Villainess is being pampered by her beast husbands

"See? At least Cutie has an appreciation for the culinary arts," Kaya praised, patting the giant bear-like arm next to her. She looked back over at Veer, raising a defiant eyebrow. "Tomorrow, we are making Beggar’s Chicken. And if you want even a single bite of it, you’re going to have to help us gather the firewood."

Veer resting his chin in his hand, watching her with a lazy, captivated smile. "As you wish, my fierce general. If digging in the dirt gets me a taste of your modern world, I’ll bring you an entire forest of timber."

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.

.

The rest of the evening passed in a comfortable, albeit bizarre, domestic harmony. The roaring campfire slowly crackled down into a bed of glowing orange embers, casting long, dancing shadows across the cavern walls. Exhaustion finally overpowered Kaya’s germaphobia, and she collapsed onto a makeshift bed of thick, surprisingly soft animal pelts, falling into a deep, dreamless sleep almost the second her head hit the bundle of furs.

When morning came, it didn’t arrive with the gentle chirping of birds. It arrived with the rhythmic, ground-shaking thud of fifty overly enthusiastic beastmen chanting outside the cave.

Kaya groaned, dragging a hand down her face as she sat up. Every muscle in her body ached from the previous day’s fight. She tied her messy hair back into a tight ponytail, strapped her hunting knife to her thigh, and marched out toward the cave entrance, fully prepared to yell at whoever was making that ungodly racket.

But as she stepped out into the crisp, morning sunlight, the scowl melted right off her face.

Cutie was sitting patiently just outside the entrance. True to his word, the giant rabbit-bear beastman had been awake since dawn. Next to him was a massive pile of incredibly smooth, thick gray clay harvested from the riverbank, and a stack of enormous, vibrant green leaves that looked like prehistoric lotus pads. He had even dug a perfect, deep roasting pit near the main campfire and filled it with hot, smoking coals.

Seeing her emerge, Cutie let out a happy, rumbling grunt, gesturing to his gathered supplies.

"Cutie, you are an absolute treasure," Kaya praised, all her morning irritation vanishing. She immediately rolled up her sleeves and got to work.

Under the curious, massive eyes of the rabbit beastman, Kaya prepared the meal. She took three freshly cleaned wild chickens, rubbing them generously inside and out with coarse salt and the crushed, aromatic herbs she had discovered in the woods. She tightly wrapped each bird in several layers of the giant green leaves, securing them with thin vines. Then came the messy part. She completely encased the leaf bundles in a thick, heavy layer of the wet river clay, packing it down until they looked like three oversized, gray dinosaur eggs.

With Cutie’s help, she carefully buried the heavy mud balls deep beneath the glowing coals in the roasting pit, covering them entirely with hot ash and extra firewood.

"Now," Kaya said, wiping her muddy hands on a rag. "We let the fire do the rest of the work. By the time we finish our war council, those will be ready to crack open."

"A war council and a feast. You certainly know how to keep morale high."

Kaya turned to see Veer strolling up the incline. The Vulture chief looked entirely too energetic for the early hour. He was dressed in his dark, lightweight combat gear, his twin curved blades strapped securely to his back. He stood next to her, looking down at the smoking pit of dirt with a highly skeptical raised eyebrow, though he wisely chose not to comment on it again.

"How are our collateral recruits doing?" Kaya asked, gesturing toward the valley below.

Down in the clearing, the fifty-odd beastmen who had swallowed her "Free Clan" lie were currently marching in messy, uncoordinated circles. They were armed with an absurd assortment of weapons—everything from rusty iron swords to heavy wooden clubs—and they were passionately banging on large, hollowed-out tree trunks serving as war drums. They were loud, they were chaotic, and they looked incredibly formidable from a distance, even if they had zero actual military training.

"They are incredibly motivated," Veer noted, a wicked smirk playing on his lips. "I told them that the Snake Tribe sent assassins in the night to murder their glorious new leader, but that you single-handedly slaughtered them all and sent the survivors back crying. They practically view you as a god now. If you asked them to march into a volcano, I think half of them would actually do it."

Kaya winced, a sudden pang of guilt hitting her chest. "Make sure they don’t actually get close enough to the canyon to engage in combat. Their only job is to be the loudest, most obnoxious distraction in history. I want them banging those drums and screaming at the canyon gates until Lord Siss pulls every single archer and guard he has to the front wall."

"It’s already in motion," Veer assured her, his tone sharpening into the deadly focus of a true predator. "My Vulture scouts left before sunrise. They are currently scattering across the Western trade routes, casually dropping the news that the Free Clan survived the assassination and is marching on the Venom-tooth Canyons. By tomorrow evening, the Snake Tribe will be in a state of absolute paranoia."

Kaya nodded, her tactical mind taking over. She grabbed a stick and began sketching a crude map in the dirt near the fire.

"The Snake Tribe relies on the toxic marshlands around their canyon to deter frontal assaults," she explained, drawing a jagged circle. "Lord Siss is arrogant, but he isn’t stupid. When our fake army shows up at his doorstep, he will assume it’s a suicide charge. He’ll line his walls with archers to rain paralytic poison arrows down on them. While he is entirely focused on the front..."

She dragged the stick around to the back of the drawn canyon.

"...We hit the absolute rear of the canyon. You said the night patrols are made of cold-blooded beastmen, right? Snakes, lizards, that sort of thing?"

"Yes," Veer nodded, crouching down next to her. "They can sense body heat, which makes them impossible to sneak past in the dark. But their biology makes them incredibly lethargic when the temperature drops."

"Then we strike exactly one hour before dawn," Kaya declared, her eyes burning with a fierce intensity. "The coldest, darkest part of the night. By the time our distraction army starts making noise at the front gates at sunrise, we will already be over the back wall and inside their inner stronghold."

Cutie let out a low, menacing growl, flexing his massive, clawed hands in anticipation. He might prefer berries and vegetables, but he was more than ready to tear apart anyone who threatened his new family.

"It’s a bold plan," Veer admitted, his eyes tracing her face with an undeniable edge of admiration. "Just the three of us infiltrating the wealthiest, most heavily guarded stronghold in the West."

"We aren’t just infiltrating it, Veer," Kaya corrected, tossing the stick into the fire. She stood up, brushing the dirt from her knees. "We are going to rob them blind, burn their supplies, and assassinate their leadership."

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