Baby System: I'm the Beast World's Only Hope!-Chapter 113: Episode : Torian’s Maddening Jealousy.

Syris pulled back slightly, staring at her. "Roxy... do you understand what you are saying? The season is hard on females. I will not be able to control myself. I will need you constantly. I will barely let you eat. You will be used."

Am I fucking complaining?

"That’s why I said use me." She added, tracing his jaw with kisses.

If you didn’t want that, you wouldn’t want to fuck me the moment you stepped out of your hibernation.

"And your other mates," he added, a note of genuine concern in his voice. "The tiger. The Wolf. They will not accept this. To monopolize Luna for a few days, it’s greedy..."

Roxy smiled. She pulled him down until their forehead touched.

"They will be fine," Roxy whispered. "They had their turn during their mating season. You are the one who needs me now. And I want to be here."

She kissed him gently.

"Just you and me."

That was the promise he gave her, and he worshiped it. Roxy thought she wouldn’t last, but as the day went past, her hunger for him only intensified, and she was addicted to him.

Day 2

By the morning of the second day, they were trying to brace themselves through it. By the evening of the second day, it shifted from tolerance to rage.

The problem wasn’t just that Roxy and Syris were locked in the master bedroom. The problem was that the walls of the Iron-Wood cabin, sturdy as they were against blizzards and beast attacks, were apparently made of paper when it came to noises like this.

"Forty-eight hours," Torian hissed.

The Tiger King was pacing back and forth on the bear-skin rug in front of the fireplace. He had paced so much that Kaelen was fairly certain he was drilling holes into the floorboards.

Torian’s pristine white robes were wrinkled, his hair was uncharacteristically messy, and his blue eyes were twitching with rage.

Never had he been like this before, all through his life reigning.

"He is a reptile," Torian muttered, spinning on his heel. "He should be cold. He should be slow. How does he have this much stamina? Is he drinking potions in there? It is cheating. It has to be cheating."

"Sit down, Torian," Kaelen sighed from the floor.

Kaelen was currently serving as a human jungle gym. Axel was chewing on his father’s ear, Onyx was asleep on his knee, and Iris was trying to braid Kaelen’s long silver hair with clumsy, chubby fingers.

They had no damn idea what their mother was doing in the room, since their dad kept them busy.

"I cannot sit!" Torian snapped. "Do you not hear that? That is my mate in there. Screaming his name. For two days!"

"Mama is fighting the snake?" Drax piped up from the corner, where he was building a tower of blocks. "She screamed ’Oh God’ a few times. What is a God?"

Kaelen choked on a laugh, quickly covering it with a cough. "No, Drax. Mama is just... exercising. With the snake."

"Exercising sounds like wrestling," Drax observed, placing a block with a happy smile. "The snake is winning."

He had not been taught the concept of mating, so he could only compare the sounds to that of grunts the males made when they were fighting each other.

His mind was too innocent, since he was still a young beast.

Torian let out a strangled noise of frustration and stormed toward the kitchen.

In the kitchen, the situation was no better.

Zarek was chopping vegetables. But "chopping" was a generous word. He was obliterating them.

His cleaver came down with enough force to sever a limb, turning carrots into orange confetti. The temperature in the kitchen was ninety degrees, fueled by his simmering jealousy.

"Vegetable soup again?" Torian asked, leaning against the doorframe miserably.

"It keeps my hands busy," Zarek grumbled, not looking up. He grabbed a potato and glared at it as if it had personally insulted his ancestors. "If I stop moving, I will burn the cabin down."

"I know the feeling," Torian sulked. He crossed his arms, staring at the ceiling as a particularly loud moan drifted from the bedroom hallway.

He flinched.

"I am the only one," Torian whispered, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.

Zarek paused, the cleaver hovering over an onion. He looked at the Tiger. "The only one, what?"

"Unmarked," Torian said softly.

He touched his own neck, then his chest. His skin was flawless. Golden-tan, muscled, perfect... and blank. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"You have burned your mark into her womb," Torian listed, his voice tight. "The Wolf has scarred her neck. The snake has painted her entire spine."

He looked at Zarek with unusually vulnerable eyes.

"I have nothing. I am a ghost to her skin. If she walks away tomorrow, there is no proof that the Tiger King ever held her."

Zarek set the cleaver down. He wiped his hands on a rag. He was not the type to have this kind of pep talk, so he could only give this.

"You can leave and never come back," Zarek pointed out in a growl.

Torian tsked, not getting the warning from Zarek’s tone.

"I am going to stay!" Torian snapped, his ego flaring up again. "I want her to scream my name until her voice breaks! I want to leave a mark so deep that every time she looks in a mirror, she remembers who owns her!"

He turned away, unable to bear the threatening glare in the Dragon’s eyes.

"I need air," Torian muttered.

Torian stepped out onto the back porch. The cold night air hit his flushed face, but it did little to cool the heat in his blood.

He looked toward the south, where his kingdom was. They were still there, waiting for his command to return to the Citadel or stay.

Inside the palace were his concubines. Beautiful, high-born tigresses with sleek fur and submissive manners. They knew how to please a King and didn’t make him wait. They didn’t have three other husbands to contend with.

His groin throbbed, a painful, heavy ache that had been building for two days.

I could go, Torian thought. The idea seduced him. I could go there right now. I could summon Nerene or Saria. They would welcome me. I could find release in ten minutes. I would be worshipped. I would be the King again, not the waiting fool.

He took a step off the porch.

He imagined it. The soft furs of his chambers. The tigress purring his name. The physical relief. But then, an image flashed in his mind.

Roxy.

Not the Roxy who laughed or the Roxy who cooked. But the Roxy who had stood in front of him with her hands on her hips, her eyes blazing with fury when he had suggested she was fragile.

The Roxy, who had sliced the tongue of Nala, without any remorse in her eyes, like a true beast who lusted for blood.

He imagined her face if he came back smelling of another female.

She would look at him with that cold, disappointed stare. She would sniff the air, smell the betrayal, and she would... close the door.

The thought made Torian’s stomach churn. He had become a sucker for Roxy.

The realization hit him harder than a physical blow: I don’t want them.

He looked at the south, and he felt nothing. No desire. No pull. They were empty vessels. They were just bodies.

Roxy was the fire. She was the challenge. She was the maddening, frustrating, beautiful chaos that made his blood sing.

"Damn this woman," Torian whispered to the moon. "She has ruined me."

He pulled his foot back onto the porch. He couldn’t go. He didn’t want to go. He would rather stand here in the freezing cold, listening to another man pleasure her, than touch a female who wasn’t Roxy.

He turned back to the door, his hand resting on the latch.

But as he listened to another muffled cry from inside the house, his sadness hardened into something darker. Something sharper.

His pupils dilated, swallowing the blue of his eyes until they were black voids.

"Fine," Torian murmured, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "Let the Snake have his season. Let him drain himself dry."

He gripped the door handle so hard the wood groaned.

"Because when that door opens... when she steps out..."

He pictured Roxy. He pictured grabbing her, dragging her to the hot spring, and washing the scent of the basilisk off her skin with his own tongue. He pictured keeping her pinned down until she begged for mercy, until she forgot the Wolf, the Dragon, and the Snake existed.

When he knew Roxy wouldn’t be begging for Mercy anywhere.

"I will not be gentle," Torian vowed to the empty night. "I will not be a patient gentleman anymore. I will punish her for this wait. I will ravage her so thoroughly that she will not be able to walk without remembering me."