Page 41 of I Married A Catman

Although sad to find Gaelec already up, the wondrous smell of food silenced any thought of an encore this morning. I hurried to the hygiene room for a quick shower. After swiftly brushing my hair, I returned to the bedroom to get dressed. I hesitated for a while as to what I should wear. My mate took a coupleof days off to help me settle in. Now, I couldn’t decide between something comfortable to go on the tour of the village he’d planned for us today, or something coquettish to further seduce him.

In the end, I settled on a black skort and matching crop top with some sexy cutouts on the side. Naturally, I slathered a thick layer of sunscreen on my skin, as turning into a lobster squealing in pain at the slightest contact didn’t feature anywhere on my to do list anytime soon. Oluina would derive far too much pleasure from my misery on top of using this as more proof that I was inadequate as both a woman and as Gaelec’s mate.

Thoughts of the wretched female instantly dampened my mood. Refusing to grant her that kind of power over me, I cast her out of my mind and made my way to the kitchen. My jaw dropped at the sight of the massive feast my husband had laid out on the table. It qualified more as a brunch with enough food to feed eight adults with hefty appetites.

“Good morning, my mate,” Gaelec said with a wide grin that had me instantly melting.

I made a beeline for him and gave him a hug. To my delight, he returned it, his tail wrapping around my legs as he rubbed his temple against mine. He tilted his head to bury his face in my neck and deeply inhaled my scent. I didn’t know what I smelled like to him, but I loved how it made his chest vibrate with an approving growl.

I called it a growl because it didn’t really match a purr, which was quite disappointing. For some reason, I was fixated on that need to hear him purr in that deep, rhythmical fashion cats normally did. Considering he wasn’t actually a feline, it was a little bit narrow-minded and cliched of me to want that. But I couldn’t help it. At a visceral level, I knew a proper purr from my husband would be beyond epic.

His arms loosened around me. Although I could have stayed in his embrace for hours, I reluctantly pulled away from him. To my surprise he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine. It was brief, but although subtle, I still noticed the tiny twitch. I bit the inside of my cheeks not to chuckle.

“I have prepared breakfast for you,” Gaelec said proudly, as he waved at the table. “I have thoroughly verified the cooking temperatures for everything. As we do not have many of the human ingredients for some of these dishes, I found the equivalent or at least what the recipe sites have deemed the closest thing to it.”

“Oh, Gaelec! You’re too sweet, but you didn’t have to go through so much trouble,” I said feeling both moved and guilty that he did all that work for me. “That’sa lotof food! Usually, I only have a toast with some jam, a cup of coffee, and some fruits.”

“Have no fear, my Ophelia. Whatever you cannot consume, I will take care of. But I also seized the opportunity to see which dishes you liked or not to get a better sense of what to make for you in the future. I also added some Nazhral recipes so that you could try them. As for coffee, it appears to be of importance to your people. There is none in the village, but I got confirmation that we can buy it in the city. I already placed an order, and it will be delivered in the morning.”

“Wow! You really are the best,” I said as we settled around the table. “I brought a bag just in case. But it wouldn’t last me too long. I’m relieved to know I can get a steady supply right here.”

As I took in the bounty before me, I couldn’t believe how much work he managed to accomplish in record time while I was still zonked out in bed. The man truly went all out with his spin on a traditional continental breakfast with eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns. The pancakes—both plain and another version with something similar to blueberries—were absolutely perfect,light and fluffy just the way I liked. Their spin on porridge wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, but I’d never been a fan of porridge to begin with. He also provided a variety of breads, cold cuts and spreads as well as some fruits.

We enjoyed our meal in an amiable atmosphere. Too full to take another bite, I sipped on a glass of some sort of fruit juice while observing with awe my husband polish off everything else. How was he this lean and sexy when he so easily chowed down this insane amount of food?

