43 Brewing Tensions

After Iris finished greeting the last of the single males, it was finally time to go. Caspian gathered all of Iris's gifts into two large beast skin bags while Basil and Ember stood on either side of Iris carefully guarding her. They slowly made their way out of the arena to the still crowded streets.

To Iris's utter horror, there were several females who had not successfully secured inn rooms openly fucking in the street. Iris tried to look away but it seemed that no matter where she looked there was someone copulating with their new mates. Basil, seeing Iris's discomfort, leaned in to whisper

"Don't worry, that'll be us soon."

Iris blushed harder as she ran towards Caspian and hid behind him. Caspian chuckled as he nudged her back towards the vixen.

"You said you wanted him, don't go getting all shy now."

Caspian actually quite enjoyed Iris's flushed cheeks and mousy behavior. While he'd certainly prefer to take advantage of the situation and be greedy with her attentions, his hands were too full to properly guard her currently.

Suddenly, Ivy cam waltzing over with her new mates in tow and a nasty scowl on her face. With the fresh stench of sex sticking to her, the putrid smell she usually emitted was even worse than usual. Iris felt the need to retreat as her gag reflexes kicked into over gear.

Seeing Ember with Iris, Ivy felt wronged. It was like Iris was always trying to upstage Ivy and make her look bad. First she gets kicked out of an event everyone else in the tribe was invited to. Then Ivy had to get an earful from her father about how her actions effected him and how she should have been more careful to not be caught stealing from others. Now, Iris had stolen the male Ivy had long had her eyes on.

Ember was the strongest among all the tribes in the area. He had never shown any interest in any females before this, no matter how much Ivy tried to seduce him. Feeling pissed off as all Hell, Ivy tried to get closer to Iris as she started shouting like a banshee.

"You evil bitch! You're always causing me trouble and taking things away from me. Now you want to steal my males too?"

Ivy stumbled forward into Iris and was quickly shoved forward to the point of falling down on her ass. Iris began to retch due to the overwhelming stench and had shoved Ivy away without even thinking about it. Ivy began to lose her mind even further as she started to scream obscenities and death threats at Iris.

One of Ivy's males began to step forward to attack Iris for hurting his mate. However, before he could even take another step, Ember quickly transformed his hands into claws and lashed out at him. The male fell to his knees as the tendons in his legs were sliced open.

Seeing one of her males go down, Ivy began to bawl and more off her mates stepped forward to attack. Since a fight was no longer unavailable, Basil stepped forward to help Ember take care of them.

Basil fought mostly with hand to hand combat using his fists and claws to efficiently knock down enemies. Meanwhile, Ember just continued to slice open vital arteries and leave his enemies helpless as they bled out on the ground.

As none of Ivy's mates were higher than three starred beasts, they were easily overwhelmed by Basil and Ember. Soon the city guard rushed over to interrupt the fight but it was too little too late.

Basil sighed as he realized he would have to make an official statement on the matter. Since it was necessary to see the city's beast king and notify him that he'd be leaving in the morning due to finding a mate, Basil felt he might as well get it over with. Turning to Iris, he gave her a gentle kiss on her forehead as he said

"You all go back to my home. I need to sort this out so I will have to meet up with you later. I will, hopefully be back by dinner time."

Ember quickly scooped Iris up and followed Caspian to the witch doctor's home. Once they were safely inside Caspian set the bags down and went to Iris's side. Caspian knew that Ivy had a knack for stressing his little mate out and was worried about her emotional state.

Basil quickly walked over to the guards who were all quite familiar with him. Unlike when he was with Iris, Basil had a very serious business like attitude as he said

"Come on, let's go see old king Lionel to sort this mess out."

The guards had no issue with this at all. They'd normally have had to capture both parties and consult the king on what to do anyhow. Since the winning party was familiar and was willingly submitting himself before the king, this made their jobs much easier.

Basil watched as more guards came to help round up Ivy and her mates. If it was up to him, he'd have left them there to bleed out into the streets, but he chose to keep that to himself. The king was an old friend after all and Basil didn't want to make things difficult.

When they got to the inner city, the quality of homes increased by quite a bit. Many of the homes were larger two story stone homes with stone walls surrounding them. The inner courtyards were often filled with lush plants that added even more beauty and color to the otherwise blandly colored homes.

In the inner city was also the temple and a large palace. Considering the inner city was exclusively for royalty as well as priests and their attendees, it only made sense. The palace was very large with three floors and quite a bit of footage taken up. The outside had large stone pillars set into the stone brick building that added extra luxury.

Stepping into the inner palace, Basil was met with the familiar endless hallways filled with rooms. Along the center of the hallways were many of the softest furs extravagantly laid out. The beast king's mate was among the most pampered females around with nothing being too great a task for her mates to accomplish for her. Obviously, obtaining such soft furs for her to comfortably walk through the palace was easily done.

Basil smiled as he thought about how he used to tease old king Lionel for such extravagance. Now Basil could relate as he had his own soon to be mate he was already eager to pamper. Yes, Basil was already sure there was very little he wouldn't do for Iris.

Coming into the throne room, Basil was met by a large intricately carved set of stone chairs. This was the only furniture besides the furs on the floor as beastmen were not known to have much of any furnishings in their homes.

King Lionel greeted Basil with a warm smile as he entered the room. Basil quickly kneeled before the king, offering him his greetings.

"Greetings, beast king Lionel. I am here regarding two matters, the first of which I assume the guards have already informed you of?"

King Lionel sighed as he said

"Yes, of course they have. I hear you were part of a fight between two females? That doesn't seem very like you."

Basil awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck as he explained

"Yes, about that. I have found a mate and it is now my job to protect my female. I'm afraid the other party lashed out first at my mate because she gained the affections of a male the other party wanted. If I had not stepped in, the other party would have harmed my mate.

I would certainly never want to cause trouble out of respect for you, but it was unavailable. I was sure to only incapacitate the female's males and not a single finger was laid on the female."

King Lionel nodded in understanding. He had known Basil for many years and knew violence was quite unlike him. However, he couldn't help but joke sadly

"I suppose this may be the last time I see you then. If you have a mate now then that means you will have to follow her. We'll have difficulty replacing such a fine witch doctor."

Basil smiled sadly at his old friend. He had known him since he was a young cub and first learning from his old mentor. King Lionel was his oldest friend, but it couldn't be helped.

"Yes, well, I'm sure there will be plenty of choices among the apprentices in the nearby tribes. Even if you have to do without a witch doctor for a while, the priests have some practical knowledge."

King Lionel nodded as he acknowledged what Basil was saying to be true. Deciding he had taken up enough of his old friends, the king went to dismiss him.

"Alright, well you should get back to your mate. Don't cause any more trouble for me while you are here. I'll sort out the rest."

Basil happily bid goodbye as he rushed home to Iris.