Taming the Beast World with a Frying Pan

Chapter 278: The Prettiest in All the Land

The Snake King let out a horrified gasp. His hands instantly flew up from Ren’s hips, desperately slapping over his own face to hide his features. But he wasn’t fast enough. Ren had already caught a glimpse of him in the dim lighting of the nest.

His face was aggressively peeling.

The typically flawless, ethereally pale skin across his sharp cheekbones and the bridge of his nose was dry, flaky, and painted a stark, angry shade of red. It was a massive, incredibly severe sunburn.

It made complete sense to Ren. A cold-blooded creature with skin as delicate, translucent, and pale as Syris’ would absolutely not be able to tan. After spending days directly under the blistering, unforgiving heat of the forest sun, his delicate skin had simply fried.

"Don’t look at me!" Syris hissed miserably from behind his large hands, shaking his long black hair forward to hide his peeling forehead.

Ren let out an exasperated breath and grabbed his wrists, trying to pry his hands away. "Syris, I already saw your face! Why are you still hiding?"

"I am hideous!" Syris wailed dramatically, refusing to budge an inch. "I am shedding in patches! It is completely unnatural! I look diseased!"

Ren aggressively rolled her eyes. "Syris, I have literally helped you peel your shedding skin before. Why in the world are you suddenly so embarrassed now?"

"Because this is an unnatural shedding!" Syris argued, his voice muffled by his palms. "My scales are burning!"

"It is called a sunburn, you dramatic noodle," Ren scolded him affectionately, tugging on his wrists again. "It is completely natural from standing out in the sun. Your delicate skin just couldn’t handle the UV rays. You aren’t a monster; you still look absolutely perfect."

Syris went completely still. Slowly, he parted his middle and ring fingers, peeking out at her through the tiny gap with his breathtaking amethyst eyes.

"Do you... do you still find me pretty?" Syris asked, his voice incredibly small and vulnerable.

Ren was completely taken aback by the question. He was being so incredibly, ridiculously cute that Ren felt a warm flush of absolute glee rise to her cheeks.

With a soft giggle, Ren managed to forcefully pull his hands away and pin them to his chest. She smiled down at him with profound affection, holding his gaze.

"Syris," Ren murmured softly, leaning down. "You are the prettiest beastman in the entire world."

Syris’ sunburned cheeks flushed an even darker shade of red at the compliment.

Ren pressed a soft, lingering kiss directly to his lips, mindful of his sensitive, peeling skin. "No one in this world even comes close to your beauty," she whispered against his mouth. "Honestly, not even the females."

Syris’ eyes widened with a spark of competitive hope. He swallowed hard. "Not even... the White Tiger?"

Ren had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing out loud. She knew with absolute certainty that Syris and Kael would forever, until the end of time, compete against each other in everything. There was nothing she would ever be able to do to change their intense, territorial rivalry.

But fortunately for her, they had agreed to stay entirely apart and share her separately. That meant she could freely, shamelessly show blatant favoritism to whoever she was currently with, without suffering any consequences.

Ren’s smile didn’t falter for a single second. "Not even Kael is as pretty as you."

She wasn’t lying, either.

Kael was incredibly, devastatingly handsome and terrifyingly muscular, but he possessed the rough, rugged, aggressive charm of a barbarian warlord.

Syris, on the other hand, was like a delicate, otherworldly fairy prince. It was always so incredibly funny to Ren that Syris looked so visually fragile and delicate, while simultaneously being so ridiculously strong and dangerous. He was the absolute King of duality.

An incredibly smug smile finally broke across Syris’ face. Having his mate confirm that he was prettier than the brute feline completely cured his depression.

"You really don’t mind that I look like this right now?" Syris asked, his voice returning to its smooth, velvety purr.

"It’s temporary, Syris," Ren assured him, gently brushing a stray lock of hair out of his eyes. "You shouldn’t worry at all. Actually, if you want, we can get rid of the peeling and the redness right away. I know a remedy."

Syris blinked up at her. "You do?"

"Yep," Ren nodded proudly. She got a sunburn almost exactly as bad as this back in her world when she was working at an outdoor restaurant in Aruba. The locals taught her exactly which herbs to use to soothe the skin.

"I should be able to find exactly what I need to do it in your garden."

Ren placed her hands on his chest, shifting her weight, but the second she tried to lift her hips, Syris let out a deep, guttural groan.

His hands clamped down heavily onto her bare thighs, forcefully holding her right back down against his groin.

Ren gasped, her eyes widening. While talking to him, she had been trying her absolute best not to move too much.

But, pressing insistently through the layers of his snakeskin robe, the thick, swollen ridges of his twin hemipenes throbbed against her slick folds.

"Where do you think you are going?" Syris rumbled, his amethyst eyes darkening into pools of raw lust as he stared up at her flushed face.

"T-To get the herbs," Ren stuttered, her breath hitching as he subtly bucked his hips upward, grinding the thick, split heads perfectly against her clit.

"The herbs can wait," Syris purred, his thumbs slowly caressing the soft, bare skin of her thighs. His chest heaved with heavy, ragged breaths. "They are still very, very sensitive."

Ren swallowed hard, a sudden pool of wetness flooding her core. "Your... your skin?"

"No," Syris responded in a husky whisper, his grip tightening on her hips. "My hemipenes."

He arched his back, pressing his rigid lengths significantly deeper into the cradle of her thighs.

"Do what you were doing before," Syris commanded, a desperate hunger lacing his tone. "It felt incredibly good."