Kaya rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hide the massive, radiant smile on her face. No one in this shiny, modern world would ever know just how incredibly, overwhelmingly happy she was to be sitting in this grass with them.
"Alright," Kaya sighed, slapping her knees and standing up. "Welcome to Earth. Try not to conquer anything before lunch."
Veer and Cutie stood up beside her, their towering frames casting long shadows over the manicured lawn.
Kaya took a moment to assess their appearance. Her crimson tunic was torn, soot-stained, and covered in dried (thankfully unidentifiable) fluids. Veer’s heavy leather coat was slashed to ribbons, and Cutie was wearing absolute rags that barely covered his massive, scarred muscles. In the context of a modern, wealthy city park, they didn’t look like warlords. They looked like high-concept, incredibly intense homeless men, or perhaps very dedicated, unhinged cosplayers.
But there was one massive, unavoidable problem.
Even covered in dirt and dressed in rags, Veer and Cutie in their human forms were absolutely, heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Veer possessed a sharp, dangerous, aristocratic beauty, while Cutie was the epitome of rugged, scarred, hyper-masculine strength.
As they walked toward the paved path, a group of college-aged girls jogging by suddenly ground to a halt.
The girls stared. They literally forgot to breathe for a second. They looked at Veer’s sharp jawline, his messy dark hair, and the effortless, predatory grace of his walk. They looked at Cutie’s towering, broad-shouldered physique.
"Oh my god," one of the girls whispered loudly. She immediately pulled out her smartphone, stepping right into their path. "Excuse me? I love your aesthetic. Can we take a picture?"
Veer blinked, staring at the glowing rectangle in the girl’s hand. He had absolutely no idea what a "picture" was, nor did he understand her strange, rapid-fire accent. But Veer was a Vulture. He was a master of reading body language, pupil dilation, and heart rates.
He took one look at their flushed cheeks and wide eyes, and he instantly knew he was being praised. The local females were admiring him.
A wicked, playful glint sparked in Veer’s eyes. But instead of puffing out his chest, the towering, lethal beastman feigned extreme shyness. He took a quick step backward and physically ducked behind Kaya.
It was a completely absurd, comical sight. Veer was well over six feet tall with shoulders like a barn door. Kaya was a petite human girl. Attempting to hide behind her was like a tiger trying to hide behind a blade of grass. He peeked over the top of Kaya’s head, giving the girls a perfectly crafted, boyishly innocent look.
Kaya closed her eyes and let out a long, suffering sigh. ’Here we go.’
"He’s shy," Kaya deadpanned to the girls, though she could feel Veer’s chest vibrating with silent laughter against her back.
But the act only made it worse. The girls practically melted on the spot, clutching their phones to their chests.
"He’s so cute!" one of them squealed, completely won over by the contrast of the towering, dangerous-looking man acting like a bashful puppy. "Just one quick photo, please?"
Before Kaya could even attempt to explain that her "shy" companion had recently decapitated a small army, Veer stepped out from behind her, flashing the girls a brilliant, devastating smile that completely sealed their fate.
Veer played the crowd with the effortless, maddening grace of a born predator. For exactly ten minutes—Kaya was counting—he basked in the flashing phone cameras, offering devastating smiles and casually leaning against a park lamppost as if he belonged on the cover of a modern fashion magazine.
Cutie, on the other hand, had zero interest in the attention. The giant, heavily scarred man practically glued himself to Kaya’s side, leaning down slightly to hide behind her shoulder. The contrast of this massive, ruggedly handsome giant acting so adorably clingy made the girls swoon even harder. A few of them eagerly stepped forward, raising their phones toward Cutie.
But Kaya immediately leveled them with a glare so profoundly dead and terrifying that the girls physically flinched. They quickly lowered their cameras, deciding the scary, dirt-covered girl was absolutely not worth crossing.
Finally, with a few disappointed sighs and giggles, the girls waved goodbye to Veer and jogged away.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Veer casually waved back, his charade dropping. Kaya crossed her arms, looking at him with heavy, sarcastic disappointment.
’’"Uh-huh,"’’ Kaya drawled, gesturing toward the retreating joggers. ’’"Looking so disappointed to see them go. Why don’t you just run after them and follow them home?"’’
Veer turned to look at her, a bright, dangerously amused smile spreading across his face. He took a step closer, leaning down into her space. ’’"Are you jealous, wife?"’’
Kaya just looked at him like he was the biggest fool in the entire multiverse. She opened her mouth to deliver a scathing retort—but the words completely died in her throat.
Veer casually reached into the pocket of his torn, ruined leather coat and pulled out a thick, folded wad of modern cash.
Kaya’s jaw practically hit the grass. She blinked, staring at the green paper in absolute shock. ’What the heck?’
’’"Where the hell did you get that?!"’’ Kaya hissed, looking around frantically. ’’"We’re standing in the middle of a park! We literally just fell out of the sky!"’’
Veer just smiled, playfully fanning the bills out like a deck of cards. ’’"Well, the girls gave it to me."’’
Kaya stared at him, her eye twitching. She had kept her eyes on him the ’entire’ ten minutes. She hadn’t seen a single girl reach into her purse, let alone hand him a wad of cash. But Veer was a Vulture. His speed and sleight of hand were so far beyond human comprehension that he could have emptied their wallets while they were blinking.
’’"Babe, did you steal it?!"’’ Kaya whispered fiercely, grabbing his wrist.
Veer merely shrugged his broad shoulders, entirely unrepentant. ’’"Consider it a handsome charge for my services as a model."’’
Kaya raised a fist, fully intending to beat him senseless. Stealing in broad daylight? In a public park with security cameras? If the cops were called, they would be arrested. They would be fingerprinted. They would be identified.
And that was when a cold, paralyzing spike of pure terror pierced Kaya’s chest.
’Prison.’
If the cops found her, she wasn’t just going to jail for petty theft. The entire reason she had run away, the entire reason she had ended up falling into that bizarre spatial anomaly to the beast world in the first place, crashed back into her mind.
Her husband. Her sister.
The two lying, cheating, absolute pieces of trash who had plotted to ruin her life. Kaya remembered the blood. She remembered the cold, brutal satisfaction of taking them out. They had absolutely deserved it, but the law didn’t care about betrayal. If the police found her now, a fugitive double-murderer who had supposedly vanished off the face of the earth, they wouldn’t just arrest her. They would shoot her on sight.
Panic, sharp and metallic, flooded her veins.
’’"Let’s run,"’’ Kaya ordered. She grabbed Veer’s hand with her left, Cutie’s hand with her right, and sprinted.
She dragged the two bewildered warlords out of the park and down a bustling, noisy sidewalk. She kept her head down, dodging pedestrians until she spotted exactly what she needed tucked into the alcove of an old convenience store: a dingy, faded public phone booth.
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