Roxy stared at the ceiling, completely drained.

The explosive, adrenaline-fueled wrath that had violently propelled her upright was rapidly fading, leaving behind a heavy, hollow exhaustion. Her chest ached. The bruised, atrophied muscles in her arms were trembling uncontrollably from the sheer physical exertion of sitting up and yelling.

She let her head fall fully back against the crisp white pillows, closing her brilliant green eyes.

The six men standing around her bed did not move a single muscle. They barely even breathed. They were entirely, utterly braced for another catastrophic wave of maternal rage to completely obliterate what was left of their pride. They stood like statues, waiting for the Matriarch to continue verbally flaying them alive.

But the screaming did not resume.

Instead, Roxy took a long, slow, and incredibly deep breath.

She inhaled the sterile scent of the hospital, holding the oxygen in her battered lungs for a few seconds, before releasing it in a steady, controlled exhale. The jagged, chaotic rhythm of the heart monitor beside her bed slowly began to smooth out, settling back into a calm, rhythmic beep.

"There is no point in yelling," Roxy murmured, her voice completely devoid of the previous fury. It was a cold, pragmatic, and entirely rational tone. "Screaming at you is not going to fix anything. It is not going to feed Tyara, and it is not going to put Drax’s mind at ease."

Zarek blinked, his golden eyes filled with deep uncertainty. He took a hesitant half-step toward the bed. "Roxy... we—"

"I am done crying about it," Roxy interrupted smoothly, opening her eyes. The terrified, desperate mother had been completely locked away, replaced entirely by the unshakable resolve of a reigning Queen. "What is done is done. You panicked. You made a profoundly stupid, reckless decision because I was missing. I cannot change the fact that you left them."

She looked down at her own frail, battered body. She looked at her thin wrists, the dark bruises left by Elias’s heavy steel chains, and the absolute lack of muscle mass in her legs. If she was going to survive the violent, unpredictable terrain of the Beastworld, she could not return as a broken, starving ghost.

"I am going to focus entirely on my physical therapy," Roxy declared, her tone absolutely resolute. She looked back up at the six men, her eyes shining with a fierce, unbreakable determination. "I am going to eat everything the doctors put in front of me. I am going to walk the halls until my legs can carry my own weight. I am going to heal."

Torian let out a massive, shuddering breath of relief, his broad shoulders dropping. A weak, incredibly grateful smile began to form on Caspian’s breathtaking face. They had survived her wrath. She was accepting their apologies. She was going to recover.

And then, Roxy delivered the final, fatal blow.

"Since we are going back soon, there is no need to worry," Roxy said smoothly, reaching over to adjust her IV line. She looked at Zarek, completely, wholeheartedly believing the desperate lie he had told her just days ago. "Once I am alive and well, we go back. I just need to get strong enough to survive the crossing. Then, we go home and we fix the absolute mess you left behind."

The hospital room went completely, deafeningly silent.

It was not a relieved silence. It was the heavy, suffocating, and utterly apocalyptic silence of a bomb completely failing to detonate, only to leave everyone in the room staring at the ticking timer.

The six invincible Alpha Kings of the Beastworld froze entirely in place.

Syris’s emerald eyes widened to a fraction of their normal size, completely losing his aristocratic composure as he slowly turned his head to stare at Zarek. Kaelen actually stopped breathing, his chest locking completely still beneath his modern turtleneck. Torian’s jaw dropped slightly, the blood draining entirely from his face until he looked violently nauseous.

They were trapped. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

They had completely, stupidly forgotten about the lie. When Roxy’s heart had been failing, when the human doctor had threatened to have them thrown out of the hospital, Zarek had told her they could go back. He had said it to stop her from spiraling. He had said it to save her life.

But the dimensional void was permanently sealed. They had absolutely no magic. They had permanently butchered their souls to cross the threshold. There was no "going back."

The agonizing, crushing weight of their lie hung heavy in the sterile air.

Zarek swallowed hard, a thick, terrified knot forming in his throat. He opened his mouth, the honorable, draconic instinct to tell the absolute truth warring violently against the catastrophic reality of her fragile health. He looked at her brilliant, hopeful green eyes. He heard the steady, calm rhythm of her heart monitor.

If he told her the truth right now—if he told her that they were permanently, irrevocably trapped on Earth forever—her heart would completely give out. The doctor had promised it.

Zarek slowly closed his mouth.

None of them had the courage to correct her.

"Yes," Zarek managed to choke out, the single word feeling like a mouthful of ground glass. He nodded stiffly. "You... you must heal first. That is the priority."

Ren looked away, his silver eyes completely flooded with a sickening, toxic guilt. Caspian gripped the window ledge so hard his human knuckles turned white. They were actively deceiving their Matriarch, building her entire recovery on a foundation of absolute, devastating falsehood.

Unaware of the sheer, suffocating terror paralyzing the six men around her, Roxy pushed herself into her recovery with a terrifying, singular determination.

The next few weeks were grueling.

The physical therapy was absolute agony. Her muscles had severely atrophied during her month in Elias’s basement. Every single time she forced herself out of the hospital bed to grip the parallel walking bars, her legs violently shook, her joints screaming in protest. The nurses were entirely impressed by her pain tolerance, entirely unaware that the frail woman in Room 412 was fueled by the unyielding fire of a Vanguard Matriarch.

She walked the linoleum halls, her jaw locked, her forehead covered in a sheen of cold sweat.

The Kings hovered around her like massive, incredibly guilty shadows. They overcompensated for their lie with a suffocating, almost pathetic level of devotion. Whenever she stumbled, Torian was instantly there, catching her waist before she could even drop an inch. When her hands blistered from the walking bars, Caspian gently applied cooling salves to her palms. Syris arranged for the absolute best private chefs in the city to quietly replace the terrible hospital food, ensuring she was consuming the highest quality nutrients available.

They spoiled her completely rotten, driven entirely by the agonizing knowledge that they were going to absolutely destroy her world the second she was healthy enough to hear the truth.

Roxy didn’t notice their underlying panic. She was too focused on the finish line.

Every night, when the ward grew quiet, she lay in her bed, staring up at the ceiling, dreaming of the Iron-Wood Manor. She imagined Drax sitting on the Obsidian Throne, his young face heavy with stress. She thought of Tanith navigating the treacherous Swamps. She longed to hold little Gianna, to finally kiss her newborn daughter’s forehead.

The thought of them waiting for her was the only thing that pushed her through the pain.

Late one evening, after a particularly brutal session of physical therapy that had left her muscles entirely completely spent, Roxy was resting against her pillows. The room was dark, illuminated only by the faint glow of the city lights outside.

Ren was sitting in the chair beside her, gently massaging her sore calves, while Zarek stood near the foot of the bed, watching her rest.

Roxy let out a soft, tired sigh, her green eyes fixed on the window. She had been calculating the days. She had been gone for over a month now.

A sudden, terrifying thought pierced through her calm exterior.

She turned her head slightly, looking at the Dragon King in the shadows.

"Zarek," Roxy whispered into the quiet dark, her voice carrying a sudden, heavy note of genuine, maternal fear.

Zarek instantly stepped forward, his heart hammering against his ribs. "I am here. What is it? Are you in pain?"

"No," Roxy murmured, her brow furrowing deeply as she stared at him. She gripped the white sheets, the terrifying logistics of the multiverse suddenly gripping her mind.

"Do you think time moves faster here than in the Beastworld?"