The Ugly Duckling Of The Tiger Tribe-Chapter 322: You’re building a school, not a calendar of hot men

The meadow was very much alive with the sound of rhythmic grunting and the heavy, musical thud of massive timber. With Noah finally putting his back into it, the skeleton of the Nursery Palace began to rise from the earth like a living thing.

It wasn’t long before Fenric and Damar appeared, too. They didn’t even ask for instructions; they just saw the sweat on my brow and the sheer scale of the wood, and they stripped off their tunics to join the labor. Ah, and I mean their tops. They weren’t fully naked, ahem, except for Damar, who let out his tail.

I tried to keep my mind on the blueprints, but I was only human... in spirit and heart. Seeing the three of them working together was... distracting.

Noah was a wall of raw, golden muscle, hauling the primary support beams as if they weighed nothing. Fenric moved with a lithe, explosive energy, his white hair plastered to his forehead as he hammered the wooden pegs into place with a mallet that looked like a toy in his grip. And Damar, fluid and silent, was weaving the heavy climbing ropes with a precision that only a serpent’s steady hands could manage, his silver scales catching the fading light.

Focus, Arinya, I scolded myself, wiping a streak of sawdust from my cheek. You’re building a school, not a calendar of hot men.

As I moved toward the far corner to check the leveling of the sandpit, I felt that familiar, icy prickle against my skin. I paused, my gaze drifting toward the edge of the forest, where the shadows were beginning to stretch long and jagged.

Thalor was there.

He was standing perfectly still among the silver birches, his violet hair a stark contrast to the deep green of the pines. He didn’t move. He didn’t call out. He just watched, his expression unreadable and mournful.

He knew that as long as my mates were surrounding me like a living fortress of heat and muscle, he would not be allowed near me.

I gripped the edge of a wooden beam, the purple scales on my ankle warming slightly. I quickly looked away, my heart doing that traitorous skip again. Thalor, please just stay in the shadows for one week.

By the time night fell, the meadow was illuminated only by the flickering orange glow of torches and the pale, ghostly light of the moon. The structure was nearly complete. The ’Nursery Palace’ stood tall—a multi-leveled wonder of cedar and pine, with the log slide smoothed to a dull sheen and the rope bridges swaying gently in the night breeze.

I stood in the center of the clearing, my chest heaving as I huffed for air. Every inch of my body felt like it had been tenderized by a mallet. My hands were blistered, my tunic was a mess of sap and dirt, and I was pretty sure I had sawdust in places sawdust should never be.

"That’s it," I wheezed, leaning my weight against one of the main pillars. "We’re done for tonight. My brain is officially mush."

Noah walked over, his chest still heaving from the exertion, a sheen of sweat making his skin look like molten bronze in the torchlight. He didn’t say a word, but he reached out and wiped a smudge of dirt from my forehead with a surprisingly gentle thumb.

"It is a strange thing you have built here, Arinya," he murmured, looking up at the climbing frame. "But I can see it. I can see them here."

Fenric collapsed onto a pile of leftover lumber, his tongue practically hanging out. "If I never see another log in my life, it’ll be too soon. Arinya, tell me there’s food. Or at least tell me I don’t have to move for the next six hours."

Damar drifted over, his eyes lingering on the forest edge where Thalor had been standing, before settling on me. "The complex parts—the internal shelving and the safety gates—can wait for the morning light. You’ve pushed yourself enough."

I nodded, too tired to even argue. I looked at the three of them—sore, dirty, and exhausted—and felt a wave of fierce, protective love. They had gritted their teeth and worked until their bones ached, all because I asked them to.

"You guys can go back to the tent," I said softly. "I’ll be right behind you. I just want to make sure the tools are covered."

They hesitated, but the promise of sleep was too strong. As they started to head back, leaving me in the quiet, cooling air of the meadow, I looked up at the moon. The Nursery Palace looked like a dream in the silver light—a promise of peace in a world that usually only knew the hunt.

I just hoped that when the sun rose, the peace would hold.

Then, as I finally got up to follow after my men, I heard a soft melodic hum coming from the direction of the well, and it seemed to pulse with my heart and the crest on my wrist. I felt a soft pull like a gentle wave and knew for sure that it was Thalor’s doing. He was calling me but... I couldn’t answer.

’Sorry, Thalor.’ I thought.

I chose to ignore the soft pull of the water. My ears were ringing with exhaustion, and the only melody I wanted to hear was the sound of my own rhythmic breathing against a fur pillow. I turned my back on the well and the silver shadows of the forest, stumbling into the tent where the heat of my husbands was already waiting to drown out the chill of the night.

The next morning, the sun didn’t just rise; it felt like it exploded over the horizon, demanding we finish what we started.

We were back at the meadow before the dew had even evaporated. My body felt like it had been put through a grain mill, but the sight of the nearly finished structure gave me a second wind. Oryn was already there, his massive black-bear form moving with surprising speed as he began the delicate work of the safety gates.

"These need to be child-proof, Oryn," I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I held a cedar plank in place. "If a wolf-pup can figure out the latch in under ten seconds, we’ve failed."

"I have used the double-slide mechanism you described, Queen," Oryn grunted, his dark eyes focused. "Even a clever cub will need two hands and a bit of height to budge it."

Noah, Fenric, and Damar didn’t complain about the ache in their limbs. They worked through the morning heat, installing the internal shelving for the pups’ belongings and sanding down any stray splinters on the log slide until the wood felt as smooth as a metal slide.