Chapter 2 –– Alpha Suitors

The second suitor arrived wearing their traditional Felixia tribe attire. This time, only a son and his mother came. I wonder why his father didn’t come with them?

Just like before, my mama greeted the visitors by the door and asked them to come to the living room. They then met the rest of us, including people from Caninus Tribe.

“Oh, Chieftain Hamza,” the mother of the second suitor exclaimed, noticing someone else was already in the room.

“Good day, Chieftain Zara,” he greeted her.

My mama offered to pour some tea to the new guests. However, the two of them declined it, saying that there was no need for it. They looked kind of stuck-up.

The second suitor then introduced himself to me. Unlike before, his approach was different. He did not take me by the hand and gave a serious look towards me instead.

“Good day. My name is Moshe Assad from Felixia Tribe. I’m an alpha male lion, son of Chieftain Zara Assad. Nice to meet you.”

He put his paws on the floor and bowed his head all the way to the floor, showing his respect. After he was done bowing to me, I introduced myself to him in return.

I was flustered by what he did. I didn’t know how to react to that, so I ended up imitating what he did.

“Nice to meet you, Moshe Assad of Felixia Tribe. I’m Noam Dabau, an omega male spotted hyena and son of Chieftain Nura.”

I bowed back at him, doing exactly what he did earlier.

The previous guy was cringeworthy, but now this one is too stiff and formal. I noticed that he was looking at me with his sharp mocha eyes, looking like they could strike through you with just a glance. His lips were thin and his facial muscles were relaxed, having a truly composed facial expression. He looked like some kind of expressionless doll. On his head, he had yellow fur on his lion ears that kept twitching for some reason. His tail was moving around like a flow of river, calmly and rhythmically. Judging from his figure, he looked like someone several years older than me, maybe three or four.

After the three families talked for a while, my mother decided to let the younglings have their own conversation.

“Since this is their first time in the village, why don’t you take them on a tour, Noam?” my mother asked me.

“Eeh? I prefer––”

Before I could finish my sentence, my mother gave another glare at me.

“Y–yes, mother,” I replied to her, sounding dispirited.

I followed her order and took my two suitors out of the living room and get outside of the house. We then started walking together, the three of us.

While we were walking around the village, I could feel that there were some Hyaena tribesfolk staring at us from a distance. Hmph. Just as I expected. The villagers were as nosy as usual. Seeing us walking in our traditional clothes–– in addition to the fact that two of them were wearing something not native to this village–– it could only mean that either two of us were about to become mates soon. Rumours had spread around the village that my mother–– the Chieftain of Hyaena Tribe–– was searching for her son’s mate, so I assume they knew that the guys beside me were my suitors.

Walking side by side, I just noticed the difference in height between me and my two suitors walking beside me. They were both taller than me, about several inches or so. The top of my ears could only reach their neck, making me look like a midget beside them. As expected from a lion and a wolf, they were big and tall. The two of them, however, were about the same height, despite their age difference. Well, to be fair, I never asked their age, so all of this was just based on my assumption.

We went sightseeing to visit some of the most popular spots of the village. These included a well known blacksmith shop, a five star restaurant that served local cuisine, an ancient library, and a tailor’s shop that I just visited yesterday. We tried some of the local street foods as well. Our village particularly loved holepigs*, so we had a lot of dishes using that meat and combined it with different kinds of root vegetables.

While taking a look around the village, something suddenly crossed my mind. I recalled a saying that Caninus Tribe didn’t usually mate with other tribes. They were a relatively traditional and exclusive tribe in which they preferred to mate with fellow Caninus tribesfolk to keep their bloodline “pure.” I wonder why they decided to have me–– someone from Hyaena Tribe–– to be their son’s mate.

Also, now that I thought about it, the situation with my other suitor was just as odd. Since he was a lion, weren’t we supposed to be mortal enemies? I never actually heard of anyone from our village mating with someone from Assad clan. Some of us did mate with other clans from Felixia Tribe, but never with an Assad clan member–– as far as I was aware of.

“So, what food do you like, Noam?”

Dawoud–– my suitor from Caninus Tribe–– asked me a question while we were eating some holepig skewers topped with some shimeji mushrooms at a street vendor. I actually preferred mushrooms instead of meat. Any kind of mushrooms. Weird, I know. Not something you would expect from a hyena.

“Anything with mushrooms, I guess” I told him.

“Have you tried subsheep** steak?” he asked.

