I Was The Only Omega In The Beast World-Chapter 87: CP: Instinctual Possessiveness

Mira surfaced in the pool beside Zale, her silver scales catching the bioluminescent light. Her experienced eyes took in the scene—the reunited mates holding each other, the tension still crackling between Naga and Zale, the palpable relief mixed with lingering anxiety.

"Lord Serpent," she said formally, inclining her head with respect. "I’m Healer Mira. I’ve been monitoring your mate since his arrival."

Naga’s attention snapped to her immediately. "And? Tell me everything his situation."

Mira pulled herself onto a nearby platform, her tail remaining in the water.

"The truth is your mate and all six cubs are currently stable," she said. "But there are complications."

Naga’s entire body tensed. "What complications?"

"The fall triggered early labor responses," Mira explained. "Alex is in what we call preparation phase—his body is readying for delivery. He’s not in active labor yet, but it’s coming sooner than expected."

"How soon?" Naga demanded.

"Seven to ten days. Possibly less if he experiences more stress."

Naga’s eyes widened with alarm. "That’s—that’s too soon! We don’t have a safe den yet! We’re still collecting the stones! We—"

"Which is why complete bedrest is essential," Mira interrupted firmly. "No travel. No stress. Constant monitoring and care."

She paused, her expression growing more serious.

"But there’s something else you need to understand, Serpent Lord. Something critical about carrying multiples—especially six."

"Tell me," Naga said, his voice tight.

Mira gestured to Alex’s swollen belly.

"Your mate is sustaining seven bodies right now—his own plus six rapidly growing cubs. The energy drain is... extraordinary. Far beyond what a normal pregnancy requires."

"I’m sharing energy through the mate bond," Naga said. "Constantly. Every time he’s tired, I send strength—"

"And that helps," Mira acknowledged. "But it’s not enough. Not for six. The energy requirements are exponential."

She looked at both of them seriously.

"In mer-culture, when a bearer is carrying multiples—even just twins or triplets—they typically have four to six mates attending them constantly during the final month. Not for romance, not for politics, but for pure biological necessity. The energy drain of feeding and growing multiple cubs simultaneously is more than one or two mates can sustain alone."

Naga’s expression darkened.

" And you knew about it. " Mira’s voice got colder. You knew how fragile a bearer’s life is during pregnancy. Yet. You never told him about it. You let him endure everything by himself. "

Naga’s voice shifted to something almost stricken. "Are you saying I’m failing to provide—"

"No," Mira interrupted gently. " What I’m saying is.... You’re letting your possesive nature take over you. "

Naga hissed. But didn’t deny the accusation.

Getting confidence from other party’s silence, Mira spoke even louder and clearer. " The bearer is extremely fertile, I bet there were countless who wanted to his mate. And they were most likely killed by you. "

The silence that followed was deafening.

Naga didn’t answer immediately.

Which was, itself, an answer.

Alex turned slowly to look at his mate—and saw something he’d never quite seen on Naga’s face before. Not guilt exactly. Not shame. Something older and quieter and much more complicated than either. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"Naga," Alex said carefully. "What is she talking about?"

Naga’s serpentine pupils contracted to thin slits.

"It was necessary," he said, his voice stripped of its usual warmth. "Every one of them was a threat."

"How many?" Alex asked.

Silence.

"Naga. How many?"

"I don’t—" Naga stopped. Started again. "I don’t have an exact count."

The words landed like stones in still water.

Alex stared at his mate—this being he loved with absolute certainty, whose mark burned on his abdomen with five blazing stars, who had just swum through an impossible maze for hours to reach him—and tried to reconcile what he was hearing.

[HOST,]

System said very quietly. Lowering its tail and flicking back its ears.

[This is... this is actually a known thing. I should have warned you earlier. I’m sorry.]

[Highly possessive beastmen—especially reptiles and apex predators—have instinctual threat-response protocols. Anyone who expresses interest in their mate gets classified as a threat. Five-star bonds are especially intense because the possessiveness scales with bond strength.]

[It doesn’t make it right. But it is... it’s a real pattern in this world.]

Mira was watching Alex’s face carefully, her silver eyes sharp.

"You didn’t know," she said softly. Not a question.

"No," Alex admitted. "I didn’t."

