturing toward me without breaking eye contact with the peacock female. "As is the serpent behind her. You will find no available males among our household."
The irritation that had been simmering beneath her painted surface boiled over. Her cheeks flushed a dark purple that clashed with her hair, and her fingers curled into her palms, the knuckles going white. For a moment, I thought she might strike him, might unleash some peacock wrath upon us all. But she mastered herself with visible effort, turning on her heel with a snap of her gossamer skirts.
"Your village offers slim pickings indeed," she sniffed, stalking toward the gathered bachelors with her nose in the air.
She made her selection within the hour, her pride demanding she choose quickly to salvage the display. A tiger warrior from the eastern borders, young and broad-shouldered, with stripes that rippled across his skin like living shadows. He was strong, there was no denying it, his face carved from marble and amber, his movements fluid and powerful. When she beckoned him forward, he went willingly, his eyes fixed on her painted face with a hunger that made my stomach turn.
"Can the male refuse the female when she chooses them?" I whispered to Ravin, watching as the peacock female draped herself against her new mate, her irritation already forgotten as she preened under the attention of the crowd.
Ravin’s hand found mine, his thumb tracing circles on my palm. "Yes," he murmured, his breath warm against my ear. "Just as I did with Rina. Any male may choose to accept the bonding or refuse it. The choice is his alone, in the moment."
"Well, at least he has the choice of choosing," I said, my eyes tracking the tiger as he lifted the peacock female’s hand to his lips, sealing his fate with a kiss.
"But it is what happens after that is the issue," Leon interjected, his voice low and grim. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, watching the new couple with something akin to pity in his dark eyes. "A male beast does not know how the female truly is. They normally choose by appearance alone, dazzled by color and scent and the promise of what they see. The female’s true nature reveals itself only after they have been bonded, after the ceremony is complete and the magic has sealed them together."
He paused, his tail lashing once against the platform. "And if she is evil, if she is cruel or selfish or mad, then they must live that way for the rest of their lives until death parts them. There is no divorce, no separation, no escape. They are bound, body and soul, to whatever monster they have chosen in their ignorance."
"A male beast, once they choose their mate, they are bonded for life," Soryn added from behind me, his voice carrying that serpent’s fatalism. "There is no second mating for males. No third, no fourth. One choice. One bond. One life, however bitter it becomes."
I watched the peacock female lead her new mate toward the ceremonial tent, her laughter bright and false, her grip on his arm possessive and tight. He went with her willingly, proudly, his chest puffed out, his eyes shining with the belief that he had won something precious.
That is so sad, I thought, pressing one hand to my belly where my cubs stirred. I feel so bad for the male beasts in this world.
The drums began again, celebrating the new union, and I watched the strong tiger disappear into the tent with his peacock bride, wondering if he chose well or will regret it down the line.
---
The days that followed blurred into a string of celebration and commerce, the village transformed into a bustling marketplace of flesh and fur. The peacock female, whose name I learned was Seraphina, continued her collection with the methodical precision of a connoisseur acquiring rare art. By the third day, she had claimed four mates, each chosen for some aesthetic quality that pleased her vanity.
The tiger warrior had been first, his stripes a striking contrast to her iridescent plumage. Then came two wolf brothers from the northern packs, their silver fur and ice-blue eyes making them look like winter itself had agreed to serve her. A leopard followed, his rosette-patterned skin and liquid grace catching her attention during the hunting display. Finally, on the fourth morning, she selected a bear beast, massive and dark-haired, his quiet strength apparently the perfect counterbalance to her flamboyance.
I watched them trail behind her like ornaments, their eyes already beginning to take on that glazed devotion that came with fresh bonding.
The exchange of goods happened alongside the exchange of bodies, a primitive barter of necessities and luxuries that spoke of cultures still learning the value of craft. Silks from the peacock weavers traded for thick furs from our hunters, the soft mountain-woven fabrics exchanged for pelts that would ward against winter’s bite. Medicinal herbs from their high valleys, roots and dried leaves with healing properties unknown to our forest, traded for baskets of vegetables from our gardens, squash and tubers and dried beans that would sustain their people through lean months. The village grew rich in small ways, bundles of goods piling up in storehouses, even as it grew more crowded with new alliances and uncertain futures, and I found myself wandering through the chaos with a growing sense of unease, as if the very air had become too heavy to breathe properly.
It was on the second day after the final selections that I witnessed something that would haunt my dreams for years to come.
The gathering had been called at midday, the drums beating a rhythm that was wrong somehow, discordant and mournful rather than celebratory. Rina stood at the center of the clearing, dressed in feathers and arrogance, her new hawk mate hovering at her shoulder with uncertain eyes. Before her, kneeling in the dirt, was a lion beast I had seen in passing but never spoken to, his golden mane dull and matted, his shoulders hunched as if against a blow already struck.
"John," Rina said, her voice carrying across the silent crowd with the false sweetness of poisoned honey. "Two years you have been mine. Two years I have fed you, housed you, allowed you into my bed. And in that time, what have you given me?"
