Baby System: I'm the Beast World's Only Hope!-Chapter 364: Episode 362: Saying the Truth
"Where are you going to?"
The deep, rumbling voice sliced through the freezing night air, completely shattering the heavy silence of the master balcony.
Roxy violently jerked. Her hands flew off the icy stone balustrade, her heart leaping straight into her throat as she spun around.
Standing in the arched glass doorway, completely eclipsing the dim light spilling from the bedroom, were her mates.
Zarek stood at the forefront, his massive frame completely rigid. Behind him, Kaelen, Torian, Syris, and Caspian had silently followed her out into the cold. They had heard her desperate, whispered question to the empty sky. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚
"It’s nothing," Roxy stammered quickly, her breath pluming in white clouds as she desperately tried to wipe the fresh tears from her cheeks. She took a small step backward, pulling her heavy dark fur cloak tighter around her trembling shoulders. "I wasn’t... I am not going anywhere. My mind was just spiraling. It’s just the grief talking."
Zarek did not believe a single syllable of it.
The towering King of the Dragons closed the distance between them in two massive, utterly silent strides. The mere insinuation that Roxann was contemplating leaving them was enough to drive him completely, dangerously feral.
Zarek stepped directly into her personal space. He reached out his massive, calloused hand and grabbed her softly by the nape of her neck.
It wasn’t a grip of anger; it was an intensely possessive, desperate biological anchor. His thumb rested against her pulse point, feeling the frantic, racing beat of her human heart.
"Why do you always talk like you want to go somewhere?" Zarek demanded, his golden eyes burning with a dark, swirling storm of panic. His deep voice vibrated. "Since the very first season you fell into our forest, you look at the stars as if you are waiting for them to take you away. Why, Roxy?"
Roxy’s breath hitched. The warmth of his massive hand against her freezing skin was overwhelming.
"I told you," Roxy whispered. "I don’t belong here, Zarek. I am not from this world."
"She speaks the truth, Zarek," Kaelen intervened, his deep, steady voice cutting through the rising, draconic panic. The Wolf Alpha stepped out onto the balcony, the freezing Northern wind entirely ignoring him as he moved to calm his brother. "Release her. You are letting your fear cloud your judgment. She did say that indeed, on the very night she bonded with us. She has never hidden her origins."
Zarek’s jaw clenched. The muscles in his thick, corded neck jumped as he fought a violent, internal war between his territorial instincts and his profound love for his Queen.
Slowly, agonizingly, Zarek let her go. His massive hand slipped from her neck, his golden eyes dropping to the floorboards in a rare display of fractured composure.
The absolute second the Dragon stepped back, Torian moved in. The massive White Tiger didn’t ask questions. He simply stepped up beside Roxy and wrapped a heavy, incredibly warm arm around her waist, pulling her flush against his broad chest to soothe her trembling. His body heat was a furnace, wrapping her in a thick, protective layer of tiger comfort.
But Zarek was entirely incapable of letting it go. The grief and the terror were a toxic, volatile mixture in his veins.
Zarek turned away, pacing a tight, aggressive circle on the stone balcony. He ran a massive hand through his dark, messy hair, letting out a frustrated, highly agitated grumble that vibrated with raw Alpha distress.
"We both know how they treated her there!" Zarek suddenly shouted, throwing his arm out toward the sky, his booming voice echoing off the frosted peaks of the Iron-Wood. He was referring to the fragmented, painful stories she had shared about her past life. "She told us she had nothing! And she still wants to go?!! After everything we have built? After the children?! After Ren?!"
The mention of the Fox King’s name completely snapped the fragile, holding thread of Roxy’s sanity.
She pushed violently out of Torian’s warm embrace. Her transmigrated aura flared with an absolute, blinding, and terrifying matriarchal fury.
"This is not my choice to make!" Roxy screamed at the top of her lungs, her brilliant green eyes flashing with unholy fire as she marched directly up to the towering Dragon Alpha. "You do not get to say that! You do not get to use him against me! I didn’t ask for any of this! You don’t have to shout at me!"
Zarek completely, instantly folded.
He crumbled at the sight of her broken, sobbing fury. All the aggressive, territorial panic instantly evaporated, leaving behind nothing but a desperately terrified, grieving husband.
"No, no, baby, I’m sorry," Zarek choked out, his voice entirely dropping its thundering volume. "It was not like that. I swear it, Roxy, it was not like that."
Zarek lunged forward, completely dropping to his knees on the freezing stone. He wrapped his massive, heavily scarred arms around her waist, burying his face directly into her stomach. He cradled her violently trembling body against his chest, holding her as if she were made of spun glass that was actively shattering.
"I am so sorry," Zarek chanted, his words muffled against her heavy fur cloak, his broad shoulders shaking. "I am sorry. I just... I thought you were leaving us. I cannot watch you vanish like he did. I will not survive it. I am sorry."
Roxy completely collapsed into his embrace. Her hands fell onto his dark hair, her fingers tangling in the strands as she wept openly, her tears dropping onto his broad shoulders.
"I never get to have my own choice," Roxy whimpered, her voice a raw, bleeding, and entirely defeated sound. "I am just a pawn. I never get to choose."
Syris knelt gracefully beside Zarek. The Snake King reached out, his elegant, cool fingers gently taking Roxy’s trembling hand.
"You can tell us, my Queen," Syris murmured, his vibrant green eyes completely stripped of their usual calculating distance, filled only with profound empathy. "Whatever burden you are carrying in the dark, you do not have to carry it alone. We can understand. We will understand."
Caspian stepped closer, his striking, aquatic eyes narrowed with a sudden, sharp, and terrifyingly perceptive realization.
"Are the gods pressuring you?" Caspian asked, his voice dropping into a lethal, completely uncompromising whisper. The Merman had always possessed a strange, intuitive connection to the deeper currents of the world. "Are those invisible deities demanding a price?"
Zarek slowly lifted his head from her stomach. He stood up, his massive frame towering over her once more, but all the anger was entirely gone. He gently cupped her tear-streaked face in his large, warm hands. He looked deeply into her brilliant, devastated green eyes, his thumbs softly wiping the tears from her freezing cheeks.
He leaned down, pressing a firm, incredibly tender, and completely grounding kiss directly to the center of her forehead.
Torian stepped up behind her again, his massive hand resting squarely between her shoulder blades, rubbing her back in a slow, steady, and deeply comforting rhythm.
"We are here to support you," Kaelen swore softly from her left, the Wolf Alpha’s icy blue eyes burning with absolute, unwavering pack loyalty. "Against the continent, against the heavens, against the very fabric of this world. You are our Matriarch. We stand with you."
Surrounded by the sheer, overwhelming, and unadulterated purity of their love, the final, terrifying barrier inside Roxy’s mind violently broke.
Abaddon had mocked them. He had called them lines of code. But standing here, held together by their shared grief and their unyielding devotion, Roxy knew with certainty that her family was real. And she was going to tear the universe apart before she let a sadistic demonic king destroy them.
Roxy broke.
She threw her arms around Zarek’s thick neck, hugging the towering Dragon Alpha tighter than she ever had before. She buried her face into his chest, taking a massive, shuddering breath of the freezing winter air.
"It’s not the gods," Roxy wept. "It’s the system architect!"
