Chapter 165: Episode 165: You would never find her!

Back at the ironwood forest.

Everywhere felt tense, everyone felt restless, there was a change in the air that no one could explain.

Maybe it was because the kings of beast were all like ticking time bombs ready to explode leading to extinction of the beast world.

The Question everyone was asking now.

Where was Roxy?

Why did she leave the fate of the beast world in her mates’ hand?

Along the road back to the manor, Zarek carried Alice like she was a prey.

Technically she was, since they could eat her any time they wanted.

His large hand remained clamped around the back of her neck, his fingers digging into the muscle just enough to bruise, dragging her toes through the dirt as he marched back toward the Manor.

They ignored her battered cries that sounded more like a croak.

The journey back was silent and terrifying. The forest seemed to recoil from the sheer density of killing intent radiating from the four Kings. Birds stopped singing.

Small animals burrowed deep underground.

When they reached the clearing of the Iron-Wood Manor, Zarek didn’t take her inside. He wouldn’t defile Roxy’s sanctuary with this stranger’s presence.

He threw her.

Alice hit the hard-packed earth outside the main gates with a heavy thud, tumbling in the dust.

“Ow!” she cried out, scrambling to sit up. She clutched the spotted fur mantle around her shoulders, Roxy’s mantle, and looked up at them with wide, tear-filled blue eyes.

“You’re hurting me,” Alice whimpered, pitching her voice to that perfect, melodic frequency that the System promised would melt any male heart. “Zarek… Torian… why are you doing this? I’m the one you’ve been waiting for.”

The four men stood in a semi-circle around her, blocking out the sun.

They stared down at her. Their eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with the red haze of a madness that was barely being held back.

But they didn’t attack. Not yet.

They were confused.

Torian shook his head, growling low in his throat, clawing at his own chest as if trying to rip something out. “Her scent… why does it smell… Right?”

“Whatever it is, I don’t like it,” Syris hissed, his neon eyes flickering erratically. He looked at Alice with a mixture of fascination and utter revulsion. “My pheromone receptors are telling me she is Mate.”

“But my heart,” Kaelen choked out, his hands trembling on the hilt of his axe, “wants to mount her head on a pike.”

Alice shuddered at their words.

Ren said nothing. He stood slightly behind them, ghostly pale. He didn’t feel the confusion as strongly as the others because his soul was tethered to Roxy’s. To him, Alice smelled of nothing.

Alice watched them struggle, a frown creasing her forehead.

Why aren’t they kneeling? she thought, panic fluttering in her chest. The System said once the anomaly was removed, the plot would correct itself. They should be claiming me. They should be fighting over who gets to comfort me.

She stood up, smoothing the fur mantle, deciding to push harder.

“I know you’re confused,” Alice said softly, taking a step toward Zarek. She reached out a hand. “That other woman… She was a mistake. A placeholder. She stole my life. But I’m here now. I’m your woman. I can give you what she couldn’t. I can give you—”

The heavy iron gates of the Manor creaked open.

Alice smiled. ’Finally, They’re inviting me in.’

But it wasn’t a servant opening the gate. It was Roxy’s beautiful children. Who thought their mother had returned.

“MAMA!”

Out of the gates burst the children.

At first they froze and looked at their woman who was not their mother and then their gaze turned into fury.

Drax was in the lead, he was holding Tanith so he couldn’t possibly lunge at the woman, but it was different for the triplets.

Axel, Onyx, and Iris, shifted into their wolf-pup forms, teeth bared, fur bristling.

To them, Alice was a stranger wearing their mother’s skin. They thought something had happened to her.

Their first instinct was to tear at her and kill her.

“Get her!” Drax roared. Ordering the triplets and they roared in anger.

“No!” Alice shrieked, throwing her hands up. “Stop! I’m your new mothe—”

Axel tackled her mid-sentence, slamming her back into the dirt. He didn’t hold back. He was small, but he was a wolf hybrid. His fist connected with her jaw, snapping her head back.

