Chapter 466: Episode 464: I bled to return

"What the fuck do you mean! Answer me right now!"

She screams, the sound tearing through her raw, ruined vocal cords like shattered glass. The absolute, deafening volume of her voice violently shatters the quiet, heavy peace of the hospital room.

The six men instantly freeze. The imposing, lethal presence they possessed completely evaporates, replaced by a suffocating, heavy guilt. For the first time since she had known them, the invincible Alpha Kings of the Beastworld completely fold under her gaze. They are all quiet as they look away from her.

Torian drops his gaze to the sterile linoleum floor, his jaw locked tight so tightly a muscle jumps in his cheek. Caspian closes his oceanic eyes, entirely unable to bear the sheer, agonizing devastation etched across her pale face. Kaelen turns his head back toward the window, his broad shoulders impossibly rigid.

Syris and Ren remain completely silent, the catastrophic weight of their apocalyptic decision finally crushing them.

Roxy’s trembling arms buckle slightly as she forces herself to sit up higher against the pillows. Her brilliant green eyes are wild, entirely dilated with a terrifying, suffocating panic.

"Don’t tell me," Roxy gasps, her chest heaving as she points a violently shaking finger at the men who claimed to love her. "Don’t tell me that you left my children, and my newborn, in the arms of strangers and her siblings to take care of!"

The very thought of her tiny, iridescent-scaled baby girl crying out in the cold Obsidian Palace for a mother who was dead, and fathers who had completely abandoned her, feels like a blade twisting directly into Roxy’s heart.

She thinks of little Fedor crying under the furniture. She thinks of Tyara roaring in confusion, and Drax carrying the agonizing weight of an entire continent on his teenage shoulders.

Zarek steps forward, he holds his hands out in a desperate, placating gesture, his golden eyes pleading with her to understand the impossible choice they had to make.

"Roxy please, calm down," Zarek murmurs, his deep voice thick with a heavy, desperate rumble. "They are not strangers. Lyra and Dena are with them. Iris and Drax are watching the borders. They are perfectly protected, they have the Vanguard armies—"

"HOW DO YOU WANT ME TO CALM DOWN?!" Roxy shrieks, her voice cracking as a fresh, hot wave of tears violently spills over her eyelashes.

The heart monitor beside her bed instantly responds to the massive surge of adrenaline. Beep-beep-beep-beep! The rhythm accelerates, the jagged green lines spiking erratically across the small digital screen.

She grips the thin white sheets of the hospital bed, completely ignoring the painful pull of the IV needle in her hand. She looks at the six men standing before her, the chaotic, terrifying reality of their permanent exile crashing down on her like a falling mountain.

She starts firing off a million questions, the words tumbling from her lips in a frantic, hyperventilating rush.

"How are you here?" Roxy demands, her eyes darting from Torian’s human denim to Syris’s modern trench coat. "How did you cross the void? The Heavens sealed it! They sealed it the second I gave birth! How did you get through?"

None of them answer. They just look at her with devastating, silent devotion.

"Your magic..." Roxy chokes out, suddenly realizing the terrifying, hollow absence in the room. She looks at Caspian, his bioluminescent scales completely gone. "Where is your magic?! You crossed the void! You burned your own lifeforces, didn’t you? You severed your connections to the elements!"

"Roxy, please," Ren whispers, stepping forward to touch her arm, his violet eyes filled with agonizing sorrow.

Roxy violently flinches away from his touch. "What about the empire?! Zarek, you are the King of the beastworld! Kaelen, the North! You just... you just walked away?! You left the thrones empty?!"

Zarek’s jaw tightens. "The thrones are not empty. Drax has the Crown. Axel has the North. Tanith commands the Swamps. They are Warlords now."

The absolute confirmation that they had permanently handed over their kingdoms completely shatters her.

And then, the most agonizing, terrifying question of all tears itself from the very bottom of her soul.

"What about the children?" Roxy sobs, doubling over as if she had been physically punched in the stomach. "What about my baby?! I didn’t even get to hold her! I didn’t even get to name her! You left her behind?!"

The men try desperately to soothe her, stepping closer to the bed in a frantic, suffocating circle.

"We had no choice, Matriarch," Kaelen says quietly, his icy blue eyes glistening.

"We could not exist in a world without you," Caspian pleads, his voice breaking. "You are our entire universe. A thousand empires mean absolutely nothing if you are not sitting beside us."

"They are Vanguard, Roxy," Torian rumbles softly, trying to gently rest his massive hand on her trembling knee. "They are strong. They will survive without us. We had to come get you."

But their vague, evasive answers only make her spiral faster. They are confirming her absolute worst nightmare: the door is closed. They cannot go back. They are trapped in these fragile human bodies on a planet, and her babies are an entire universe away, growing up entirely alone.

Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep!

The heart monitor begins to scream a high-pitched, relentless warning. The sound pierces the room, a blaring siren of her catastrophic physical and emotional collapse.

"No!" Roxy cries out, fighting violently against the heavy hospital bedsheets. She kicks her bruised legs, desperately trying to throw the covers off and force her weak body out of the bed. She doesn’t care that her muscles are severely atrophied. She doesn’t care that she is starving. She has to get up. She has to find the door.

"Roxy, stop, you will tear your stitches!" Syris commands, his aristocratic composure finally breaking as he lunges forward, gently but firmly gripping her shoulders to keep her on the mattress.

"Let me go!" Roxy shrieks, fighting against Syris’s hold, her nails digging into his modern jacket. "How could you leave them on their own?! How could you abandon them when I was fighting so hard to get back to you?!"

Zarek completely freezes. "What?"

"You think I just gave up?!" Roxy screams, the tears blinding her as she looks at the Dragon King. "You think I just accepted my death?! I went to the library! I scoured the ancient archives! I was trying to find a backdoor! I was figuring out how to go to them!"

The six men stare at her, absolute, unadulterated horror creeping over their handsome faces as they realize the timeline of her suffering.

"I found Elias," Roxy sobs, her voice dropping into a ragged, guttural growl of pure agony. She points a trembling finger at the deep, dark bruises encircling her wrists, the physical evidence of the heavy steel chains that had bound her to the metal chair. "I went with him because I thought he could open the rift! I let him strap me to a machine! I let him electrocute me! I starved in the dark for a month because I thought the energy would open a portal!"

"I didn’t want to leave them!" Roxy demands, fighting the sheets with the last, dying remnants of her strength, completely inconsolable. "I endured the Heavens! I survived the apocalypse! I let a psychopath tear me apart piece by piece just to find a way back to my children!"

The heart monitor wails, a single, terrifyingly fast tone.

Roxy glares at her six Kings, her chest heaving, her green eyes burning with the fierce, undeniable wrath of a completely broken mother.

"I FUCKING BLED TO RETURN."