I was pretty sure that was a Caninus Tribe dish, since I never had one here. We didn’t really eat subsheep that much in this village.

“Nope,” I answered him honestly.

“Well, it’s really good! You should try it once you visit our village!” he said, enthusiastically.

“Is it served with mushrooms?” I asked, curiously.

“Uhh....no. I don’t think so,” he answered with doubts.

“He just said he liked mushrooms, you idiot,” Moshe–– my other suitor–– jumped into the conversation.

Well, he was right. If the steak didn’t have mushrooms, I wasn't sure if I’d like it.

“What did you just call me!?” the guy from Caninus Tribe yelled at him, angry from what he just called him.

“What? An idiot that you are?” the guy from Felixia Tribe provoked him, making him even angrier.

“Y–you!! You foul-mouthed lion!” my first suitor called him out for his snarky comment.

“Wh––” my other suitor gasped, too stunned to speak.

The two of them bickered with me standing in the middle, separating them while trying to calm them down. As expected from two rivaling tribes, they fought just like cats and dogs.

Suddenly, something crossed my mind while watching the two of them bicker. Without thinking, I just said it out loud to break the fight.

“Why don’t you two become mates?” I told them, while chuckling in front of them.

They stopped bickering and stared at me in silence. They then looked at each other and shouted at me in unison.

“TWO ALPHAS CAN’T BECOME MATES!!!”

Oh, right. I forgot.

Finally, something they agree on.

After the tour, we returned to my house. The luminescent stones started glowing and it was almost nighttime, so we had to go back just as my mother instructed to me.

“I’m home~”

I notified my mothers after I stepped into the house, with my two suitors behind me. We then returned to the living room to meet their families.

“Welcome home,” my mama greeted us by the door.

She made a small talk with my suitors about our tour around the village for the day. They were kind enough to tell her that I did a good job on showing them the beautiful parts of the village. Hehe. Of course I did a good job. All I’d been doing was exploring the village for most of my life. My suitor from Caninus Tribe even told my mama that he wanted to visit the village again some other time, as a proper tourist next time.

We then returned to the living room to have a talk with each other’s families. Our parents had some conversations already while we were having a tour around the village, so it was time to wrap up today’s occasion and let them return to their homes.

Right when we were about to end the meeting, I felt dizzy all of a sudden. My vision started getting blurry and I felt light-headed.

Suddenly, I sensed that my suitors were acting strange. They had their fangs out and the looks in their eyes changed. They became feral.

I suddenly fell to the floor, feeling weak and lethargic. My mama caught me before I fell and held me in her arms. She put the back of her arms on my forehead, checking my body temperature.

“Oh no....he’s in heat,” she said with a shaky voice.

I felt like my body was burning from the inside, burning hot. I couldn’t move a muscle of my body either.

My suitors smelt the pheromones that I was exuding due to my sudden heat. As alphas, they were seduced by it and had a hard time resisting the urge to come rushing at me. They looked like they were about to maul me if it weren’t for their parents who tried to stop them from getting close to me. My mother stood in front of me, trying to guard me from my suitors who were in frenzy.

“Get him a suppressant. Hurry!” my mother told my mama.

My mama put me on the floor while she looked for some suppressants around the house. Even though they were being held off by their parents, my suitors managed to get past through them by shoving them aside, making them fall the floor. My mother then tried to hold off those two young alphas on her own, a battle between a senior alpha and two young ones.

“Have you found it!?” my mother shouted to my mama, asking her how much longer it would take to find it.

“We have none left!!!” my mama said, panicking after having searched the whole house.

My body was getting hotter and hotter each second that I started having fever hallucinations. This was weird. I was not supposed to be in heat today, and even if I did, I already took suppressants a while ago. This was the first time this had ever happened to me, a sudden irregular heat.

My mother couldn’t hold them off much longer and was finally pushed to the floor, just like their parents. They then dashed right towards me with such ferocious looks in their faces.

“Noam!!!” my mother shouted.

I closed my eyes and started crying. I’m so scared.

“That’s enough, you two.”

Suddenly, I heard a familiar man’s voice in the room. I opened my eyes to see who it was.

A man was standing in front of my two suitors, holding them off and preventing them from getting to me. Just by looking at his striped tail, I immediately knew who it was.

He then turned his head and looked at me who was lying on the ground, looking helpless while in heat.

With the little energy I had in me left, I called upon the man in front of me.

“Brother!”

My brother came to save me.

*holepig = an underground boar with six legs

**subsheep = an underground sheep with two tails and a horn on its head