This Beast Tamer Has So Many Questions

The extra skills didn’t surprise him—the upgraded Blood Leech and Blood Mastery in place of the ordinary versions, the new Blood Explosion and Bloody Wounds; those were the natural fruit of Valentine’s extraordinary talent for blood, and he’d half-expected them.

It was the potential that stopped him cold.

Monarch Rank 3. Not Lord—Monarch. A full realm above the highest of its siblings, beyond even the Lord-tier ceiling he’d come to expect from his best work. And though part of him had known it was coming—the research had pointed this way, sixty-four clones promising a potential that climbed past every chart he’d drawn—seeing it written plainly still sent a shock through him.

To understand why, one had to understand what potential meant to the world.

For ordinary people, a Commander-potential beast was the realistic aspiration—the solid, respectable ceiling most could ever hope to reach. For the wealthy, or the fortunate few like his own family, Lord-potential beasts were within reach: Amia, Eiren, Rime, all of them creatures of that caliber, the kind a well-off household might secure through money and luck.

But Monarch potential was another matter entirely. A beast that could one day reach the Monarch realm was not something money alone could buy. To acquire a Monarch-potential beast—or even the method to evolve one—required connections and contributions, standing in circles most people never glimpsed. These were the treasures of great families and powerful institutions, traded in favors and influence rather than mere coin. They marked the line between the ordinary world and a far higher one.

And Elias had just casually produced one in his laboratory, and contracted it, and tucked it under his collar like a pet.

He hadn’t found a reliable, repeatable way to create Monarch-potential beasts—Valentine was an exceptional outlier, the one greedy egg in ten thousand. But the mere fact that he’d contracted such a creature was, on its own, enough to qualify him for entry into that higher world, the rarefied circles where Monarch potentials changed hands.

He wasn’t remotely prepared for that. He had no desire to be pulled into the politics of great families and powerful institutions, not now, perhaps not ever. So, as always, he would simply keep it quiet. Another secret to tuck away alongside his talent and his anonymity—one more wondrous thing the world didn’t need to know he could do.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“You and I,” he murmured to the butterfly at his neck, “are going to keep a low profile. Understood?”

Valentine, who understood nothing but the warmth of his throat and the blood beneath it, pulsed contentedly. Low profile, it was decided, would be a challenge.

Because there was the matter of hiding Valentine at all.

Elias tried, that day, to coax Valentine into his Beast Taming Space the way he did with Briar when they went out—somewhere safe and unseen. Valentine refused. Vehemently. The very suggestion sent such a wave of distress and outrage down the bond, such a desperate refusal to be parted from him, that Elias caved almost at once. It simply would not be tucked away out of reach of his blood and his warmth.

So they compromised. Valentine settled instead beneath his shirt, perched against his chest, directly over his heart where it could feel the warmth and the pulse it loved best. Elias wore thicker clothes over it to hide the small bump, and resigned himself to walking around with a butterfly pressed to his sternum. It was deeply strange. Valentine could not possibly have been happier with the arrangement.

Before heading out, he had one more bit of disguising to do—this one for Briar.

He was bringing Briar along openly today, wound about his neck in plain sight, and a Hundred Fragrance Vine on display would draw exactly the wrong kind of attention. So he asked Briar to bloom only water-attribute flowers for the outing, presenting itself as a simple, single-attribute vine rather than the impossible eight-attribute marvel it truly was. Briar obliged easily, its blossoms shifting to a uniform, unremarkable water-blue.

It helped that the Hundred Fragrance Vine had been publicly released some time ago; a vine bearing a single fragrant variety would raise no eyebrows at all. And there was a practical reason for bringing Briar out in the open, too. With the species public, Elias could now officially register Briar—which meant his vine would be entitled to all the perks afforded a registered spirit beast: special treatment, the spirit-beast spas and health care and assorted luxuries the world offered its contracted companions. Briar, asked, would always rather simply stay at his side than be pampered—but Elias wanted the option there, just in case. His companions deserved every comfort he could give them.

So he set off for the government registration office.

It was busy when he arrived—a line of people waiting with their beasts, each there to register a new member of their family, the air full of the quiet excitement of fresh contracts and proud new owners. Elias took his place in the queue and waited his turn among them, just another tamer with a new companion.

When his turn came, Briar drew a few glances—a fresh, unfamiliar spirit beast always did—but nothing more than passing curiosity. A single water-blooming vine wasn’t enough to cause a stir, exactly as he’d intended. The clerk processed the registration smoothly, and Briar was entered into the records as his official and proper, now entitled to all the care a registered beast could claim.

As he finished, Elias noticed the person at the next window registering a Lifebloom Bee—one of his own bees, evolved by some distant breeder following the method he’d given the world. They paid the small copyright fee as they registered, the modest sum owed to the anonymous discoverer for the use of the evolution.

Elias watched it with a private, quiet warmth. A small fee, barely worth noticing on its own. But multiplied across every person who would register a Lifebloom Bee over the next fifty years—and there would be so very many—those small fees would add up into something considerable indeed. More than that, every one of them was a life touched, a household helped, a piece of his work out there in the world doing exactly what he’d made it to do. The fee was nice. The sight of the bee in a stranger’s careful hands was nicer.

From there, he headed home—to introduce his family, once again, to a new contracted beast.

They marveled at Valentine’s beauty when he coaxed it out from beneath his shirt: the crystal wings, the drifting rainbow, the sheer loveliness of it. Selena admired it openly, Kyle declared it the prettiest bug he’d ever seen and immediately tried to get it to land on him, and Damien studied it with quiet, appreciative interest.

Valentine, for its part, was supremely indifferent to all of it. The admiration, the cooing, Kyle’s outstretched finger—none of it registered in the slightest. It had eyes for one person only, and clung to Elias’s neck throughout, utterly focused on its Source and supremely unbothered by anyone else’s opinion of it.

“He’s… not very social,” Elias admitted, as Valentine pointedly ignored Kyle’s third attempt at friendship.

“He’s perfect,” Kyle said, with deep respect. “Rude little thing. I love him.”

Indifferent butterfly or not, a celebration was plainly in order—for Elias’s second contract and his newest evolution both. Damien set about cooking, the family gathered close, and the warm, loud, loving ritual of an Arkwright celebration unfolded once again around its newest, most antisocial little guest.