Ren was completely frozen, his white-furred ears glowing a spectacular shade of crimson.

His black-striped tail was locked in a rigid, vertical line of absolute, mind-blown shock.

He looked up at Hana as she calmly stared at him after she had just kissed him.

"So, will you?" Hana asked, her voice dropping into that flat tone that brooked absolutely no room for debate.

​Right now, what she had done was no different from a tactical proposal. But it was a very specific, calculated kind of proposal—she had intentionally granted him a taste of her so the lingering sensation would completely scramble his logical thinking, clouding his judgment so he would ultimately agree to become her mate and abandon everything else.

Leaving his pack and his position as the Alpha warrior wouldn’t be easy, but she had just applied the perfect psychological leverage to tip the balance.

​Ren’s heart was racing violently against his ribs, his body completely rigid and his icy blue eyes blown wide in total, paralyzed shock.

Hana had just kissed him.

A female had actually taken the initiative to kiss him. It was an absolute first for him in his entire life, and to think it would be with Hana... Was this a dream? She had even asked him to become her fourth mate. It had to be a dream.

​He gripped his chest, his palm flattening over his tactical harness as his heart beat uncontrollably beneath his white fur. But then, as the initial shock began to process, he remembered what she had told him just moments ago.

They had fought because of her decision. That meant she was actively getting into intense, exhausting friction with her current mates because of him.

He didn’t want to be the flaw that caused her family to collapse.

​"Hana, I’ll give you an answer," Ren said, his voice cracking slightly as he forced himself to meet her dark, unyielding gaze. "But... will you do me one favor first? Can you speak with your mates again and hear them out?"

​Hana furrowed her brows into a deep, sharp scowl. The kiss was supposed to completely short-circuit his brain and force an immediate compliance, but she guessed there was simply no helping it if the cat was born helplessly, annoyingly kind.

He was still trying to manage her household balance instead of his own desire.

​She let out a slow, heavy sigh through her nose and gave a sharp, curt nod. "Yes, I’ll do that. But I expect a response by this evening. And I expect it to be positive."

​Without waiting for his acknowledgement, Hana turned on her heel and began her march back toward the hut, leaving him standing alone by the snow-dusted stump.

​As soon as her white dress disappeared past the rocky ridge, a sharp rustle of leather and fur broke the silence.

A young female named Brenda stepped out from behind the nearby rocks, followed closely by Ren’s sister, Mina.

Brenda’s face was twisted into a tight, unsightly mask of pure jealousy and rage.

She had been looking for Ren, hoping to speak with him but ended up seeing him sitting with the pregnant human.

As such, she ended up hearing the last part of their conversation. She had realized instantly that the hairless human was trying to steal their Alpha from the tribe.

​"The human female thinks she is just all that!" Brenda began to shriek, her white-furred tail thrashing aggressively against the snow as she turned to Ren. "She doesn’t care about you at all, Alpha! She just wants to add you to her collection of handsome males! She is already heavy with another male’s lineage, and she is still walking around thinking about how to get another mate! Isn’t she too much? Putting her eyes on our strongest warrior!"

​Brenda paced back and forth, her claws digging into her leather skirts as she ranted, her voice rising in pitch. "She thinks she can just walk into our valley and take whatever she wants! She’s disgusting!"

​"Brenda, stop it!" Mina cut in fiercely, her own ears pinning back as she glared at her friend. "Hana really is amazing and kind! She’s the one who discovered the High Matriarch’s illusion array, and she didn’t hesitate to save us the moment she found out we were being held captive in that dark vault! She didn’t even know us!"

​"You’re only saying that because she saved your skin!" Brenda snapped back venomously, her eyes flashing with spite. "But if you look at her true colors, you’d see that she’s just a selfish, lewd female who—"

​"Brenda, shut up." Ren hissed.

​The command was so sudden, so sharp, and so absolutely dripping with a terrifying, cold fury that Brenda instantly choked on her words, her entire body flinching backward.

​Even Mina froze, her jaw dropping slightly. She had never, in her entire life, seen her brother look this angry.

The skin between his icy blue eyes was heavily furrowed, his lips pulled back just enough to expose his sharp fangs, and his black-striped tail was stiffened into a deadly, unyielding rod.

The usual easygoing, sunshine Alpha was completely gone, replaced by a lethal beastman whose protective instincts had just been violently triggered.

​"You don’t get to talk about Hana that way," Ren rumbled, his voice dropping into a dangerous, guttural growl that vibrated through the snow clearing. "So what if she’s selfish and lewd? Are you or the females in this tribe any different?"

​"I... I..." Brenda stammered, her pale cheeks turning completely white as she shrank beneath his gaze.

​"But compared to you all, Hana is amazing," Ren stated firmly, stepping forward as his large frame completely cast a shadow over her. "She has the absolute right to want only the best things, and the best mates. At least she’s not sitting around on her tail, waiting for a male to bring her rations every single day."

His icy eyes flashed with a blunt, cutting disdain that was clearly directed toward Brenda and the other lazy, unmotivated females of the tribe who did nothing but complain.

"She’s hairless with limbs that look like they could snap if her mates held her too roughly, and she’s heavy with a child, but she is still walking around, moving from territory to territory to defend her mates and get exactly what she wants." He snarled. "Don’t you dare insult her just because you’re jealous."

​Brenda was completely short of words, her chest heaving as tears of shock and humiliation began to well up in her eyes.

What had come over Ren all of a sudden?