The five towering, blood-soaked Alpha Kings froze in their tracks.

Zarek looked down at his adopted daughter, his chest heaving with residual, heartbroken rage. "Tanith, move out of the way. She is not your mother anymore. You heard her."

"No!" Tanith shrieked, stomping her small foot against the floorboards. She pointed a trembling finger directly at the colossal Dragon King. "You called her selfish! How could you call her selfish, Papa Zarek?! She didn’t leave because she wanted to run away! She left to step in front of the monster so it wouldn’t eat us!"

The Warlords went completely, dead silent.

"She read the diary!" Tanith continued, her high voice cracking under the agonizing weight of her tears. "You all read the diary! You know what the gods wanted! If she didn’t give them her soul, Abaddon would have killed all of us! She gave up her smile, she gave up everything so you wouldn’t have to die fighting a war you couldn’t win!"

Tanith’s small chest heaved, her face flushed red with absolute, unrestrained indignation. She swept her fierce, scolding gaze across the five most terrifying apex predators on the continent.

Right now, she sounded more like an adult than a child.

"You promised her!" Tanith cried out, her voice breaking into a devastating, raw sob. "You are her Kings! You promised to be her shield! You promised to protect her from everything! But the absolute second it gets hard—the absolute second the Heavens steal her away and she isn’t here to hold your hands and bake your sweets—you are running away like cowards!"

The accusation hit the Warlords with the concussive, apocalyptic force of a falling mountain.

It was a brilliant, blinding strike of pure logic slicing through the suffocating fog of their grief.

Tanith was right. They had been acting like wounded, petulant beasts lashing out at the trap, rather than the Kings they claimed to be.

Kaelen’s breath hitched in his throat. The King of the North slowly lowered his head, his broad shoulders violently trembling. The icy, blinding rage that had consumed him entirely evaporated, leaving behind a crushing, agonizing wave of profound shame. He thought of the diary.

The sacrifice of her soul. He had been furious that she lied to him, but he hadn’t stopped to realize the sheer, unfathomable terror she must have felt over the last week, walking toward her own execution entirely alone just to spare them the burden.

Kaelen’s knees violently buckled. The stoic, majestic Wolf King dropped to the floorboards, his heavy hands gripping the fabric of his trousers as he stared at the ground, entirely overcome by the magnitude of his wife’s selflessness.

Syris let out a jagged, broken breath. The elegant Snake King raised his hands, completely covering his face as a wave of absolute self-loathing crashed over his transmigrated soul. He had interrogated her. He had pushed her to tears. He had been the one to demand the truth, completely blind to the fact that she was building a fortress to protect them from the Heavens.

Zarek stared down at Tanith, his fiery golden eyes widening as the devastating reality of his own words echoed back at him. Selfish. He had called the woman who had just thrown her existence into the cosmic meat-grinder to save his life selfish. The Dragon King let out a low, agonizing groan, lifting his massive, scarred hands to his head as if trying to crush the memory of his own horrific outburst physically.

Of course they were angry at Roxy. They were furious that she hadn’t trusted them to find a third option. But beneath that anger, beneath the blinding grief, she was still their mate. She was the Matriarch. And she had done the single most selfless, terrifyingly brave thing in the history of the Beastworld.

How could they possibly abandon her shell?

Torian closed his eyes, thick, hot tears spilling over his dark lashes and tracking down his massive, blood-stained cheeks. The White Tiger Alpha felt a heavy, agonizing ache in his chest. Caspian leaned heavily against the stone wall, the aquatic Warlord’s striking eyes dropping to the floor in silent, crushing repentance.

They had failed her. She had saved the world, and their first instinct had been to turn their backs on the empty vessel she left behind.

Before the Alphas could even begin to articulate their profound, overwhelming apologies, the shadows near the doorway shifted.

Drax stepped forward.

The massive teenage drake moved with a heavy, deliberate stride, coming to stand directly shoulder-to-shoulder with his tiny sister. Drax’s face was incredibly tight, his jaw clenched so hard a muscle feathered in his soot-stained cheek.

Drax possessed all the devastating pride of a dragon, combined with the volatile, confusing emotions of a teenager. He looked past the towering, humbled Alphas, his dark eyes locking onto the rigid, unblinking Vessel sitting perfectly still on the bed of dire-wolf pelts.

"She taught me to use my words," Drax said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that vibrated in the silent room. His hands curled into tight fists at his sides. "She sat with me in the training yards and she drilled it into my skull that communication was the only way a pack survives. She told me to never hide in the dark."

Drax swallowed hard, fighting the fierce, burning tears of adolescent betrayal.

"I am so angry at her," Drax admitted, his voice cracking slightly. "I am furious that she lied to us. I am furious that she didn’t talk to us. But..."

The teenage drake turned his gaze away from the bed, looking directly into the bloodshot, tear-filled eyes of Zarek, Kaelen, Torian, Syris, and Caspian. The anger in his eyes was instantly overpowered by a fierce, undeniable, and terrifyingly absolute Vanguard loyalty.

"We stay," the teenage dragon growled, his combat aura sparking to life—not with hostility, but with pure, defensive devotion. "We don’t leave our pack behind. Even if it’s just her shell. We do not abandon her."

It was the final, defining spark. Drax’s unyielding declaration acted as a beacon, summoning the absolute courage of the entire Iron-Wood bloodline.

Behind Drax, the shadows violently moved.

Axel and Onyx surged forward. The twin wolf pups had partially shifted, their ears pointed, their eyes glowing with lethal blue Northern light. They didn’t shrink back from the cold, alien aura of the Vessel anymore. They flanked Drax, their sharp fangs bared in a fierce display of territorial solidarity.

"We stay!" Axel barked, his voice ringing with absolute determination.

"We aren’t leaving Mum!" Onyx echoed, standing tall beside his brother.

Iris stepped out, wiping her tears furiously with the back of her sleeve. The young illusionist’s violet eyes burned with a bright, stubborn magic. She grabbed Tanith’s other hand, linking their fingers together to form a solid, unbroken chain across the doorway.

From the foot of the bed, the infants answered the call.

Tyara, in her white tiger cub form, let out a surprisingly loud, fiercely protective roar that echoed off the stone walls. Beside her, Little Fedor hopped up onto his hind legs, his fiery-red Kitsune tail puffing out as he unleashed a high-pitched, entirely fearless yip! of agreement.

Even Zale agreed.

The Warlords stared at their offspring. The shame completely washed away, replaced by an overwhelming, profound sense of awe. The children had remembered the core tenets of the Vanguard even when the Kings had completely forgotten them.

The heavy silence in the room stretched, vibrating with the fierce, undeniable power of the pack’s unified roar.

Drax narrowed his dark eyes, his chest rising and falling heavily as he stared down the five most dangerous men in the Beastworld.

"We are staying with our mother," Drax declared, his voice carrying the undeniable authority of a future King. "Are you going to walk out on her, or are you going to stay and figure out how to fix this?"