The lion, John, lifted his head, and the hope in his amber eyes was so raw, so desperate that I had to look away. "Rina," he whispered, his voice rough with emotion. "I have given you my devotion, my protection, my heart. Please, if you would only let me try again, I am certain we could conceive..."
"Certain?" Rina laughed, the sound like breaking glass. "You are certain of nothing, John. You are barren. Useless. A waste of space and resources in my home. You have failed in the only duty that matters to a mate."
She raised her hands, and the elders stepped forward with grim faces, forming a circle around the kneeling lion. The air grew thick, charged with something that made the hair on my arms stand on end.
"A call upon our ancestors," Rina intoned, her voice taking on the cadence of ritual, "hear my words and bear witness. With this bind that connects us, with this bond forged in blood and magic when you sank your teeth into my flesh, I reject you, John, the lion beast, as my mate. You are no longer my bonded mate. You are nothing to me."
She extended her wrist, and I saw it then; the scar tissue in the shape of a bite mark, pale against her skin, the permanent reminder of where he had claimed her. The mark began to glow with a sickly light, the flesh around it reddening, and then it was as if an invisible blade sliced through the scar. The mark split open, blood welling from the wound, and John screamed as if his own veins were being torn from his body.
He collapsed forward, clutching his chest, his body convulsing as the magic that had bound them ripped away from his soul like a root torn from earth. Blood erupted from his mouth in a fountain of crimson, splattering across the dirt and his trembling hands. The sound that came from him was not human, not beast, but something caught between a keening wail of absolute agony that seemed to vibrate in my very bones.
I stumbled forward, caught by Ravin’s arm, my own chest aching in sympathetic horror. "What is happening?" I gasped, tears already streaming down my face. "What is she doing to him?"
John’s form began to shift, but not with the smooth grace I had seen in other transformations. It was violent, tearing, his body contorting unnaturally as the magic ripped through him. His limbs elongated, fur burst from his skin in patches, his face stretching into a muzzle even as he screamed. Within moments, a lion stood where the man had been, but it was wrong, the eyes wild and white-rimmed, foam flecking at the corners of the mouth, no trace of humanity remaining in that golden gaze.
With one last howl of anguish that echoed off the surrounding trees, the beast turned and bolted for the forest, disappearing into the shadows before anyone could move to stop it.
"What happened?" I whispered, my voice breaking, my heart hammering against my ribs with such force I thought it might crack my sternum. "What’s going to happen to him?"
Ravin’s arm tightened around my shoulders, his own body rigid with fury I could feel radiating off him in waves. His voice, when it came, was gruff, barely controlled, his free hand fisted at his side so hard the knuckles had gone white. "Once the bond is severed," he said, each word forced through clenched teeth, "he either dies from the pain of losing his mate, or he turns into his beast form and remains that way permanently. The man is gone. Only the beast remains, driven by survival instinct alone, no memory of who he was, no recognition of those who loved him. He will live out his days as a wild animal, hunting and killing until something stronger puts him down."
He turned his face away, but I saw the moisture glinting in his golden eyes, the tremor in his jaw. "That is why we refused her," he said, so quietly I almost missed it. "That is why Leon and I would have died before taking her to mate. She is cruel beyond measure, Krys. She destroys what she claims without thought, without remorse, as if the lives she ruins are nothing more than broken toys to be discarded."
I looked at Rina, expecting to see some shadow of guilt, some flicker of regret for what she had just done. But she was already turning away, her face a mask of perfect nonchalance, as if she had simply dismissed a servant rather than condemned a man to death in all but flesh. She moved toward her remaining mates, her new hawk among them, and began to preen and coddle them, her laughter bright and carefree, the blood on the ground already forgotten.
The hawk’s eyes found mine across the clearing, and for a moment I saw something there, a flash of surprise, of shock, perhaps the first crack in his infatuation. But he buried it quickly, turning his attention back to Rina with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, and I knew that he had seen the truth of what he had bound himself to, and that it was already too late.
The drums had fallen silent, the crowd dispersing with whispered prayers and shaken heads, leaving only the bloodstain in the dirt as evidence of what had transpired. I stood rooted to the spot, Ravin’s arm still heavy across my shoulders, my body trembling with the aftermath of witnessed horror.
"That is such a cruel thing to do to a beast man," I murmured, the words choking in my throat, my hands pressed protectively over my belly where my cubs slept, innocent and unaware of the world they would be born into. "So cruel." I turned my face toward Leon, seeking some understanding, some explanation that might make sense of the senseless. "Was it necessary to do it in front of the village though? Could she not have released him privately, with dignity?"
Leon spat into the dirt, his lip curled in disgust, his dark eyes tracking Rina’s retreating form with naked loathing. "No," he said, his voice harsh as gravel. "You can sever the bond in the privacy of your own home, in the quiet dark where only the ancestors bear witness. But Rina has always been that way. She wanted people to see. She wanted them to watch her power, to fear what she could do to any male who displeased her. It was never about John. It was about the rest of us, trembling in our boots, remembering who holds the knife." The drums began again, but this time they sounded like a hymn, and I stood there in Ravin’s arms, watching the blood dry in the dirt where a man had bled out after a severed bond, and wondering how many more would fall before Rina’s reign of beauty finally ended.