"That’s common," she said, without cruelty but without softening it either. "Bearers with high fertility often attract enormous attention. Their mates—the ones who succeed in bonding—tend to be... aggressively protective of that exclusivity. Especially during their stages of pregnancy, when they are most vulnerable. "

" So that is why— "

Alex remembered Naga and Leo’s Overprotectiveness and over caring during his early pregnancy.

It was their instinct kicking in.

The silence stretched between them—filled with ocean sounds, with the distant calling of mer-people, with the quiet movement of water through coral passages.

And with the weight of something Alex had never thought to ask about.

"How many people came to me," Alex said finally, his voice very quiet. "That I never knew about. Because you intercepted them."

Naga’s jaw worked silently for a moment.

"Some came with honorable intentions," he admitted. "Others didn’t. I couldn’t always tell the difference. And when I couldn’t tell—"

"You killed them anyway," Alex finished.

Tuns out he was the reason behind it all. The cause for secret elimination of innocent souls.

The guilt weighed on his shoulders.

"I protected you," Naga said, and the words came out defensive but the eyes said something different. Something that looked almost like fear."

"You were vulnerable. You didn’t know this world, didn’t know what certain types of attention meant here, didn’t understand what happens to highly fertile bearers who travel without adequate—"

"That wasn’t your decision to make," Alex said.

The words weren’t loud. Weren’t angry, even—not yet. But they landed with the weight of something fundamental shifting.

Naga went very still.

[Host,]

System said softly.

[Leo probably did it too. Different degree maybe. Different method. But the instinct is the same in both of them.]

Alex closed his eyes.

He thought about all the times someone had seemed about to approach him in a marketplace and then inexplicably veered away. The travelers who’d made eye contact across a fire and then suddenly found somewhere else to be. The moments he’d assumed were just coincidence, just shyness, just the natural wariness of strangers around apex predators.

How many of those moments had been something else entirely.

"Naga," he said. "Look at me."

Naga looked at him. And what Alex saw was not a monster. It was a being who loved him with absolute ferocity and had made terrible choices because of it, and who knew from the expression on his face—that love didn’t make those choices acceptable.

"I’m not going to scream at you," Alex said carefully.

"Not now. Because I’m in pre-labor and screaming is counterproductive and also because—"

His voice caught slightly.

"Because I know you love me. I know that’s real. The five stars are real. Everything we have together is real. And that’s exactly why this matters. Because you can’t keep making decisions for me out of fear. Not about this. Not about anything."

"I know," Naga said. Very quietly. "I know that."

"Do you?" Alex pressed.

Naga was silent for a long moment.

"I know it here," he said finally, touching his temple. "Up here I understand it completely. But here—" His hand moved to his chest, over his heart, over the invisible thread of the bond. "Here it feels like a different language. One I haven’t learned to speak properly yet."

Mira had gone tactfully quiet, her silver eyes watching but not interfering.

Zale had retreated further into his pool, giving them as much privacy as the chamber allowed.

"Then you’re going to learn," Alex said. "Because I can’t—" He pressed both hands to his belly, steadying himself. "I can’t bring six cubs into this world and raise them in an environment where their fathers make unilateral decisions about who gets to approach their parent. That’s not the family I’m building."

"I understand," Naga said.

"I need you to actually understand it. Not just agree with me because I’m upset."

"Alex." Naga’s voice broke slightly on the name. "I swam through an impossible maze for nine hours because the thought of you being hurt and alone was more than I could endure. That’s real. Everything I’ve done—right or wrong—came from that same place."

"I know," Alex said. "And I’m not asking you to stop loving me that fiercely. I’m asking you to trust me enough to make my own choices within that love."

The ocean sounds filled the silence.

Then Naga reached out slowly—giving Alex every opportunity to pull back—and placed his hand over Alex’s where it rested on his belly.

"I’ll try," he said. "Truly try. Not just for you. For them."

The babies kicked against both their hands simultaneously.

Despite everything, Alex felt the corner of his mouth twitch.

"Good," he said softly. "Because they’re going to need both of their fathers to be better than their instincts."

[EMOTIONAL GROWTH MOMENT DETECTED,]

System said very softly.

[I’m genuinely proud of both of you right now. Don’t tell anyone I said that.]