The six men completely froze.

They had braced themselves for a myriad of reactions. They fully expected her to weep with overwhelming gratitude at the sheer, cosmic magnitude of their love. They had prepared for her to mourn the agonizing loss of their majestic inner beasts, to shed tears for the ancient dragon and the towering white tiger that had kept her warm at night. They had expected tragedy, profound sorrow, and a tearful, desperate embrace.

Instead, Roxy went full Matriarch.

The color that had slowly been returning to her pale cheeks violently flushed into a dark, furious crimson. The brilliant green of her eyes, previously swimming with unshed tears, instantly hardened into twin points of terrifying, unadulterated rage.

She gripped the thin edges of her white hospital blanket, her knuckles turning bone-white.

"You gave up your souls?" Roxy whispered, her voice dropping into a dangerously quiet register that made every single man in the room instinctively take a half-step backward. "You surrendered your inner beasts? You permanently butchered your elemental magic to come here?"

"We had to, Roxy," Ren murmured, stepping forward with his hands raised in a placating, gentle gesture. "We could not exist in a universe where you were not breathing. The sacrifice was—"

"Do not use the word sacrifice to me!" Roxy suddenly shrieked, the sheer, deafening volume of her voice violently shattering the quiet of the recovery ward.

Ren flinched, his silver eyes going wide.

"Sacrifice?!" Roxy demanded, throwing the hospital blankets completely off her lap and ignoring the warning beep of her heart monitor. She pointed a trembling, furious finger directly at Zarek’s chest. "You think you made a romantic sacrifice?! You think throwing away your immortality to play dress-up in human leather jackets is some grand, beautiful gesture?!"

"Matriarch, please," Kaelen attempted to interject, his voice smooth and incredibly cautious. "The cosmic void required a trade. It was the only way to reach you."

"I don’t care about the cosmic void!" Roxy yelled, her chest heaving as she glared down the former King of the North. She turned her wrath entirely on him. "You left Axel with the North?! Axel has no magic! He is a physical wolf-shifter! He cannot summon blizzards! He cannot freeze the encroaching rogue armies! You dumped an entire, hostile, frozen continent onto the shoulders of a teenager who cannot even wield the ice, and you call that a sacrifice?!"

Kaelen’s jaw snapped shut. The elegant, aristocratic composure of the silver-haired Warlord completely evaporated. He swallowed hard, his icy blue eyes dropping instantly to the linoleum floor.

Roxy didn’t stop. The righteous, maternal fury was burning through her veins, completely overriding her physical exhaustion.

She turned on Zarek. "And you! Drax is barely twenty years old! The eastern Vanguard elders are ancient, bloodthirsty, and utterly treacherous. They only respected you because you could incinerate them with a single breath! You left our son on the Obsidian Throne without his father to back him up? You think Drax is ready to carry the absolute weight of the beast market and the trade routes while mourning the loss of his entire family?!"

"Drax is strong," Zarek rumbled defensively, though his deep voice lacked its usual world-ending authority. "He has Onyx by his side. They will hold the line."

"They are children!" Roxy screamed, her voice cracking with pure, undeniable wrath. "What kind of horrific parenting allows fathers to dump the weight of an entire, violent continent onto the shoulders of teenagers?! What is wrong with you?!"

She spun her furious gaze toward Syris. The former King of the Swamps visibly stiffened, recognizing the incoming strike.

"And Tanith?" Roxy demanded, her green eyes blazing. "You left a young girl to manage the Swamps? A kingdom completely infested with assassins, venom-weavers, and cutthroats who actively look for any sign of weakness? You just handed her your signet ring and walked away?!"

Syris opened his mouth, his brilliant tactical mind scrambling desperately for a logical defense, but he found absolutely nothing. He closed his mouth, pressing his lips into a thin, tight line, looking entirely ashamed.

"And the babies!" Roxy sobbed, the anger giving way to a fierce, desperate heartbreak, only to violently snap right back into rage. She glared at Torian and Caspian. "Tyara is a feral cub who needs her father to teach her control! Fedor is a tiny, terrified Kitsune who hides under the furniture when the wind blows too hard! Zale is a toddler! And my newborn... my baby girl... I didn’t even get to hold her, and you just left her in a fortress without her parents?!"

