Baby System: I'm the Beast World's Only Hope!-Chapter 117: Episode : Cooperating Together.

"Well?" Roxy demanded, her voice cutting through the silence. "I am waiting for an explanation. Why is the house like this?"

Roxy still gripped Torian’s furry ear in one hand and Syris’s thick, scaled tail in the other. She wasn’t squeezing hard enough to cause genuine injury to apex predators, but the indignity of it was paralyzing.

The two beasts looked at each other.

Torian, in his massive Tiger form, let out a low, pathetic chuff. He lowered his great head, his ears flattening against his skull. The ferocity he had shown seconds ago evaporated under the Luna’s gaze.

Syris, the giant Basilisk, flicked his forked tongue nervously. He tried to gently retract his tail, but Roxy tightened her grip.

"Don’t you dare slither away," she warned. "Shift. Now. Both of you."

There was a moment of hesitation. Shifting back meant facing her as a man. But nobody disobeyed a direct order from an angry Roxy.

They both shifted into two naked men who sat amidst the wreckage.

Torian sat cross-legged on the floor, looking every inch the pouting prince. He wiped a smudge of dust from his cheek, refusing to make eye contact.

Syris sprawled elegantly on a pile of what used to be a bookshelf, looking unbothered despite the rapidly cooling air hitting his bare skin.

He pushed his long seaweed hair back, wincing slightly as he touched his bruised jaw where Torian had punched him.

"You two are unbelievable," Roxy hissed. She finally let go of them, crossing her arms over Zarek’s oversized robe. "I go to take a bath, a bath I desperately needed, by the way, and I come back to find my mates destroying the sanctuary we built."

She gestured to the hole in the wall.

"Do you know how hard Kaelen worked on those logs? Do you know how much LP I spent on the insulation?"

They didn’t understand what the second part meant, but they understood the first part.

From the corner, Kaelen snorted. He was still sitting on the sofa with the children, looking entirely too amused.

He covered his mouth with his hand to hide a grin, but his shaking shoulders gave him away.

Zarek, leaning against the bathroom doorway with his arms crossed, didn’t bother hiding his reaction. He looked pleased.

"It is not my fault," Torian broke the silence. His voice was petulant, filled with the aggrieved tone of a man who felt the universe was conspiring against him. "I was standing there. He attacked me."

"Liar," Syris said smoothly. He glared at the tiger. "You threw the first punch, Cat. My jaw still aches."

"You provoked me!" Torian snapped, turning to glare at the Basilisk. "You stood there with your smug face and your... your glowing skin! You mocked me!"

"I stated a fact," Syris countered calmly. "Truth hurts, apparently."

"Enough!" Roxy stepped between them before Torian could launch himself again.

She looked at them. Two Kings. Two of the most powerful beings in the Beast World. And they were bickering like toddlers over a toy.

"I don’t care who started it," Roxy announced, her voice calm and deadly. "I care who is going to fix it. And since you both broke it, you are both responsible."

She took a deep breath, steeling herself.

"Until this wall is repaired," Roxy pointed a finger at the hole, "and until the furniture is replaced, and the mess is cleaned up..."

She looked them dead in the eye.

"You are both banned from my bed."

The silence that followed was absolute. Even the wind seemed to stop blowing.

Torian’s jaw dropped. "What?"

"Banned," Roxy repeated firmly. "No sleeping in the master bedroom. No touching. No... activities."

"Ha," Kaelen let out a short, sharp laugh.

Zarek commented. "Very fair."

"Fair?!" Torian scrambled to his feet, disregarding his nudity in his outrage. "How is this fair?! Why am I being punished alongside the snake? He is the one who drained you for five days! He is the one who has had his fill! I have been waiting! I have been pacing the floor like a prisoner!"

He gestured wildly to Syris.

"He doesn’t care about a ban! He’s satisfied! But I am starving, Roxy! And you punish me because he decided to run his forked tongue?"

