Kingston Academy

FORTY-TWO

Following the blond's orders, Arien reluctantly sat the cup down. He was aching to finish the drink and get back to the last of the documents for the night but with Niven around to scold him for his bad habits, Arien had to hold himself back and quite possibly stop drinking coffee at night altogether. It wasn't like Niven was wrong. Drinking this much caffeine was always bad.

"Come here." Returning his gaze back to Niven, he watched the boy stretch his hands out slightly, gesturing the beastman to come over and sit down.

He followed Niven's instructions once more and plopped himself down right next to him. Wordlessly, Niven grabbed hold of Arien's face to get a good look at the male. The blond didn't look surprised when he noticed how tired Arien also seemed to be.

Niven didn't comment on anything and instead, he laid Arien's head down on his lap like usual and played around with the beastman's wolf ears before soothingly running his hands through the dark purple locks of hair. Arien made a small sigh of content, closing his eyes for just a second to relish in the moment of being groomed again.

The quiet moment lasted for quite a while and the two of them were merely content with the way things were.

Unfortunately, Niven finally decided to speak up and ask, "I heard... you knew about Grim. He was originally from your tribe."

"Mhmm."

"You never told me you did."

"Mhmm."

Niven's face fell even more at the apathetic responses. "How come you gave Grim away to my brothers? They don't even put him in their eyes. They even put a collar around his neck."

Arien didn't reply back for a while. The alpha's ears twitched rather violently and he gave off an unimpressed snort at the mention of the sheep beastman.

"Grim was considered as a burden back in my tribe since he couldn't take care of himself. We hardly ever let any beastman who wasn't part wolf or had the descent of our ancestors enter in the pack, let alone let them live. One of my elders figured Grim would be useful when he arrived as a small child, and so they trained him harshly if he wanted to stay with us." Arien tilted his head a little, glancing at Niven's tired eyes with a solemn gaze. "He was specifically trained for me, becoming my guard and right-hand man. Other than that... he acted as my pet."

"I was briefly told about that," Niven sourly commented.

Arien chuffed, "Even though we were together, it didn't mean his rank in the tribe moved up. He was still in the bottom. Any beastman who's at the lowest part of our system becomes pets for the higher standing wolves. Grim was just my exclusive pet, that was all."

"Did that include omegas? Were they at the bottom of the chain?"

Arien had to think for a moment, wondering how to explain it to the human. "Going back to the days when beastmen newly formed actual packs... omegas weren't necessarily considered to be at the bottom. They just weren't as strong or fast like Betas or Alphas, and they could hardly survive by themselves, but they were the mother to their mates' children and raised them up as perfect as they could instinctively. They were essential to our pack, and without them the children wouldn't have survived as long. From then on until now, my tribe considers them extremely precious. So in a way, they don't belong at the bottom, they're not pets."

Niven frowned. "But your system of having pets... who's considered to be at the bottom then?"

"Beasts like Grim," Arien roughly stated. "As I said, anyone who isn't like us gets to be placed at the bottom. If they want to survive and rely on the tribe to back them up then all they can do is follow through the elders' orders and undergo the same training as we did."