Reborn As A Beast Queen with Too Many Husbands to Pet novel Chapter 163

Chapter 163 You’re The Only One

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They said she was about two or three years old when she was brought to the orphanage. But most adoptive families preferred children younger than eighteen months.

So when Annelise was little, she always wished the caregivers would stay just a bit longer.

But they all had other jobs to take care of.

Eventually, she stopped hoping. She grew up and left those thoughts behind.

“Mr. Allen, what kind of shifter truly loves their child?”

“Most shifters do,” he replied gently. “Especially their firstborn; it’s their first time being a dad, after all. Only a small number, usually the ones with too many kids, might start neglecting some… or favor the girls over the boys.”

Mr. Allen smiled as he turned back to her.

“Sweetheart, don’t worry. I won’t be calling any other girl my daughter. You’re the only one.”

Annelise asked, “Why me? Why are you so set on making me your daughter? Is it because you think I passed the trial fair and square that I calmed the beast? Or because you believe I’m smart enough to be the next Saintess, or even the next chief?”

Mr. Allen neither confirmed nor denied any of that.

“There are many reasons, but none of those are the main one,” he said. “The truth is, when you smile, it reminds me of my daughter. Of course, after I saw how much you knew, I was convinced-you were born to be a Saintess. And, yes, to be chief too.”

Before long, they arrived at a small wooden cabin.

It was tiny, barely half the size of Annelise’s bedroom. Three people could barely stan

once.

Inside, there was nothing. Just an empty, echoing space. It could keep out rain and snow, bu wind seeped through every crack.

Annelise took off her beast-hide cloak and draped it over Mr. Allen. “What is this place for?” she asked.

Surely not a latrine-shifters don’t need those, right?

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14:37 Fri, Feb 27 J

Chapter 163 You’re The Only One

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Across the room, Evan carefully took out the egg, inspecting it. Seeing it was unharmed, he smiled and kissed it gently.

Mr. Allen said, “My daughter is buried beneath this cabin.”

“Ah-”

The words hit like a punch, and Annelise fell silent immediately.

In that instant, she cursed herself. How could I have thought this place was a latrine?

Evan didn’t know what to say either. He quietly tucked the egg away. It felt wrong, showing off his kid in front of someone like this.

Mr. Allen continued, “When my daughter died, the tribe’s rules said that any young one who dies from illness must be cremated. But she was the only one who got sick. None of the other kids, or the shifters who were near her, caught anything. So my matriarch allowed me to bury her-just a small patch of earth-so I’d have a place to visit when I missed her.”

His voice was calm, almost too calm. But Annelise felt the sadness rising in her chest.

He said that after the burial, he kept coming back. He couldn’t move on.

When it rained or snowed, he’d imagine her tiny body underground, soaking wet, the dirt drenched through-he couldn’t bear the thought.

So he built this little cabin.

Only after his matriarch passed. She wouldn’t allow it while she was alive. She wanted him to forget the past, to start fresh, to have more children with her.

Annelise felt a tight knot form in her chest.

Maybe in this world, shifters didn’t really do graves and tombstones. Or maybe the wild on the mountain made simple grave mounds too risky. One wrong step, and they’d be trampled.

Whatever the reason, Annelise felt deeply unsettled.

“Mr. Allen, I think we should rebuild this place. Make it nice. Add a bed, maybe, and hang some curtains to block the wind. I can make the curtains,” she offered.

Evan added, “We can build the cabin together.”

Mr. Allen beamed and nodded with quiet joy.

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Chapter 163 You’re The Only One

Annelise hesitated. Should I call him Dad?

Her lips parted slightly-but the word wouldn’t come out.

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But the weather in the back mountains changed quickly. Before long, the sleet and snow stopped.

The three of them stepped outside, heading off to confront that d*mn chief.

They finally reached a cave where the chief was tied up, kneeling on the ground.

In front of her sat a dead chicken-probably something Mr. Allen had brought to keep her from starving. But she was stubborn. She hadn’t touched it. The blood on the chicken had long dried.

The moment she saw Annelise approaching, she raised her head and said, “I swear I wasn’t trying to cover for that shaman. I truly didn’t know what your beast form was. You were just an egg brought in by a giant bird. When you hatched as a girl, we knew you wouldn’t show your true form until you turned twenty-five.”

The chief went on, saying even the heat-inducing herb-according to the shaman-was something summoned through prayers and sacrificial offerings of chickens and ducks.

There was more.

All kinds of strange rituals and items from past to present-every one of them supposedly gifts from the heavens, according to the shaman.

“I only realized the truth recently, when Annelise, you brought back that heat-indu That plant grows outside the mountain; it’s not native to our tribe. Which means, months, the shaman had to leave, crossing the mountains. And now it’s obvious th offering herself up to the heavens. She was just out there collecting wild herbs.

“But we never paid attention to the weeds growing outside. We didn’t know what any o really did.”

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