Raising Beast Cubs to Find a Husband-Chapter 183: The Great Pizza Experiment

If the Royal Kitchens were a battlefield, Primrose was the General, and The Kids were her chaotic infantry.

"Alright, listen up, troops!" Primrose commanded, standing on a stool so she could see over the massive wooden island. "Today, we are making history. We are making... Pizza."

A silence fell over the room.

Ophelia sat on the counter, swinging her legs. Her hand flickered slightly—transparent for a second—but she hid it by grabbing a rolling pin.

"Pee-zah?" Rurik sounded skeptical. He was wearing his new blue suit jacket over a flour-dusted apron. "Is it meat? If it is not meat, I am not interested."

"It is better than meat," Primrose promised. "It is bread, sauce, and cheese, baked until it becomes happiness. Now, wash your hands! Sanitation is the first rule of warfare!"

The Seven Heirs scrambled to the sinks.

Arjun marched to the sink. He didn’t just wash his hands; he scrubbed them with the intensity of a surgeon prepping for battle. "Scrubbing initiated! Germs are the enemy!" 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Jasper stood on a step-stool. He didn’t splash. He observed the water flow, adjusted the temperature to the optimal degree for yeast activation, and washed with precise, calculated movements.

Silas washed his hands silently and disappeared into the shadows of the pantry to find olives.

Orion splashed water everywhere until Caspian caught him.

Vali growled at the soap because it smelled like flowers.

Clover hummed a little song, carefully drying her paws.

Ellia supervised everyone like a tiny Empress, pointing out spots they missed.

The Assembly Line

"Station One: Dough!" Primrose pointed to the flour-covered table.

Jax was stationed there. As a former Jade Serpent Guard, he treated the dough like an unruly prisoner.

WHAM.

Jax slammed the dough onto the table. "Target subdued," he reported, pinning the dough ball down. "It’s trying to rise, Primrose. Do I need to detain it?"

"Gentler, Jax," Luna laughed, dusting his nose with flour. "It’s yeast, not an intruder. You have to massage it, not arrest it."

Jax blushed. "Right. Massage. Tactical kneading."

Caspian and Orion were in charge of the tomatoes. Since they were Water-aligned, they didn’t need crushers. They used hydro-pressure to pulverize the tomatoes into a perfect puree.

"More basil," Ophelia critiqued, dipping a finger into the bowl. "It needs a kick. Do we have any of those spicy peppers from the Fire Sector?"

"Grandma, this is for the kids," Primrose warned.

"The kids are Heirs," Ophelia argued. "If they can’t handle a jalapeño, how will they handle a dragon?"

This was where the chaos truly lived.

Primrose had laid out bowls of everything: cured sausage (pepperoni), ham, mushrooms, peppers, onions, olives, and—at Ophelia’s insistence—pineapple (which caused a near-civil war between Rurik and Rajah).

"Make your own," Primrose told the kids. "Personal pizzas. Go wild."

Arjun took his dough seriously.

"Phalanx formation!" Arjun muttered to himself. He began arranging his pepperoni slices in perfect, overlapping rows, creating an impenetrable shield of meat. "If I layer the cheese here, it will reinforce the crust perimeter against structural collapse!"

Next to him, Jasper was working with the focus of a genius.

He wasn’t making a face or a fortress. He was calculating the surface area.

"The cheese-to-sauce ratio must be 1.5 to 1," Jasper murmured, using a small ruler he kept in his pocket. "If the moisture content is too high, the center will be soggy. I must distribute the mushrooms evenly to ensure thermal equilibrium."

Vali didn’t care about math or formations. He cared about one thing: Meat.

He took his dough and punched it flat. Then, he proceeded to build a mountain.

Sausage. Ham. Bacon. Venison. More sausage. There was no sauce. There was no cheese. Just a pile of carnivore dreams.

"It needs balance," Jasper noted, looking over. "That is not a pizza, Vali. That is a meat-cairn."

"It’s protein," Vali grunted, guarding his pile.

Next to him, Clover was working diligently.

She had rolled her dough into a perfect heart shape. She spread a thin layer of white sauce. Then, she arranged her toppings: carrots (julienned), broccoli, and sweet corn.

She placed each piece of corn individually to make a smiley face.

Rurik walked by. He looked at Vali’s pizza and nodded approvingly. "Good lad. That looks like a warrior’s meal."

Then he looked at Clover’s pizza.

"Vegetables?" Rurik scoffed playfully. "Little Bunny, that’s rabbit food. Where’s the flavor? Where’s the blood? You can’t grow big and strong on broccoli!"

Clover shrank back. Her long bunny ears drooped. She looked at her carefully constructed smiley face and felt silly.

"I... I like carrots," she whispered, looking down at her feet.

Rurik opened his mouth to tease her again—he was a Wolf, teasing was how they showed affection—but a low, vibrating growl stopped him.

Vali.

The six-year-old Wolf Heir had abandoned his Meat Mountain. He stepped between Rurik and Clover. His red eyes were flashing. His baby fangs were bared.