To my relief, he didn’t challenge my desire to help him clean up and wash the dishes, even though he clearly expected to do it on his own. While I loved getting pampered like anyone else, I also strongly believed in a couple being equal partners, not one person acting as a servant to the other.

We began our tour shortly thereafter. With people at work and the children in school, we enjoyed relatively quiet streets without me once again being subjected to everyone blatantly ogling me. As was often the case in the various tribes that I lived with, Nevian Village didn’t have paved streets or sidewalks. They built the houses on each side of properly packed dirt roads. The nice leveling of the streets implied the involvement of some engineering instead of merely frequent use making it that way.

The buildings themselves offered an interesting mix of basic and modern. They made many of them out of wood, stone, and bricks. A few boasted what resembled some kind of processed siding. It vaguely reminded me of old school vinyl. The houses all possessed a single floor, aside from the occasional taller building—the majority of which appeared to have a commercial purpose.

“We’re called the Nevian Pride,” he explained as we casually strolled down the street under the shining morning sun and a gentle breeze softly blowing past us. “It’s standard for a Pride to take the name of the region it settles in, and that it claims as itsterritory. We’re currently in the Nevian Valley, which includes a large section of the forest to the east all the way to the beginning of the mountain range, a small part of the forest to the west, and extensive fishing rights to the Nevian River which you can see from the southern edge of the village.”

“So does that make you more of a fishing or hunting Pride?” I asked with genuine curiosity.

“Mainly fishing,” he replied before pointing at a tall building to the right. “This is the fish plant where we clean, process, and then ship most of our catches to the neighboring tribes and to the capital city. There’s a pathway farther ahead that allows us to go down to the docks when we go fishing. That entire responsibility falls squarely onto the males.”

“Your females do not fish?”

He shook his head. “Our females hunt in the forest. In truth, we are not as fond of fish. We prefer real meat from warm-blooded animals. Fish is simply an addition to our diet, and it’s a steady source of income for the Pride. For a male, it is a great opportunity to earn the right to stay long past their prime when they proved to be the best or most efficient worker in one of the specialized side trades, like fishing, crafting, construction, tanning, smithing, and anything else you can think of to help meet the basic needs of the village.”

“So females do not work in any trade or craft?” I asked as we walked past what resembled a convenience store.

“They do, but mostly older females. A lot of it revolves around things such as weaving, sewing, pottery, and various other low-intensity crafts that they will have no problem performing up to their retirement. At which point, the Pride will look after them until they pass. Females are the only people who always remain with their Pride until they die, unless their numbers become excessive, which is rare.”

“Why is it rare?” I asked.

“The size of a Pride varies between one hundred to four hundred individuals. The average usually hovers closer to one hundred and fifty. The standard distribution is one third females, and one quarter males for adults, and the rest are younglings,” Gaelec explained as we made our way in the general direction of the Great Hall. “Births usually result in two-thirds of male cubs, who leave around the age of eighteen.”

“Wow, that’s a surprisingly high percentage of males,” I said pensively. “On Earth, the gender ratio also skews in favor of male births versus female. But it’s barely a couple of percent higher. It’s about 51% males.”

He nodded. “Our females regulate the births to maintain a healthy population based on their needs and the availability of resources in the region. When we get close to the maximum population, the Queens only reproduce with the most prime males in the Pride in the hopes of getting the finest females possible, who will also be sent on their way to start their own Pride elsewhere, as soon as they reach maturity. On average, it requires at least ten to fifteen females to start a Pride.”

“Damn. So they just go off like the queens of a hive and hope to find a new safe place to settle in on their own? Isn’t that brutally hard?” I asked, flabbergasted.

He gave me an indulgent smile. “They’re not just kicked out with nothing but their loincloths. Over the year leading up to their departure, they will start scouting the land for a suitable territory to claim. They will also start gathering resources and even begin construction. The Matriarchs will often dismiss some of their older, skilled males, who will eagerly offer their services to the young Queens.”

I scrunched my face. “The younger Queens are saddled with older males as initial partners?!”

---