Chapter 166: Episode 166: I will burn this world.

The dungeon of the Iron-Wood Manor had never been used.

It was deep underground, and no one had seen any use in it until today.

Roxy had insisted on building it “just in case,” claiming that every good castle needed a place to put unruly guests or wine barrels. Or maybe she thought it would be a good place to explore her fantasies.

BDSM at its peak.

She had joked about it, laughing as she designed the heavy iron bars.

Now, the laughter was gone.

Alice knelt on the cold stone floor. Her hands were bound with a very tight rope that burned if she moved too much. Her blonde hair was matted with dirt, her face bruised from where Axel had punched her.

For a toddler, he truly did leave a mark.

The four Kings stood outside the cell.

There was no heat in the room. Zarek had sucked the warmth out of the air, leaving a chill that seeped into the bone.

None of the other males has seen him so angry and restless before. Kaelen had seen him like this the first time he came to get Roxy, so he was chill.

Unlike Torian, Syris, and Ren, who took some distance away from him.

“Speak,” Zarek commanded. His voice wasn’t loud. It was a low, vibrating hum that made the iron bars rattle.

Alice looked up. The manic confidence she had displayed outside the gates was fracturing, but a shard of delusional hope remained.

She still believed in the narrative. She still believed that if she just waited long enough, everything would fall into place, and they would realize she was the one all along and worship her.

“I told you,” Alice whispered, her voice rasping. “She fell.”

“People do not just fall,” Torian growled, gripping the bars until his knuckles turned white. “Especially Roxy, she may be reckless, but she wouldn’t just find herself falling off a cliff. What did you do!”

Alice went silent. She looked at Torian, the Tiger King she was supposed to tame. She looked at Zarek, the Dragon Lord, who was supposed to be her ultimate conquest and her first husband.

All these wouldn’t have happened if that cunt didn’t steal my spotlight!

She realized, finally, that the script wasn’t stuck. It was broken. They didn’t look at her with longing. They looked at her as if she were a disease.

A twisted smile curled her split lip.

“Yes,” Alice confessed softly.

The air in the dungeon grew heavy, the pressure dropping instantly.

“I pushed her,” Alice said, her voice gaining strength, fueled by spite. “I tricked her to the cliff edge. I told her there was a dying cub. She was so stupid… so predictably ’motherly.’ She followed me like a fucking lamb.”

She looked Zarek in the eye.

“I looked her in the face, and I shoved her. I watched her boots slip. I watched her fall backward into the air. And I watched her hit the water because that was what she fucking deserved!”

Alice leaned forward, her eyes wide with malice.

“She sank like a stone. The rapids took her instantly. If the fall didn’t snap her neck, the rocks did. And if by some miracle she survived that…”

She laughed, a cruel, tinkling sound.

“The Trench is down there. Monsters live in that river that even you don’t know about. She would be eaten before she hit the bottom.”

Silence stretched out, horrifying and absolute.

Alice didn’t realize that she shouldn’t have said that in the first place.

Everyone was silent, eerily silent, and Alice felt goosebumps rise up her skin. She was like a little fawn surrounded by beasts ready to pounce on her, and even from the chill in the air, she wanted to get away from them as far as possible.

They all stared at her, calculating how tasty she would be after she had been cooked, or would it be better if they ate her raw, to satiate the rage in their heart.

Why were they wasting their time?!

“She is dead,” Alice stated, standing up shakily. She smoothed her tattered dress. “She is gone. The story has corrected itself. The usurper is removed.”

She walked toward the bars, toward Zarek. She reached through the iron, her fingers trembling, aiming for his hand.

“Don’t you see?” Alice whispered, her voice dropping to a seductive purr. She tried to summon her charm that was supposed to be irresistible. “It had to happen. Now we can be together. I can heal you. I can be your Queen. Just… let me in.”

Her fingertips brushed the back of Zarek’s hand.

Zarek didn’t even waste time talking with her; he swiped his claws, and her arm fell limply on the floor, splurting blood that made their eyes flash red in hunger.

Alice screamed in agony, sitting back on her butt, her eyes wide in pain and fear. This was never meant to happen; all her trials were just ending in failure after failure.

“Open the cell, and finish her off,” Zarek commanded, turning his back on her.

