Chapter 461: Episode 459: The Alphas are planning something.

The damp, suffocating darkness of the basement had completely consumed whatever lingering fragments of time Roxy had left.

Three weeks had passed since the heavy iron door had first locked behind her. Twenty-one agonizing days of starvation, electrical torture, and freezing, biting isolation.

Roxy was no longer a Matriarch. She was barely even a living human being.

Her neck was too weak to support the weight of her own skull. Her head hung limply, her chin resting against her hollowed, skeletal chest. Her clothes were reduced to a tattered, filthy rag clinging to her protruding ribs. It was stiff with dried blood, sweat, and grime.

She had completely stopped crying. It was not a choice born of bravery or sudden resilience; her physical body had simply run entirely out of fluids. Her tear ducts were completely dry, burning with a scratchy, agonizing friction every time she blinked.

She could only stare blankly at a small patch of fuzzy green mold growing on the concrete wall just inches from her boots. She watched the mold. She focused on the absolute stillness of it, waiting with a quiet, empty patience for her heart to finally stop beating. She just wanted the darkness to take her.

Heavy, uneven footsteps echoed on the wooden stairs leading down into the basement.

Elias stepped into the flickering green light of the server monitors. He looked manic, his gray hair wild and his tweed coat rumpled. In his hand, he held a small, clear plastic cup filled with clean, cold water.

The sound of the water sloshing against the plastic hit Roxy’s ears like a deafening siren.

Her cracked, bleeding lips parted. A pathetic, dry rasp escaped her throat. The sheer, overwhelming biological desperation for a single drop of moisture completely overrode her desire to die. She weakly lifted her head, her dull green eyes locking onto the cup with primal, agonizing need.

Elias walked over and stopped just inches from her bound knees. He held the cup out. Condensation dripped down the sides.

"You want it," Elias whispered, his sharp eyes glinting with a cruel, obsessive light.

Roxy managed a weak, pathetic nod. Her wrists strained feebly against the heavy steel chains, completely unable to reach for it.

"Take it," Elias offered, tilting the cup slightly so a single drop of water spilled over the rim and hit the concrete floor. "Just manifest the frequency. Show me the radiation. Open the spectrum, and you can drink until your stomach bursts."

Roxy stared at him, her chest heaving with weak, shallow gasps. She couldn’t do it. She possessed no magic. She was completely, devastatingly human, stripped of the heavy Vanguard combat auras that had always surrounded her.

"I... can’t..." she croaked, the words tearing her throat like sandpaper.

Elias’s manic expression instantly hardened into a mask of pure, vicious rage.

He violently jerked his hand back, pulling the cup of water completely out of her reach. Before Roxy could even lower her head in defeat, Elias’s free hand swung out.

Crack.

The back of Elias’s hand struck Roxy sharply across her right cheek.

The physical blow was not strong enough to kill her, but the sheer, jarring impact snapped her head to the side. Her cheek instantly burned with a sharp, stinging heat. She tasted fresh copper as the crack in her lip violently split open again.

She didn’t fight back. She didn’t scream. She just let her head hang to the side, entirely broken.

The physical abuse was a horrific, mind-shattering contrast to the universe she had left behind. In the Beastworld, the five most lethal, terrifying apex predators in existence had treated her like glass. Zarek’s massive, blisteringly hot hands had only ever touched her with trembling reverence. Torian, a feral tiger who could snap a tree in half with his jaws, would carefully braid flowers into her hair. Syris worshipped her very breath. Kaelen wrapped her in soothing, protective cold to ease her fevers, and Caspian would weep if she so much as stubbed her toe.

They were monsters to the world, but they had worshipped her entirely. And now, in her own human world, she was being starved and struck by a pathetic, obsessed man in a damp basement.

Elias threw the cup of water furiously against the wall, shattering the plastic. He stormed back up the wooden stairs, slamming the heavy iron door shut behind him.

Roxy closed her eyes. She did not pray for a rescue anymore. She just prayed for the darkness to end.

***

A universe away, the massive, sprawling estate of the Iron-Wood Manor was being methodically, silently dismantled.

The warm, chaotic sanctuary that Roxy had built for her family was being entirely emptied. The heavy velvet curtains were pulled down. The ancient tomes in the library were packed into thick leather trunks. The massive hearth fires that had burned continuously for years were coldly, efficiently extinguished.

The Alpha Kings were preparing for a war, but the absolute most terrifying part was that there was no visible enemy in sight. No armies marched on the borders. No wyverns darkened the skies. Yet, the Warlords moved with the chilling, lethal precision of men marching directly to the front lines of an apocalypse.

In the western wing, the nursery was in complete chaos.

They were moving the younger children to the heavily fortified Dragon Peaks, entirely under the protection of Lyra, Dena, and Iris.

Little Fedor, terrified of the oppressive, heavy silence radiating from his fathers, had shifted into his fiery-red Kitsune form. He was hiding underneath a dresser, his multiple tails wrapped tightly over his nose, refusing to come out.

Iris had to kneel on the floor to coax the trembling infant out from the shadows.

Zale was sobbing loudly in Dena’s arms. The merman-hybrid’s distress was causing the plumbing in the Manor to violently rattle, his aquatic magic manifesting small, erratic puddles of seawater on the pristine marble floors. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted his father to spin him in the air.

Tyara, entirely true to her feral tiger blood, was refusing to go quietly. The young cub was covered in mud from the courtyard, standing defiantly in front of her packed bags. She bared her tiny fangs, growling aggressively at the guards attempting to load her belongings into the carriage.

She wanted to stay and fight whatever invisible threat was forcing them out of their home.

But Torian did not step forward to calm her. The massive White Tiger King stood at the end of the hall, watching his young daughter rage, his blue eyes entirely dead. He didn’t offer a word of comfort. He simply turned his back and walked away.

By nightfall, the carriages had departed. The Manor was completely, deafeningly empty.

Outside, the Beastworld moon hung low and heavy over the ancient, towering trees of the surrounding forest.

Drax stood on the high stone balcony of the empty estate, his dark green eyes piercing through the shadows of the woods. He pulled his heavy black cloak tighter around his broad shoulders.

Deep in the center of the dense forest, standing in a perfect, equidistant circle among the towering pines, were the five Alpha Kings.

Drax watched them from a distance. The Warlords were not speaking. They were not moving. They simply stood facing one another, their heads bowed. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Drax was so confused at what they were doing, because he has never seen them like this before.

"They are not preparing to defend the borders," a quiet, smooth voice spoke right beside him.

Drax spun around to meet the gaze of his sister.

Tanith stood beside him in the moonlight.

The young snake-shifter was no longer hiding in her room. She wore the heavy, ancient emerald signet ring of the Swamp Kingdom on her right hand. Her reptilian eyes were completely dilated, staring out into the forest.

Tanith did not look scared. She looked profoundly, agonizingly resigned.

She stepped closer to the stone balustrade, resting her hands on the cold masonry. The heavy wind from the forest whipped her dark hair around her pale face. She watched their fathers standing in the center completely abandoning the world they had built.

"Something is going to happen," Tanith whispered, her voice carrying the heavy, chilling weight of an absolute certainty. She turned her head, looking directly into Drax’s green eyes. "And with that brings us both sorrow and happiness."