“Give her back!” Axel screamed, punching her again. “Give her back!”

They swarmed her.

Onyx bit her ankle, shaking his head violently. Iris, the violet-eyed wolf pup who had danced with Ren just yesterday, latched onto the fur mantle and ripped it from Alice’s shoulders with a snarl.

“Get off me!” Alice screamed, kicking wildly. “You little brats! Get off!”

She was shocked. Why isn’t it working? This was supposed to make everyone love her! Even the kids!

But she forgot the one rule of the Beast World she hadn’t bothered to read: The bond between a cub and its mother is absolute. And these weren’t her cubs.

“They are killing her,” Syris noted, he was amused and pleased he wished his darling daughter was old enough to finish the deed.

“Good,” Torian grunted, the red haze in his eyes clearing slightly at the sight of the violence. “Let them finish it.”

“No!”

Zarek grabbed Axel by the back of his tunic and hauled him off the screaming girl. He used his foot to gently but firmly shove the wolf pups away.

“Enough!” Zarek commanded.

“Dada!!” Axel struggled in his father’s grip, kicking at the air. “She hurt Mama! I know she did!”

“I know, son,” Zarek said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “I know.”

He handed Axel to Kaelen, who restrained the weeping, thrashing children.

Alice lay in the dirt, bleeding from her lip, her ankle bitten, her dress torn. She looked up at Zarek, expecting him to comfort her now that he had saved her.

“Zarek,” she sobbed, reaching out. “They’re monsters! They tried to kill me! You have to punish them!”

Zarek looked down at her. His shadow engulfed her.

There was no love in his eyes. There was no lust. How dare she think she would be capable of wiping the memory of Roxy in his heart?

Did she think he was foolish?

Definitely, Alice behaved like an absolute fool.

“If you speak of my children again,” Zarek said, his voice like grinding stones, “I will rip your tongue out.”

Alice froze, she bit back her words, her hand hovering in the air.

“You… but…”

“We are keeping you alive for one reason,” Zarek stated, crouching down until he was face-to-face with her. “Information.”

Beasts didn’t negotiate but Roxy had taught them one thing.

If you wanted answers, you would demand for them.

He grabbed her chin, forcing her to look into his golden, vertical-slit pupils.

“Where is she?”

Alice trembled. “I don’t fucking know!”

“Do you want me to go the hard way or the easy way??” Torian stepped up, his massive shadow joining Zarek’s. “I am quite hungry.”

“Fuck!” Alice cried. “She is fucking dead?! How many times do I have to tell you?!”

“She is not dead,” Ren spoke for the first time. His voice was quiet, but it carried the chill of the grave. “If she is dead I would have been dead right now.”

“She’s gone!” Alice insisted, her voice rising to a screech. “She’s gone and I’m here! I am your mate! I am the one you need! Why are you fighting it?”

“I do not care what you are,” Zarek said. “I do not care about whatever destiny that is trying to bind us together. I will burn the earth dry if I have to. I will tear the mountains down stone by stone.”

He looked back down at her.

“I will find her. No matter what.”

Alice stared at him. She looked at the four Kings, the strongest males in the world, united not by her, but by their grief for the “Extra.”

Something in her snapped. She was the one who was pulled into the world.

The extra caused her to stay in a void for as long as she can remember.

Her features twisted into spite. If she couldn’t have the harem, she would make sure they suffered.

She started to laugh.

It was a wet, bubbling sound that escalated into a cackle. She wiped the blood from her lip, looking up at Zarek with a smile that was all teeth and malice.

“You think you can just find her?” Alice laughed, shaking her head. “You stupid, arrogant beast.”

She had lost it. She didn’t care if she died.

Alice leaned back in the dirt, staring up at the sky, her laughter echoing hauntingly against the manor walls.

She looked Zarek dead in the eye, her grin widening.

“Fly all you want. Run until your paws bleed. Roar until your throat tears. No matter how much you fly and run through the beast world, you will never find her.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep