Villainess is being pampered by her beast husbands

Chapter 467 --467

Insects laying eggs under her skin. Worms in her intestines. Bacterial infections spreading through her bloodstream. Diseases with names she didn’t even know, couldn’t even pronounce.No.

*No.*

She needed to find a way back to her own world.

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## The Plan (Such As It Was)

As for the charges pressed against her back home? The court-martial? The accusations?

Well... she’d figure something out. Make up some story. Claim amnesia, trauma, kidnapping—whatever worked. She’d deal with it when she got there.

The important thing was *getting* there.

Getting back to a world with hospitals and antibiotics and running water and *toilets*. Getting back to a world where you didn’t have to wonder if the person sleeping next to you was carrying some unknown plague.

Kaya opened her eyes and stared at the dark ceiling of the cave.

Somewhere out there, someone wanted her. Dead or alive, for reasons she didn’t understand, connected to mysteries she didn’t care about.

But she wasn’t going to play their game.

She wasn’t going to be the chosen one, the special protagonist, the person who saved the world or unlocked its secrets.

She was going to survive long enough to find a way home.

And then she was going to leave this beautiful, brutal, *filthy* world behind forever.

That was the plan.

Simple. Clear. Non-negotiable.

Now she just had to figure out how to make it happen.

Kaya didn’t know how long she lay there on the cold stone floor, staring at nothing. Time felt elastic in the darkness—stretching and compressing in ways that made no sense. It could have been minutes. It could have been hours.

Eventually, she heard movement behind her.

"Kaya."

Veer’s voice was low, careful. Not quite worried, but close.

She didn’t turn to look at him. Just kept staring at the ceiling. "I’m fine."

"You don’t look fine."

"I’m breathing. That’s fine enough."

There was a pause. Then the sound of Veer shifting position, followed by a sharp intake of breath as the movement pulled at his injured shoulder.

Cutie’s voice joined in, softer, more hesitant. "Kaya... you’ve been lying there for almost two hours."

That made her blink. Two hours? It hadn’t felt like two hours.

She sat up slowly, her body protesting every movement. Her back was stiff from lying on stone. Her clothes had dried somewhat but were still uncomfortably damp in places. Her hair felt like a tangled mess.

When she finally turned to look at them, she found both beastmen watching her with expressions that were hard to read in the dim light filtering through the cave entrance.

Veer was still propped against the wall, his hand no longer pressed quite so tightly against his shoulder. The bleeding had stopped, at least. His amber eyes were sharp, assessing.

Cutie sat cross-legged near the entrance, his red eyes reflecting what little light there was. He looked worried. Actually worried, in a way that made something uncomfortable twist in Kaya’s chest.

"The wolves?" she asked, her voice rough from disuse.

"Gone," Veer said. "Left about an hour ago. All at once, like they’d been called off."

Kaya nodded slowly. That confirmed what she’d felt—that whoever was hunting them had withdrawn. At least for now.

"Why?" Cutie asked, voicing the question they were all thinking. "Why chase us that hard and then just... leave?"

Kaya rubbed her face with both hands. "Either they got what they wanted, or they realized they weren’t going to get it and decided to cut their losses."

"What did they want?" Cutie pressed.

"Me," Kaya said flatly. "They wanted me. Dead or alive, I don’t know. But this wasn’t about you two. You were just... collateral."

Veer’s expression darkened. "You don’t know that."

"Yes, I do." Kaya met his gaze steadily. "Think about it. The snakes showed up right after we left the tribe. They didn’t attack the tribe. They didn’t go after random travelers. They came straight for us. The sky hunters coordinated with them. The wolves were waiting at exactly the right position to cut off our escape route." She shook her head. "That’s not coincidence. That’s planning. Organization. Resources."

"Someone with money," Veer said quietly.

"Or power," Kaya agreed. "Or both."

Cutie looked between them, his ears flat against his head. "But why? What do you have that someone would want that badly?"

Kaya laughed—a short, bitter sound. "That’s the question, isn’t it?"

For a long moment, none of them spoke. The only sounds were the distant drip of water and the faint whistle of wind through cracks in the stone.

Then Veer said, very carefully, "You’re planning to leave."

It wasn’t a question.

Kaya looked at him, surprised. "What?"

"This world," Veer clarified. His amber eyes were unreadable. "You’re planning to find a way back to wherever you came from."

Kaya’s jaw tightened. She hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t mentioned her thoughts from earlier. How did he—

"You have the look," Veer continued. His voice was neutral, but there was something underneath it. Something that might have been resignation. "I’ve seen it before. In slaves who’d given up. In prisoners who were just waiting for execution. In people who’d already decided they didn’t belong." He paused. "You have that look. Like you’re already halfway gone."

Cutie’s eyes widened. "Kaya... is that true?"

She wanted to deny it. Wanted to say something reassuring, something that would make that hurt expression disappear from Cutie’s face.

But she was tired of lying. Tired of pretending.

"Yes," she said simply.

The word landed like a stone dropping into still water.

Cutie flinched as if she’d slapped him. Veer’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered in his eyes—something that might have been pain, quickly suppressed.

"I don’t belong here," Kaya continued, her voice steady despite the tightness in her chest. "I never did. This world is beautiful and brutal and ’wrong’ for me. I’m not built for it. My body, my mind, my entire existence—it’s designed for a different place. A different time." She looked at them both. "I’m grateful for everything you’ve done. For saving my life. For traveling with me. For..." She hesitated. "For everything. But I can’t stay here."

"Why not?" Cutie’s voice cracked slightly. "We could—we could find somewhere safe. Somewhere away from whoever’s hunting you. We could—"

"I would die here," Kaya interrupted gently. "Maybe not today. Maybe not next month. But eventually, I would die from something preventable. Something stupid. An infection. A parasite. A disease that doesn’t exist where I come from." She shook her head. "I’m not afraid of dying in battle. I’ve made peace with that. But dying slowly because my body can’t handle the conditions here? That terrifies me."

Veer studied her for a long moment. Then, quietly, he asked, "Where you come from... it’s that different?"

"Yes."

"How?"

Kaya considered how to explain. How to make them understand a world of technology and medicine and sanitation standards that would sound like fantasy to them.

"In my world," she said slowly, "when someone gets sick, we don’t just hope they get better. We have medicines that can kill infections. We have ways to prevent diseases before they even start. We have..." She struggled for the words. "We have knowledge. Understanding. We know why people get sick and how to stop it."

"You have healers," Cutie said.