Asher and Jeffrey left to search for Danny, leaving only Joshua and Devin behind with Hannah.
Feeling the weight of their gazes on her, Hannah found herself growing uneasy. She turned away and used the chance to quietly inspect the place.
Life in this primitive world was far from comfortable. The entrance had been carefully reinforced with thick branches woven together with vines, creating a barrier that kept out most of the harsh, cutting wind.
Years of wear had smoothed the walls, while the ground was covered in a thick bed of dried grass. Scattered across it were at least seven hides from different beasts, layered together to provide comfort.
Every bit of this had been arranged by Hannah's father.
He spent most of the year away from home, but he had poured all his care and affection into raising Hannah.
More than twenty carefully preserved hides were stacked neatly along one side of the cave. A few steps away, rough stone shelves had been filled with stored food. Rows of dried meat strips stretched across part of the wall, while baskets overflowing with wild fruits still carried tiny beads of morning dew.
Hannah approached a large clay jar brimming with clear water. She leaned over the surface and froze for a moment, captivated by the reflection staring back at her.
It belonged to a young female with long, curling purple hair and features so delicate that they seemed almost unreal. Her deep-set eyes shimmered like they held the distant glow of countless stars.
She had never imagined this body would be so breathtakingly beautiful. The contrast was almost impossible to reconcile with the cruel, twisted personality of its former owner.
She had already made her decision. The five males bound to her were none other than the ruthless villains from the novel. Remaining by their side would only bring her death. Her only chance of surviving was finding her father.
He was the only one who had ever loved her without conditions, and with his S-rank power, he was already strong enough to protect her. If she could reach him before he ran into danger and break the bonds tying her to these mates, she might still be able to save her life.
But this was the werecreature universe—a brutal world where danger lurked everywhere and powerful beasts ruled the wild. A female who lacked both combat strength and a beast form like her had no hope of surviving alone. Without strong males to shield her, she wouldn't be able to go and find her father.
In this world, females were a rare treasure. Because of that, it was common for one female to have several mates bound to her.
Only the combined protection of multiple powerful mates could keep a female safe in such a dangerous world.
"Are you thinking about a new way to torture us?" Joshua's voice broke the quiet at that moment, his usually pleasant tone carrying a sharp edge of ridicule.
Hannah slowly turned around, only to find Joshua tracing the scar across his face with one finger. The firelight flickered against his pale green eyes, casting them in a chilling, unreadable glow.
Nearby, Devin kept his gaze lowered, his long silver-white hair falling forward to conceal most of his expression. The only sign of the emotions he was struggling to suppress was the way his hands had curled into tight fists. There was no mistaking it—they both believed she was plotting some new way to torment them.
Hannah felt a bit resigned. "You'll understand soon enough."
Before she could say anything more, the sound of heavy footsteps came from the entrance.
A moment later, Asher and Jeffrey appeared, carrying a wooden tub that reached nearly to their waists. The container was filled with clear creek water, and resting inside it was Danny, his body partially submerged.
Hannah's breath caught at the scene before her.
Danny's soft, wavy light-blue hair was soaked through and plastered against his cheeks and neck. The wet strands only served to make his already delicate face look ethereal.
His eyes remained half-open, long lashes weighed down by tiny beads of water. There was no trace of life in his gaze.
What truly shocked Hannah was his tail. It was supposed to be covered in delicate, shimmering scales. Instead, all that remained was torn, exposed flesh soaked in blood. The clear water around him had turned into a pool of crimson.
Even after he had endured such suffering, his features were still impossibly refined. The sharp bridge of his nose, the full curve of his lips, and the elegant line of his jaw gave him a beauty that surpassed that of most females.
Yet that breathtaking appearance had been swallowed by a sense of emptiness—the kind left behind only by unbearable pain and complete despair.
The sight struck Hannah like a blade straight through her chest.
Only then did she understand why these five males would rather gamble their lives against the backlash of breaking their bonds than continue carrying the mate beast marks that tied them to her.
The original Hannah had not merely tormented their bodies day after day; she had also stripped away their dignity.
Asher lowered the tub to the ground. His expression remained cold, his voice empty of any trace of emotion. "Are you satisfied now? Does watching him suffer like this amuse you even more than seeing me burned with a heated stick yesterday?"
At the side, Jeffrey's icy blue eyes burned with rage, yet the bond's restraint made him unable to act on the fury raging inside him.
His hands curled into fists until his knuckles turned white and gave a sharp crack. The force of his grip tore open the old wound along his arm, and fresh droplets of blood slowly emerged from the broken skin.
Beneath the strands of his silver-white hair, Devin's lashes trembled. For the first time, his amber eyes revealed raw, unmistakable pain.
He and Danny had always been the closest among the five. They were also the ones who had suffered the most under the original Hannah's cruelty.
The sneer on Joshua's lips faded the second Danny came into view. His fingers moved on instinct, brushing over the scar on his cheek as he stared at the wooden tub. Anger flashed across his expression.
The bitterness in her throat made Hannah's chest tighten, but she forced herself to take a steadying breath. "I know you all despise me. I never wanted to force any of you into bonding with me in the first place. I'll set you free."
The contempt in Asher's gaze sharpened, his eyes never leaving hers. "You actually think we'd be foolish enough to believe that?"
"There's a condition for that," Hannah replied, her voice calm and unwavering. "I need to find my father before the rainy season arrives. Until then, you'll have to protect me. In exchange, whenever one of you proves useful, I'll give him a drop of my blood."
Her words crashed through the place with the force of a sudden storm. Shock flashed across the males' faces as their pupils tightened.
"You'll give us your blood?" A tremor of disbelief slipped into Asher's voice as his gaze stayed locked on Hannah.
His hand moved before he could stop it, rising to press against the scorpion beast mark that represented the bond tying him to her.
In the werecreature universe, where females were overwhelmingly rare compared to males, females held unquestionably high status. A mate bond with a female was established through two separate steps.
The first was the blood bond. The female would place a single drop of her blood onto the male's forehead. With that, a beast mark carrying the symbol of the female's bloodline would emerge on his body, even though the females themselves had no beast form.
Since Hannah's father was a scorpion beast, her beast mark had taken the shape of a scorpion.
The second step was carried out through physical intimacy. Only after the two had had sex would the male's mate beast mark appear on the female, signifying that the bond had been fully completed.
The original Hannah had hated the mates her father had selected for her, so she had never gone beyond the first step.
At this stage, a female could sever the bond by applying her own blood to the male's mate beast mark. After repeating the process ten times, the mark would completely disappear.
However, the female had to cut her own finger each time, and there was another crucial condition—the act had to come entirely from her own will. Because of that, most females were never willing to hurt themselves ten times to sever a bond.
And no matter which stage of the bond had been completed, the moment a female's beast mark appeared on a male, he was forbidden from harming her. Any attempt to do so would cause the mark to unleash unbearable agony upon him—pain that was even worse than death.
Some males, pushed beyond their limits by a female's cruelty, had chosen to cut the beast mark from their own flesh. Yet the chance of surviving such an act was frighteningly slim.
Even so, males had no way to avoid seeking out females. Once they reached adulthood, they would enter rut several times a year. During those periods, if no female was present to soothe the turmoil within their bodies, their disordered pheromones would spiral out of control and drive them into a violent frenzy. And if they remained like that for too long, their bodies would eventually collapse from within, ending their lives.