Torian unlocked the door and walked in. He finished her off with his jaws and dragged her dead body out of the cell. Once they were out of the manor, he dropped her in an open field of grass.

“Let our brothers and sisters feast on,” Torian spat. “Even they will find her bitter.”

***

The four Kings gathered on the cliff overlooking the Great River. The moon was high, casting a silver path on the turbulent black water below.

The grief was a heavy fog that choked them.

They felt foolish and weak.

“She is still alive,” Ren whispered, clutching his chest. His eyes were squeezed shut, his face pale. “It is faint… but it is there. She is not dead.”

“If she fell into the rapids,” Syris said, his voice devoid of emotion even though he was dying inside, “and the current pulled her to the subterranean trench… the depth would be roughly seven miles.”

One thing was common between the five men.

THEY COULDN’T DO WITHOUT ROXY.

“Seven miles,” Torian repeated, staring at the water. “We can swim. Tigers swim.”

“Not that deep,” Syris shook his head. “The pressure at that depth is over a thousand atmospheres. It would crush your lungs before you reached the first mile. It would implode your skull.”

“I don’t care about pressure!” Ren snapped, his tails lashing violently. “I can use magic to weave an air bubble so we can find her!”

It was my fault; she’s down there. I am to blame!

He climbed onto the stone railing, looking ready to dive into the black abyss right then and there.

“I am going,” Ren declared. “I just got her. I just… I cannot lose her. I will find her, or I will drown trying.”

He tensed his legs to jump.

A hand clamped onto his shoulder. Heavy. Immovable.

Zarek pulled him back. He didn’t do it gently. He yanked Ren off the cliff and threw him to the grassy floor.

“You will not jump,” Zarek growled.

“Let me go!” Ren screamed, scrambling up, hysterical. “She is down there! Alone! Scared! You heard the girl, there are monsters! What if we are late?”

“And you will be a dead fox floating on the surface in five minutes!” Zarek roared back, shoving Ren’s chest. “Think, you idiot! If you die, the line connecting you and her snaps! If it snaps, we lose the only direction and hope we have that she is still out there!”

Ren froze. He collapsed against the floor, burying his face in his hands. “Then what do we do? We just stand here? While she is in the dark?”

Zarek turned away from him. He walked to the edge and gripped a stone until it cracked and powdered under his fingers.

He looked out at the vast, uncaring forest and the river that had taken his heart.

A cold, bitter rage filled Zarek’s chest.

“We were too careless,” Zarek said, his voice low and dangerous. “If we had known this was going to come, then we should have locked her inside the nest.”

He turned to face them. His golden eyes were burning with accusation, not just at them, but at himself.

He was so confused, so distraught, he was the one who felt like diving in and finding Roxy, but if something were to happen to him, how could he save Roxy?

“If she had never met you,” Zarek said, pointing at Kaelen. “If she had never met the tiger. If she had never met the Snake or the Fox. She would be in the peaks with me, only me, and none of this would have happened.”

Torian flinched.

“She would be in my cave,” Zarek hissed. “High in the Dragon Peaks. Safe. Warm. Away from rivers. Away from anyone else. Away from politics and soap and parties.”

“Zarek…” Syris started, “That is not fair. She chose this life.”

“She chose us!” Zarek roared, silencing him. “And we failed her! We let our guard down because we thought everything was much better now as long as she had us!”

The most dangerous predators in the beast world felt weak now without their mate.

He turned back to the dark water, the wind whipping his black hair around his face. The Dragon King looked older, heavier, carrying the weight of loss.

Anxiety, fear, and all that churned in his head.

He was a beast, wired to destroy anything in its past once agitated or angered, but Roxy had made him more human, more calm, to see past his rage.

“We will not dive tonight,” Zarek commanded, his voice final. “Syris, you will design a vessel that can withstand the crush of the deep. Ren, you will hold that tether until your mind bleeds. Torian and Kaelen, you will guard the pups and Drax because if she returns and one hair on their heads is missing, she will never forgive us.”

He stared into the abyss, his heart aching with a void that nothing could fill.

“Just hope she is alive out there,” Zarek whispered to the wind, a promise and a threat intertwined. “Or I will burn this whole world.”

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