Villainess is being pampered by her beast husbands-Chapter 399 --

Something in him trembled; his feathers puffed, then smoothed again as he swallowed hard.

"I mean—" he corrected quickly, wing snapping toward the bundled sparrow. "*That* one. You shouldn’t be walking around with that jinx."

Kaya looked at the injured, unknown bird. Then back at him.

"Speak," she said.

No please. No softness. Just a command.

He let out a long breath through his beak.

"You got attacked, right?" he said. "Something happened that you don’t usually do. Something that felt... wrong, but you had to do it anyway."

Her fingers twitched at her side.

Images slid through her head: gun kicking in her hand, bodies dropping in the corridor, the number of bullets she’d fired without thinking about the count, the way her blood had burned when it touched stone.

She didn’t answer.

He kept going.

"In this kind of situation," he said, "a lot of things start going off. Stuff you can normally handle alone? Suddenly it turns into a mess. You start thinking... ’from the moment I met this idiot, nothing has gone right.’ Don’t you?"

He nodded at the wrapped sparrow again.

Kaya’s jaw clenched.

From the second she’d grabbed that other bird off the floor—bleeding, unknown, shoved at her like bait—things *had* been sliding sideways, faster and harder than before. The focused attack. The storm choosing their exact patch of sky. Lightning chasing their tree *twice*.

She didn’t say yes.

But she didn’t deny it either.

The change in Kaya’s face was small, but the sparrow caught it.

His gaze slid past her, to the bundled shape on the stone. He went quiet for a beat, then hopped closer, claws clicking softly on the table. He stared down at the other sparrow—the one wrapped in cloth—then reached out and brushed a wingtip against the bundle.

"...He’s my cousin," he said at last. "You know. He’s a born jinx."

Kaya’s brow twitched.

She didn’t say anything, but disbelief was written clear in the tight set of her mouth, the faint pull between her brows. People talk about body language revealing thoughts when words don’t; the way her eyes narrowed and her shoulders stiffened made it obvious she didn’t buy talk of "born bad luck" just like that.

She didn’t believe in jinxes. Not like that. Not in some person being born to drag misfortune behind them just by existing.

The sparrow glanced sideways and caught that exact reaction.

"I know what you’re thinking," he said, a little sharper. "But it’s not like that."

He tapped the bundle’s side with one claw, gentler than his tone.

"You see how my power lets me duplicate things? Make extra," he went on. "This bastard’s power is to jinx people. Literally. If he sticks to someone, he really jinxes them."

He lifted his head and met Kaya’s eyes.

"This bastard even jinxed me," he snapped. "I had to leave my tribe because of him."

Kaya froze.

A power like that? She’d never even considered it. Poison blood, night eyes, beast forms—this world had shown her a lot. But someone whose *ability* was to drag bad luck around? To twist events just by being close?

The sparrow didn’t stop.

He turned back to the wrapped cousin, checking a wing through the cloth, prodding gently along the edge like he was making sure bones were still in the right place even as his words stayed hard. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"Why the hell did you even bring him here?" he muttered. "You should’ve left him to die somewhere."

The tone was different now. Colder. No greedy edge, no half‑joking insult. Just flat resentment.

Kaya watched him, something tightening low in her chest.

For all his selfishness, his idiocy, his constant swearing, she’d never seen him like this before. He was loud, careless, hungry, often out of his mind. But not... this. Not so sharp around the edges. Not looking at someone like they were a walking disaster that had already ruined his life once.

Looked like this so‑called cousin wasn’t just unlucky. He wasn’t much of a good person in the sparrow’s eyes either.

The sparrow’s claw paused on the cloth.

He watched his cousin for a moment, eyes narrowed, then clicked his beak softly. "Don’t worry," he muttered. "This bastard won’t die that easily."

Kaya didn’t answer. She just watched the way his feathers sat—too flat, too controlled for his usual chaotic self. Even in silence, the tightness around his eyes and the way his shoulders held tension showed he meant every word, and not kindly.

He turned to her.

"Let him stay here," he said. "You should go and rest. You all look half‑dead. And if possible," his gaze slid briefly to the wrapped sparrow again, "it would be better if you stay away from this bastard."

Kaya paused.

He always cursed. Always called people idiots, bastards, worse. But this was different. The word landed heavier. His expression didn’t match his usual greedy, joking self; there was something sharp and wary there, almost... afraid of his own cousin.

Still, she was tired. Bone‑deep, skin‑sore, head‑ringing tired.

And, honestly, staying away from trouble wasn’t the worst idea.

She lifted a hand to her scalp and winced. A hard bump was already swelling there—felt like someone had glued a popcorn kernel under her skin. Her fingers pressed lightly; pain sparked and made her eyes narrow.

"Great," she muttered under her breath.

She turned away from the table and started toward the inner room Veer kept for her. Each step pulled at bruises. Cold clothes clung to her. The cave air felt warmer than the storm, but it wasn’t comfort yet.

Behind her, Cutie moved automatically to follow. This wasn’t his home; he had no other room in vulture territory, no idea where he was supposed to go. His footsteps padded soft on stone.

He got two steps before a hand clamped around the back of his collar.

Veer.

Still damp, still irritated, he hauled Cutie back with a single, firm yank. Cutie’s heels scraped the floor; he turned, startled, to find Veer’s gaze on him—sharp, cold, a different kind of warning than Kaya’s blank stare.