Raising Beast Cubs to Find a Husband

Chapter 219: The Assassin and the Silver Feathers

If there is one thing I have learned about raising beast-kins, it is that you cannot keep a wild creature locked inside a house. Even if that house is a massive, luxurious cliffside manor with an ocean view.

It had been two days since Lucien rescued Juni from the poacher’s cave. Cassian, in his infinite medical wisdom, had placed the Duck-kin mother on strict bed rest. He had wrapped her knee, prescribed four different herbal teas, and absolutely forbidden her from flying until her bruised wing muscles were fully healed.

Juni was handling the confinement exactly the way you would expect a fierce, independent bird-warrior to handle it.

She was going absolutely stir-crazy.

"If I have to sit on this velvet sofa for one more hour, I am going to scream," Juni muttered, pacing back and forth across the living room rug. Her beautiful, silver-tipped wings were drooping slightly, twitching with restless energy.

"You must minimize kinetic output," Cassian lectured smoothly, not looking up from his book as he sat in the armchair. "Your primary flight feathers sustained micro-fractures from the iron net. If you attempt an updraft, you will tear a ligament."

"I don’t want to attempt an updraft, Cassian," Juni sighed, running a hand through her messy golden hair. "I just want to feel the wind on my face. I’ve been inside for forty-eight hours. I smell like lavender soap and sterile bandages. I need outside."

"The outside contains unregulated humidity," Cassian pointed out.

I walked out of the kitchen, wiping my hands on my apron, my nine silver tails swishing in amusement. "Cassian, stop holding the poor woman hostage. The sun is shining. The wind is low. Let her go sit in the courtyard before she actually starts breaking the furniture."

Juni looked at me like I was her personal savior.

Cassian frowned, adjusting his round glasses. "Fine. But she is restricted to ground-level activities only. No jumping. No hovering."

"Thank you," Juni breathed a massive sigh of relief.

She didn’t waste another second. She turned and practically speed-walked toward the glass patio doors.

Pip, who was currently sitting on the floor trying to feed a piece of apple to Clover’s stuffed pink bunny, immediately dropped the fruit. He let out a loud, happy "Honk!" and waddled after his mother as fast as his chubby legs could carry him. He was, of course, wearing his bright yellow frog raincoat. He refused to take it off unless he was sleeping.

I watched them step out onto the warm, sunlit grass. Juni closed her eyes, tilting her head back and taking a deep, shuddering breath of the salty ocean air. Her wings relaxed a fraction, spreading out just a little to catch the sunlight.

"You are staring," a low, smooth voice murmured.

I didn’t jump. I just smiled, turning my head to look at the dark corner of the hallway.

Lucien stepped out of the shadows. The Panther Warlord was dressed in his usual immaculate dark suit, his violet eyes fixed entirely on the patio doors. He hadn’t stopped hovering since he brought Juni home. If she was in a room, Lucien was in the darkest corner of it, silently watching over her.

"I’m not the one staring, Lucien," I teased gently, crossing my arms. "You’ve been hiding in the hallway for twenty minutes just to make sure she didn’t trip on the rug."

The tips of Lucien’s ears turned a faint, dusty pink. He cleared his throat, adjusting his perfectly straight cuffs. "Her knee is still compromised. It is a tactical vulnerability. I am merely monitoring the situation."

"Right. Tactical," I laughed softly. I walked over and gently nudged his arm. "Go out there, tough guy. She’s probably going to try and fix her feathers, and it’s hard to reach your own back. Go help her."

Lucien froze. His violet eyes widened slightly. "Preening is a highly intimate avian ritual. If a predator approaches a bird from behind while their wings are extended, it triggers a defensive panic response. She will think I am attacking her."

I looked at the deadliest assassin in the Empire. He could dismantle a dozen armed mercenaries without blinking, but the thought of accidentally making Juni uncomfortable absolutely terrified him.

"Lucien," I said softly, looking him right in the eyes. "She fought off an army to protect her baby, and the only time she completely dropped her guard was when you offered her your hand. She trusts you. Go."

Lucien swallowed hard. He gave a sharp, single nod, took a deep breath, and stepped out onto the patio.

