CHAPTER 374: CHAPTER-374.

A small breath of relief escaped Kaya before she could stop it. [8]

Thank God. [8]

When she’d first seen the brown bundle crash to the floor, her heart had almost stopped—but one look had already told her this wasn’t *her* Sparrow. [8]

And now this idiot had just proved it again. [8]

But her eyes dropped to the little body lying on the ground. [8]

Whoever this Sparrow was, he was still bleeding, still not moving. [8]

And from the way the jackal spoke, Kaya knew he wasn’t talking about the half‑dead one at her feet. [8]

She lifted her head slowly. [8]

"Who," she asked, voice flat, "are you talking about?" [8]

The jackal sneered, teeth flashing. [8]

"Don’t you dare act ignorant," he spat. [8]

"Just hand that bastard Sparrow beastman over to us... and we’ll let you go." [8]

Kaya’s eyes turned ice‑cold as she stared at him.

"Who are you," she asked, voice low, "and how dare you enter here without permission?"

This wasn’t just any building. This hotel was part of the wolf tribe’s property; their people guarded this area, their rules controlled who came and went. No one should be able to walk in so easily. The more she thought about it, the colder her stomach felt. If someone like him could slip inside without a sound... what else had already gotten past them?

He heard her and it was like she’d told the funniest joke in the world.

The jackal threw his head back and burst into loud, ugly laughter.

"Permission? And *we*?" he mocked, wiping at the corner of his eye as if she’d made him laugh too hard. "Hah. Woman, you really don’t know who we are."

Kaya’s jaw tightened. As much as she wanted to spit back, she couldn’t deny that part. She didn’t need some Einstein‑level brain to see these people weren’t small fry. The last person who managed to break in here had been a top assassin—and now there was a whole group standing in front of her.

That alone was enough to make a cold weight sit in her stomach.

’Damn it’, kaya muttered under her breath.

Hearing that, Kaya looked at him like he was something stuck to her shoe.

"Yeah, yeah," she said. "Just some idiot who thinks this place is an open public park."

The man actually paused, brows pulling together. "Huh?"

Her gaze turned colder. "Listen carefully," she said, voice calm, almost bored. "Either you walk out of here on your own two legs... or I send you out on four shoulders."

This time he understood.

His face twisted, eyes shaking with rage. "You bitch," he spat.

He stepped forward, and his eyes flashed gold. The easy human shape on him felt like a lie—his body tensed, muscles bunching, and in the next heartbeat he jumped straight at her.

Kaya slipped to the side, his weight cutting through the air where she’d been a second ago. Wind brushed her cheek, carrying his wild, animal smell.

"Damn it," she hissed under her breath.

Inside, her heart slammed against her ribs. Every instinct screamed at her to run, to duck, to curl in—but she had already learned the hard way what happens when you show your back to a monster. In her old world, in alleys and war zones, she had seen what "fear" did to people. It turned them into meat.

*Never show fear in front of a beast.*

Not when it has claws.

Not when it has power.

Not when it thinks you’re prey.

That rule was carved into her bones. It had kept her alive long before this world, long before beastmen and tribes and glowing gold eyes.

So even though her stomach was tight and her palms were a little damp, Kaya straightened her spine and looked him in the eye.

"Is that all you’ve got?" she sneered. "You bark louder than you bite."

The jackal beastman’s lips peeled back, saliva dripping from his teeth. A low growl rolled out of his chest, rough and ugly, echoing off the walls. He raised his hand, nails catching the weak light—long, curved, sharp enough that Kaya could almost feel them cutting through her skin already, down to bone.

For a moment, she saw it in her mind: herself on the floor, torn open, just another body that thought it could stand against a monster and failed.

She took a slow breath instead.

Her fingers tightened around the broken chair leg in her hand. The wood was rough, edges jagged, pressing hard into her skin. It hurt. Good. It kept her here, now, not in old memories.

He lunged again.

This time, Kaya did not dodge. She stepped in.

Her arm swung fast and clean, all her weight and anger and fear behind it. The broken chair leg smashed into his mouth with a sick, heavy crack. The jagged wood forced its way between his teeth, tearing his lip and ripping along his cheek toward his ear.

His head snapped to the side. A spray of warm blood hit her arm and cheek.

He screamed—more animal than man.

As he staggered back, clutching his face, Kaya kept her feet planted and her eyes on him. Her heart was still racing, her body still buzzing with fear, but she didn’t let it reach her face.

Beasts understood one thing: weakness or will.

Right now, even shaking inside, she refused to be the weaker one.

A sudden thought hit Kaya like a slap.

Wait.

Cutie and Veer always had her back. By now, in any normal fight, they would’ve already jumped in. Veer wasn’t here, fine, she could understand that. But Cutie?

Why was it so quiet behind her?

The question made her chest tighten. She turned her head, half expecting to see Cutie frozen in fear or hiding behind a table.

Instead, her mind blanked.

Cutie wasn’t standing there uselessly. In his arms—well, locked tight against his biceps—was another jackal beastman, struggling and failing to move. Cutie had him in a chokehold so firm the guy’s feet barely touched the floor.