"Leave her alone, Dad," Vali snarled.

Rurik blinked. He looked at his son, then at the terrified bunny. He saw the genuine protective instinct in Vali’s stance.

He raised his hands in surrender.

"Alright, alright. Stand down, pup. I was just joking."

Rurik ruffled Vali’s hair (and got bitten on the thumb for his trouble) before wandering off to find the cheese.

Vali turned back to Clover. The growl vanished instantly.

He looked at her veggie pizza. He looked at his meat pizza.

He reached into his bowl of precious, hoard-worthy bacon. The crispest, most perfect piece.

He placed it gently on Clover’s pizza, right in the middle of the smiley face, making it look like a nose.

"For flavor," Vali grunted, looking away so she wouldn’t see his face turning red. "Vegetables are... okay. If you like them."

Clover stared at the bacon. She knew how much Vali loved bacon. He had once fought Arjun for a single strip during breakfast.

And he gave it to her.

Her ears perked up. A shy smile spread across her face.

"Thanks, Vali," she whispered.

She reached out and patted his messy hair.

Vali froze. His tail gave a traitorous thump-thump against the stool leg.

"Yeah. Whatever," Vali mumbled. But he didn’t move away. He stayed right next to her, glaring at anyone else who looked at her pizza the wrong way.

From the other side of the island, Primrose and Ophelia watched the scene.

"Young love," Ophelia whispered, sipping her wine. "Disgusting. I love it."

"He gave her his bacon," Primrose noted. "That’s practically a marriage proposal in Wolf culture."

Once the pizzas were assembled, they had to be baked.

The Royal Ovens were large, stone hearths burning with magical fire.

Jax stood by the oven door holding a long wooden paddle like a spear.

"Identify yourself," Jax told Silas, who had silently appeared with a pizza covered in nothing but black olives and dark mushrooms.

Silas stared at him with violet eyes.

"Proceed," Jax opened the door.

One by one, the pizzas went in.

Ten minutes later, the smell hit them.

It was the smell of baked bread, melting cheese, and garlic. It was the smell of home.

Jax pulled them out one by one.

"Hot! Hot!" Primrose warned as she sliced them.

They gathered around the island. There were no plates. Just napkins and greedy hands.

Ophelia picked up a slice.

The cheese stretched. It kept stretching. A long, golden bridge of mozzarella connected the slice to her mouth.

She bit down. The crunch of the crust. The tang of the sauce. The salt of the cheese.

Ophelia closed her eyes. She slumped against the counter.

"I’m crying," she announced. "My soul is weeping."

"Is it good?" Primrose asked, grinning.

"It’s better than the motorcycle," Ophelia declared. "It’s better than the victory parade. Why did we fight wars over land? We should have fought wars over this."

She pointed a crust at Leonis, who had just walked in to see what the commotion was.

"Emperor!" Ophelia shouted. "New law. Tuesdays are Pizza Days. Mandatory."

Leonis looked at the messy kitchen, the flour-covered Warlords, and the happy children. He took a slice of Rajah’s spicy pizza.

He took a bite.

"Granted," Leonis said, chewing happily. "We shall write it into the constitution."

As the sun began to set, the kitchen was a disaster zone of flour and empty trays.

The kids were in a food coma pile in the corner. Vali was asleep with his head on Clover’s lap. Clover was absentmindedly braiding his fur. Arjun was giving Ellia a tactical debriefing on the structural integrity of the crust. Jasper was feeding a piece of crust to Pickles.

Primrose leaned against the sink, washing the last pan.

Ophelia came up beside her. She picked up a towel to dry.

For a moment, it was just domestic silence. The clinking of dishes. The hum of the magical lights.

Then, Ophelia dropped the towel.

Primrose looked down.

Ophelia’s hand had phased through the cloth.

Primrose froze. She looked at Ophelia’s face.

Ophelia wasn’t looking at her hand. She was looking at the kids. At Vali and Clover. At the life buzzing in the room.

"It’s getting harder to hold the shape," Ophelia admitted softly. "The coffee helped. But the tank is running low, Prim."

Primrose grabbed Ophelia’s arm. Her grip was firm, but she could feel a coldness seeping through the leather jacket.

"Not yet," Primrose pleaded. "We haven’t done the beach. We haven’t done the wedding."

"I know," Ophelia smiled, but it was tired. "I’m trying, Little Fox. I promise. I’m holding on with both hands."

She looked at the pizza stone cooling on the counter.

"But this..." she gestured to the room. "This was a good day. A really good day."

She turned to Primrose, her blue eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

"If I go tomorrow... know that I went full. And happy."

"You’re not going tomorrow," Primrose said stubbornly. "Jax is building the sidecar for the bike. We have plans."

Ophelia chuckled. She retrieved the towel, focusing her will until her hand became solid enough to grip it again.

"Okay," Ophelia agreed. "Plans. Let’s stick to the plan."

But as she walked away, Primrose saw her feet flicker—just for a second—before hitting the floor again.

The echo was fading. And no amount of pizza could stop the silence from creeping in.