Syris stood up slowly, slithering up beside Roxy. He adopted a look of wounded innocence that didn’t suit a 350-year-old apex predator at all. He slumped his shoulders, flinching dramatically as if his jaw was broken.

"Roxy," Syris murmured softly, his voice raspy. "I did not wish to fight. I merely came out for water. He blocked my path. He insulted our bond. He called our mating... disgusting."

He looked down at her with wide, neon eyes, playing the victim card perfectly.

Roxy looked at him. She knew he was manipulating the situation. She knew Syris loved to stir the pot. But looking at his bruised face, and feeling the lingering connection of the mating season humming between them, her heart softened just a fraction.

She reached up and gently stroked his hair, her fingers brushing against his cheek.

"I know, baby," Roxy whispered soothingly.

Torian made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. It sounded like a dying kettle.

"You..." Torian whispered, staring at her hand on Syris’s face. "Why are you comforting him?"

Roxy turned her head sharply to look at the Tiger. The softness vanished from her eyes.

"You think I don’t know you, Torian?" she challenged. "You think I don’t know that you stood in his way? You think I don’t know that you’ve been looking for a fight since the moment the bedroom door locked?"

"I..." Torian faltered. He looked at her, tongue-tied.

"You picked a fight with my mate, who is just coming out of a frenzy," Roxy scolded. "You scared the children."

"The children were cheering," Torian argued weakly, pointing at Axel, who was currently trying to climb into the hole in the wall.

"Torian!" Roxy snapped.

That was not the fucking point.

Torian flinched. His shoulders slumped. The anger drained out of him, replaced by a deep, crushing misery.

He looked at her. She was standing there, her hand still resting on Syris’s arm. She smelled like the Basilisk, and she was defending the Basilisk.

"You just don’t love me," Torian whispered.

The words hung heavy in the cold room.

"Torian..." Roxy started, her expression faltering.

A pang of guilt shot through Roxy’s chest. She saw the raw insecurity behind his arrogance. He was the only one without a mark. He was the only one she hadn’t truly "claimed" in the biological sense.

And that was actually not my fault. He was the one who wanted to take a little more time.

But she didn’t say that.

She took a step toward him, her hand dropping from Syris’s arm.

"Torian, that’s not true," she said softly. "You know that’s not true."

"Is it?" Torian asked. "Then why am I the only one sleeping alone tonight?"

Roxy opened her mouth to comfort him, to tell him he could come to bed, to fix the hurt in his eyes.

But then she remembered the state of the house.

If she caved now, if she let him manipulate her with guilt, the dynamic of the house would crumble. They couldn’t just destroy things because they were jealous. They were a family, not a fight club.

And besides, who is going to fix all these damages? Not me.

She hardened her heart. It hurt, but she did it.

"You should have thought about that," Roxy said, her voice quiet but firm, "the moment you made my house a mess."

Torian recoiled as if she had slapped him.

Roxy didn’t back down. She walked forward until she was standing between the two naked men. She reached out and grabbed Torian by the back of his neck, pulling his head down. She reached out and grabbed Syris by his long hair, pulling him down.

She forced their heads together until their foreheads were almost touching.

"Listen to me," she hissed. "I love you both. You are both idiots. But I will not sleep in a house with a hole in the wall. And I will not sleep with men who act like animals."

She released them, stepping back.

"You two are going to fix this. Together. You are going to go into the woods, cut down a tree, mill the lumber, and repair that wall. And you are going to build me a new table."

"Together?" Syris asked with distaste.

"Together," Roxy confirmed. "You will cooperate. And if I hear one growl, one hiss, or one punch..."

She narrowed her eyes.

"I will extend the ban to a month. And I will sleep in the nursery with the kids."

She pointed to the nursery door.

"Get dressed. Get tools. Get to work."

She turned on her heel, marching back toward the bedroom to get warm clothes. She paused at the hallway entrance, looking back over her shoulder at the two stunned Kings standing in the ruin of their living room.

"Capeesh?" she called out.