I immediately backed up, hiding slightly behind the curtains of the glass doors so I could shamelessly eavesdrop.

Out in the courtyard, Juni had sat down on a large, smooth stone bench beneath the ancient oak tree. Pip was happily waddling around her feet, chasing a butterfly.

Juni let out a soft sigh, stretching her magnificent white and silver wings. But as she extended the right wing, she winced. One of the long, primary flight feathers near the middle of her back was bent at a harsh, unnatural angle. The iron net from the poachers had crushed the quill.

She reached her arm over her shoulder, contorting her body as she tried to reach the bent feather to smooth it out. Her fingers brushed it, but she couldn’t get a good grip. She let out a frustrated little huff, dropping her arm.

"Allow me."

Juni gasped, her wings instinctively flaring out in defense as she spun around.

Lucien was standing a few feet away. He instantly stopped moving, holding both of his hands up where she could see them, his palms open and flat.

"I apologize," Lucien said quickly, his voice a low, rough rumble. "I did not mean to startle you. I should have announced my approach."

Juni’s defensive posture melted the second she saw him. She let out a breath, her wings dropping back down. A soft, tired smile touched her lips. "It’s okay, Lucien. You’re just very quiet."

"It is a professional habit," he murmured, taking a slow, respectful step closer. "You are struggling with a damaged flight feather. If it is not aligned properly, it will cause friction and pain when you finally attempt to fly again."

Juni looked over her shoulder at the bent silver feather, then back at Lucien. "I know. But I can’t reach it. The angle is impossible."

Lucien hesitated. He slowly lowered his hands. "If you permit it... I can assist you."

Juni looked at him. She looked at this massive, terrifying man, cloaked in dark magic and lethal secrets. For an avian beast-kin, letting a predator touch your wings was the ultimate vulnerability. It meant offering up your only means of escape.

But Juni didn’t see a monster. She saw the man who had caught her son when he fell from the sky.

"Okay," Juni said softly. She turned back around, facing the grass, and completely exposed her back to him.

Lucien looked like he had stopped breathing.

He stepped up right behind the stone bench. He slowly reached up to his wrists, unbuttoning his sleeves. He carefully peeled off his pristine black leather gloves, tucking them into his pocket. He wasn’t going to touch her with the gloves he used for his dark work. He wanted his bare hands.

Lucien’s hands were large, scarred, and heavily calloused from years of wielding daggers. But as he reached out, his fingers were perfectly, incredibly steady.

"Tell me if I use too much pressure," Lucien whispered, his voice vibrating with a terrifyingly soft intensity.

"I will," she promised.

Lucien’s fingertips gently brushed against the base of her right wing.

Juni let out a tiny, involuntary shiver at the contact. Lucien froze instantly, ready to pull away, but she leaned back just a fraction of an inch, silently telling him it was okay.

With agonizing care, Lucien began to smooth out the ruffled, dusty feathers. He worked his way up from the soft, downy base to the long, stiff primary feathers. His touch was so light, so incredibly reverent, it was as if he were handling the most fragile, priceless glass in the world.

He found the bent silver feather.

"The quill is pinched, not broken," Lucien analyzed quietly, his thumb gently tracing the smooth spine of the feather. "I need to apply pressure to the base to pop the cartilage back into alignment. It will pinch for a second."

"Do it," Juni nodded.

Lucien placed two fingers at the base of the feather. With the exact, surgical precision of a master assassin, he applied a sharp, perfectly measured amount of pressure.

There was a soft pop.

Juni gasped slightly, her shoulders tensing, but then she instantly relaxed. The bent feather snapped back into a perfect, aerodynamic line with the rest of her wing.

"Done," Lucien murmured.

But he didn’t pull his hands away.

Instead, he continued to gently smooth his palms down the length of her wings, carefully brushing away the dirt and dust that still clung to her feathers from the cavern fight.

Juni closed her eyes, letting out a long, trembling sigh of pure relief. The tension that had been coiled tight in her spine for the last two days finally began to melt away under his warm, careful touch.

"You have very gentle hands, shadow-cat," Juni whispered, a teasing, affectionate lilt in her voice.

Lucien’s violet eyes darkened. He looked down at the beautiful, golden-haired woman sitting so trustingly in front of him.