Torian let out a pathetic, high-pitched whine that sounded completely unnatural coming from a man built like a tank. The massive, heavily muscled man slumped his broad shoulders, looking entirely devastated.

"We left them in Iris’s care," Caspian offered weakly, his oceanic eyes entirely flooded with guilt. "Iris has a gentle heart. She is watching the nursery—"

"Iris is a wolf!" Roxy snapped, cutting the Sea King off completely. "Iris has absolutely no magic! She is a teenager trying to raise a magical Kitsune, a merman, a tiger cub, and an infant by herself while her older siblings are busy trying not to get assassinated on their respective thrones! That is not a solid childcare plan, Caspian!"

The small, sterile hospital room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.

The six most lethal, terrifying, and historically unstoppable apex predators in the entire universe were completely, undeniably paralyzed.

They stood around her hospital bed looking entirely like scolded puppies. The majestic, invincible Warlords who had commanded the respect of millions had been completely reduced to cowering husks by a frail, mortal woman wearing a standard-issue cotton hospital gown.

Zarek stared intently at the tips of his heavy combat boots, completely unable to meet her gaze. Torian had actually retreated a full step toward the wall, trying to make his massive, bulky frame look as small as physically possible. Syris was aggressively examining the stitching on his modern trench coat. Kaelen looked like he wanted the linoleum floor to open up and swallow him whole, and Ren simply hung his head, his silver hair hiding his absolute shame.

They had completely convinced themselves that crossing the void to save her was the ultimate act of devotion. They hadn’t allowed themselves to process the catastrophic, irresponsible reality of their departure.

Roxy sat on the edge of the bed, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she glared at the six towering men. She was waiting for a defense. She was waiting for them to reveal some brilliant, hidden tactical Vanguard master plan that made abandoning their children a stroke of genius.

But there was no master plan. They had just been desperate, reckless, and entirely blinded by their love for her.

"Roxy," Zarek finally rumbled, his voice incredibly soft and thick with a heavy, crushing guilt. He took a hesitant step forward, keeping his hands carefully at his sides so as not to agitate her further. "We... we were blinded by the void. We could not think of the empires. We could only think of you bleeding in the dark."

"It doesn’t excuse it," Kaelen added quietly, his tone completely humbled. "We failed our duties as fathers to fulfill our duties as your mates." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"We are so sorry, Matriarch," Torian whispered, his bright blue eyes practically begging for her forgiveness. He looked absolutely miserable. "We didn’t mean to hurt the cubs."

"We will fix it," Caspian promised frantically, stepping forward to gently grip the metal railing at the foot of her bed. "We swear to you, Roxy. We will make it up to you. We will make it up to the children. We will do whatever it takes to right this wrong."

"Yes," Syris agreed quickly, eager to desperately cling to any path of redemption. "We will provide for them. We will compensate for our absence. We will make it up to you, completely."

Roxy stared at them, her sharp mind suddenly stalling.

She looked at their earnest, guilt-ridden faces. She heard their frantic promises to "make it up to her" and "fix it."

Her brain completely, violently short-circuited.

They had just confessed, less than five minutes ago, that they had permanently butchered their souls, severed their elemental magic, and traded their immortality to cross a sealed, one-way dimensional void. They had completely unmade themselves. They were entirely human. The door to the Beastworld was catastrophically, permanently locked behind them.

How exactly did they plan on making it up to the children when they couldn’t even cast a basic tracking spell, let alone cross the tectonic plates of the multiverse?

The absolute, mind-numbing absurdity of their logic hit her like a physical brick. They were the most powerful beings she had ever known, and they were, without a doubt, the most idiotic men in the entire galaxy.

Roxy was so utterly dumbfounded by their sheer, unadulterated stupidity that the remaining anger completely vanished, leaving only a hollow, echoing disbelief.

She stared at the six ancient Kings of the Beastworld, threw her hands up into the air, and let her head fall back against the hospital pillows.

"You guys are so fucking stupid."