Villainess is being pampered by her beast husbands-Chapter 398 --

She dragged her gaze up from the cold stone floor, neck stiff, vision still a little blurred from the flight and the fall.

There he was.

That damn sparrow.

The root cause of every disaster today.

Perched comfortably on the stone table.

One claw clutched a roasted chunk of meat that was almost bigger than his whole body, skin glistening with fat. In the other, he held an apple, already missing a neat, smug bite. He looked like some tiny king having a snack break while the world burned.

Kaya’s fingers curled against the ground. Her jaw tightened so hard her teeth hurt.

Veer groaned somewhere near the cave mouth. Cutie was still breathing hard beside her, chest rising and falling in shallow pulls. Kaya, though—Kaya’s anger cut straight through the cold and exhaustion. It warmed her faster than any fire could.

Slowly—painfully slowly—she pushed herself upright.

Her ribs screamed; her shoulder stabbed. A low hiss slipped past her lips before she could catch it.

Cutie moved at once.

He came to her side, hand sliding under her elbow, the other hovering near her back without quite touching, eyes wide and worried. "Are you okay?" he asked softly.

She gave a short nod. Barely true. Enough.

On the table, the sparrow froze mid‑bite.

His eyes widened a fraction when he saw her standing. The meat dropped back to the stone with a faint, greasy thud. The apple followed a heartbeat later. He wiped his claws on his chest feathers in two quick, guilty swipes, then forced a small smile onto his beak.

Like a child caught red‑handed.

Kaya stared at him.

He stared back.

In his eyes she saw it clearly: he knew. He knew exactly what had happened outside. The attack. The storm. The lightning that seemed far too interested in their exact location.

In her eyes, he would see something just as clear: he had better survive the next five seconds by sheer luck alone.

She took a step forward. Then another.

On the third step, something tugged at the back of her mind.

Her pocket.

Kaya stopped, slipped her hand inside, and felt the bundled warmth there. The other sparrow. The one they’d thrown like trash. The one she’d wrapped in cloth and shoved into her pocket, then protected on pure reflex when they’d hit the ground—hand clamped over that spot, body turned to take the impact so he wouldn’t.

He twitched faintly against her fingers now, alive by miracle and stubbornness.

She pulled him out gently and placed the small wrapped sparrow on the stone table, a little distance from the meat and apple. The bundle shifted once; there was the faintest tremor inside. Still breathing.

Then she turned back to the first sparrow.

He tried to look anywhere but at her. Failed. His gaze snapped back, pupils small, shoulders hunched like he wished he could fold himself into his own wings and disappear.

Kaya closed the last bit of distance between them.

Her hand shot out, faster than her bruised body had any right to move. She caught him by the scruff of feathers at his throat and hauled him up off the table. His claws kicked air for a second before she slammed him back down, pinning him in place with the fist in his collar.

They were eye to eye now.

Her smile was thin. Almost sweet. Completely wrong.

"You damn bastard," she said quietly.

Her voice shook—not from fear, but from the kind of anger that needed effort to keep caged.

"Because of you," she went on, giving him the smallest shake, enough to jolt his teeth, "we were about to die..."

She leaned in, breath cold from the cave air, eyes flat and dark.

"And you’re here," she finished, gaze flicking to the abandoned meat and apple before snapping back to him, "enjoying life?"

The sparrow squeaked. A small, strangled sound, claws flexing uselessly against her grip.

Behind her, Cutie took an instinctive half‑step back, eyes wide, lips pressing together. Veer, still half‑slumped against the wall, muttered under his breath, "Uh oh," like even he knew better than to get between Kaya and her current target.

Dripping, shivering, bruised to the bone, Kaya held the little feathery culprit where he dangled from her fist and looked at him like she was calmly choosing between plucking him one feather at a time or tossing him straight into a fire.

The sparrow squirmed in her grip, throat pinched between her fingers, but somehow still managed to look cocky.

"It’s not my fault," he rasped. "Why the hell are you even walking around with that damn jinx with you?"

Kaya’s brain snagged on the word.

Her eyes narrowed a fraction. "Did you just curse someone?" she asked.

Her tone was flat. Her face empty. That blankness was worse than shouting; it meant she’d already gone past the point of yelling and straight into the part where people started dying.

She might not ’like’ Cutie and Veer all the time, but they’d dragged her out of death enough that hearing this feathery idiot throw "jinx" at someone rubbed her the wrong way in a way nothing else did.

"I’m not cursing anyone," the sparrow snapped back fast. "I’m telling the truth."

He jerked his beak toward the table.

"I mean ’him’," he said. "Why the hell are you walking with that jinx together with you?"

Kaya’s gaze cut to the other sparrow—the small, wrapped body she’d just set down—then back to the one hanging from her hand.

"What," she said.

Not a question so much as a warning.

He flailed, tapping hard at her wrist with both wings like he was trying to knock sense into her fingers.

"I can’t breathe," he wheezed.

She held him a heartbeat longer, then opened her hand.

He dropped to the stone, coughed and hacked, little body shaking as he dragged air back in. His eyes were rimmed faint red when he glared up at her.

"Are you crazy?" he blurted.

Kaya looked down at him.

"What," she repeated, tone and face both perfectly blank.