Baby System: I'm the Beast World's Only Hope!-Chapter 339: Episode 337: What time?

Ren’s hands froze on her bare shoulders. Slowly, his long, elegant fingers slid up the damp curve of her neck. His sharp, meticulously manicured claws gently, rhythmically began to comb through the tangled, wet mass of her dark curls.

"How could you think that, baby?" Ren murmured, his voice a smooth, silken purr that perfectly masked the absolute devastation ripping through his chest. He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the crown of her head. "How could you ever think I wouldn’t want a piece of you running around the Manor?"

Roxy looked down, her brilliant green eyes watching the swirling ripples in the warm water. She wasn’t convinced.

She knew something was deeply, fundamentally bothering him. The panic in the forest, the desperate avoidance in the bedroom, the heavy, suffocating silence, it all pointed to a massive, hidden truth.

And she absolutely hated being entirely blind to it.

In the beginning, the System would have thrown a glowing blue holographic screen directly in her face. It would have offered a quest, a notification, or at the very least, a status debuff explaining what biological or magical anomaly was afflicting the Fox King.

But the interface was completely dead. The invisible, omnipotent Architect that had forcibly ripped her from her original world and dumped her into this gamified, brutal reality had suddenly, terrifyingly stopped communicating with her entirely.

How could it do this? How could it orchestrate her entire life, bond her soul to these incredibly powerful, devoted warlords, grant her children, and then completely vanish when the cracks began to violently show?

She was navigating completely in the dark, surrounded by Alpha Kings whom she wanted to spend her entire life with, while an invisible blade hung squarely over all their heads.

Sensing the heavy, spiraling darkness pulling at her thoughts, Ren moved to intercept. He couldn’t give her the truth, so he gave her the only thing he had left: his absolute, undeniable physical devotion.

He shifted his body in the scalding water, wrapping his arms securely around her waist. With effortless strength, he turned her around in the tub, so she was straddling his thighs, her bare, flushed chest pressing flush against his.

Ren reached up, cupping her face with his wet hands. He leaned in and kissed her deeply. A wet kiss that tasted of steam, soapy water, and desperate love. He coaxed her lips apart, his tongue sliding against hers in a sensual, commanding rhythm that instantly sent a heavy jolt of heat straight to her lower belly.

When he finally pulled away, leaving them both breathless in the heavy mist, he didn’t let her lean back. He adjusted his hips, pressing upward so she could feel exactly what her proximity was doing to him.

Roxy gasped softly. Beneath the warm, emerald water, the Fox King was already impossibly, rock-hard. The thick, rigid length of his arousal pressed heavily against the seam of her core, pulsing with a steady, demanding heat.

"Do you feel that?" Ren whispered, his vibrant green eyes burning with an intense, unfiltered lust as he looked directly into her own matching green eyes. He brushed his thumb gently over her swollen lower lip. "I am always burning for you. I would want to fill your womb anytime, any day, Roxy. I would give everything I have to make you have my little kits, running around with your beautiful dark hair and my bushy tails."

It was the perfect, textbook Alpha reassurance. It was exactly what a grieving, insecure mate desperately wanted to hear.

But Roxy didn’t melt. The lingering dread of the System’s silence had sharpened her instincts into razor blades. She looked him dead in the eye, her voice dropping into a flat, unwavering, and entirely challenging octave.

"Then let’s have one."

The absolute, suffocating silence that followed her challenge was deafening.

A fleeting, agonizingly painful expression violently crossed Ren’s beautiful features. It was a look of pure, unadulterated grief, the look of a man staring directly at his own grave. He masked it instantly, utilizing centuries of illusory discipline, but Roxy saw it.

Ren let out a shaky breath. He leaned his head forward, gently rubbing the tip of his nose affectionately against hers, a classic, instinctual Fox gesture of pacification.

"I can’t, baby," Ren whispered, his voice cracking slightly despite his best efforts. "I’m... I’m scared."

Roxy’s green eyes widened in genuine shock. The Fox King, the master of illusions who laughed in the face of rogue armies, openly mocked the Dragon Alpha, was terrified?

"What are you scared of?" Roxy whimpered, her wet hands gripping his broad shoulders. The raw vulnerability in his voice was actively breaking her heart. "Ren, please. Just tell me."

Ren hesitated. He looked away, his jaw clenching as he stared at the dark tiles of the bathing chamber. He had to fabricate the most convincing, emotionally devastating lie he could construct, one based entirely on actual trauma, so she wouldn’t question it.

Ren finally murmured. He turned his green eyes back to hers. "I saw how agonizing it was when you gave birth to Tyara. I saw you screaming, Roxy. You were bleeding so much. I almost lost you. We all did."

He reached up, his trembling fingers gently tracing the curve of her cheek. "I love you too much. I won’t do it. I absolutely wouldn’t want to put you through such horrific, life-threatening pain ever again. I can’t be the reason you suffer." 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Roxy’s face fell. A deep, furious frown marred her beautiful features. He was trying to protect her from biological pain, completely oblivious to the cosmic annihilation she felt hovering directly over them.

She was already carrying the crushing weight of a silent system, and now her mate was treating her like a fragile glass doll that would shatter from a natural process she had already conquered twice.

"That is my own problem to worry about!" Roxy snapped, her voice echoing sharply, violently off the emerald tiles.

The dam broke. The tears she had been fighting all night finally burst free. Hot, angry tears spilled over her dark lashes, mixing with the steam and the bathwater on her cheeks. She shoved at his chest, flaring with a messy, unstable mix of profound grief and terrified fury.

"How is it your business if I die during childbirth?!" Roxy sobbed, the words tearing from her throat in a messy, irrational burst of pure emotional exhaustion. She hit his shoulder with a wet fist, her voice cracking as the ultimate, terrifying truth of her own nightmares finally bled out into the open air. "You don’t understand, Ren! We don’t have time!"

The splashing of the water instantly ceased.

Ren’s large hands shot up, clamping down on her wrists like iron bands, instantly arresting her frantic hitting. The manufactured, protective sorrow on his face completely vanished in a microsecond, replaced by a razor-sharp, chilling, and entirely lethal intensity.

His vibrant green eyes narrowed into hyper-focused, deadly slits as he stared at her tear-streaked face.

"What do you mean that we don’t have time?"