Raising Beast Cubs to Find a Husband novel Chapter 196

Chapter 196: The Spring Bake Sale Declaration of War

The problem with letting Warlords join the Parent-Teacher Association was that they treated every single school event like a territorial dispute.

It started innocently enough. We were standing in the courtyard of Unity Academy, reviewing the sign-up sheet for the annual Spring Bake Sale. I was penciling in my name for two dozen dragon-breath tartlets when Lady Vesper, a tall, incredibly snooty Crane-kin mother, walked over.

She looked at our chaotic little family unit. Rurik was currently letting Vali use his massive arm as a jungle gym. Cassian was lecturing Jasper on the architectural flaws of the school fountain. Caspian was holding Orion, gently keeping our son from jumping into said fountain.

Lady Vesper gave a polite, condescending little laugh, fluttering her feathered fan.

"Oh, Sovereign Primrose," she cooed, her voice dripping with fake sweetness. "It’s so lovely that your... husbands are taking an interest in school activities. But really, for the bake sale, perhaps it would be best if the men just made a monetary donation? We wouldn’t want anyone getting food poisoning from raw boar meat, would we?"

Silence fell over our group.

Vali stopped swinging from Rurik’s arm. Jasper looked up from his notebook.

Rurik’s golden eyes slowly locked onto the Crane woman. His ears twitched, pinning back against his silver hair. Beside him, Cassian’s posture straightened, his eyes narrowing into dangerous, serpentine slits. Even Caspian, usually the calmest of the bunch, stopped smiling.

"Raw boar meat?" Rurik repeated, his voice dropping an octave into a low, terrifying rumble.

"Well, you know," Lady Vesper stammered, taking a step back as the sheer killing intent radiating from the men hit her. "Northern cooking is so... rustic. Baking is a delicate art. It requires precision."

"Precision," Cassian hissed softly.

"I think we will sign up for a stall, Lady Vesper," Caspian said, his voice smooth as glass and twice as sharp. He reached over and took the pen from my hand, signing their names in elegant, flowing script. "We look forward to the competition."

Lady Vesper swallowed hard, nodded stiffly, and hurried away on her long, spindly legs.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling a headache coming on. "You do realize what you just did, right?"

"She insulted our pack’s ability to provide," Rurik growled, crossing his massive arms. "This means war."

"It’s a bake sale, Rurik," I sighed.

"It is a battle of public perception," Cassian corrected, fixing his cuffs. "She implied we lack refinement. We must crush her stall mathematically and financially."

"I just wanted to make tartlets," I muttered.

---

An hour later, the grand kitchen of the Warlord estate had been transformed into a military command center.

I sat on a tall stool by the island, sipping a cup of jasmine tea, watching the chaos unfold. Initially, I had been worried. But then I remembered something very important: I was a Top Chef. And over the last few years, I had refused to let these men live in my house without teaching them how to cook. They weren’t amateurs. They were highly trained weapons of culinary destruction.

Rurik was at the kneading station. He had stripped off his heavy furs and was wearing a frilly pink apron that said *Kiss the Cook* (a joke gift from Luna that he wore with zero irony).

"Kneading dough is just like interrogating a spy," Rurik explained loudly to Vali, who was standing on a stool beside him, watching with wide eyes. "You have to apply firm, consistent pressure! Show it who is Alpha!" 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

He slammed his massive fist into a mound of spiced sweet-bread dough. *Bam! Bam!* The counter shook, but I had to admit, the gluten development was going to be phenomenal.

"Father, your technique is barbaric," Jasper noted from the other side of the kitchen.

Cassian was not wearing an apron. He had cast a localized kinetic shield around his pristine silk robes to repel flour. He was standing over a digital scale, using a tiny pair of silver tweezers to drop individual grains of sugar into a mixing bowl.

"Macarons require exact atmospheric conditions," Cassian murmured, his eyes glowing faintly with magic. "If the meringue is over-whipped by even three seconds, the structural integrity collapses. Jasper, what is the current humidity?"

"Forty-two percent, Father," Jasper replied, checking a magical gauge.

"Acceptable. Hand me the piping bag."

I took another sip of tea, highly amused. Cassian wasn’t just baking; he was performing edible alchemy. His macarons were perfectly uniform, colored a striking, shimmering violet with crushed mana-berries.

Meanwhile, Caspian was at the stoves, holding Orion against his hip. My handsome Merman King was humming a soft ocean shanty, his hand hovering over a pot of boiling sugar.

"Watch closely, little prince," Caspian whispered to our son.

Instead of using a spoon, Caspian used his water magic. He pulled the moisture from the air, creating a bubble of pure, cold water, and manipulated the boiling sugar into it. With a flick of his wrist, the sugar rapidly cooled and stretched, forming delicate, glass-like sculptures of leaping dolphins and blooming coral.

"Whoa," Orion breathed, his eyes shining as he reached out to poke a sugar-dolphin. "Can I eat it?"

"Tomorrow," Caspian chuckled, kissing Orion’s cheek. "First, we must display our dominance over the Crane-kin."

"Has anyone seen Lucien?" I asked, looking around the bustling kitchen.

"Here," a voice whispered right beside my ear.

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