Chapter 30: Episode 30: The Suffering of the Wolf Pack

Meanwhile, at the stream.

“Roxy…” he mumbled, reaching out for her. His hand hit the space on the grassy ground, and his eyes snapped open.

The golden irises contracted instantly as reality crashed in.

The sky was dark, and the moon was high. The weight that had been on his chest was gone. His mate was gone.

“Roxy?”

He sat up and looked around wildly. The stream was empty save for her clothes that floated. The grass where they had mated was cold.

A bad feeling swelled in his chest.

“ROXY!!!”

He stood up and found her scent trail. It didn’t lead back to the cave. It led North. Toward the forest, and his blood ran cold.

“No…” Zarek whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs. “No, no, no!”

She wouldn’t leave. It didn’t make sense.

Don’t come looking for me. The memory of her whisper surfaced through the fog of the potion.

A roar ripped from his throat, shattering the night. It wasn’t a human sound. It was the sound of a beast whose soul had just been torn out.

“LYRA!” Zarek bellowed, his voice booming like thunder. “ELAD! MALCOR! VORIAN!”

He needed answers.

He didn’t wait for them. He shifted.

Scales erupted from his skin, black as midnight. Wing burst from his back, spanning the width of the river. He launched himself into the sky, the force of his takeoff snapping the nearby trees like twigs.

He flew toward the border, his eyes burning with madness.

Below him, Lyra, who was sitting on the back of Vorian, her mate, as they sped through the forest, clutching baby Drax to her chest, saw the massive shadow of the Dragon King and went into panic.

“My King!” she screamed, though he couldn’t hear her. “She did it for you! She did it for us!”

Lyra didn’t understand why Roxy would do it in the first place; all she knew was that Roxy’s worry in her eyes was real, and she didn’t want to leave.

Zarek didn’t care about “us.” He didn’t care about the clan. He didn’t care about the world.

He reached the edge of the iron-wood forest. The trees here were ancient, infused with magic that resisted dragon fire, a natural barrier that had kept the species apart for centuries.

No matter how much he burned them, they would never budge. Instead, it would only grow stronger, releasing toxic gas that could harm the dragons.

Zarek hovered, his chest growing more agitated.

“GIVE HER BACK!”

He unleashed a torrent of fire. The flames slammed into the green canopy, and the trees raged, the sound of burning, but they still stood. They were thick, dense, and slow to burn.

It would take months or even years to burn a path through.

Zarek didn’t care.

He landed on the canopy, tearing at the branches with his claws. The prey around that area fled in fear, thinking the dragon king had gone mad. He continued to breathe fire until his throat was raw.

“I WILL BURN IT ALL!” he roared, the sound echoing all the way to the wolf tribe miles away. “I WILL BURN THE WORLD UNTIL I FIND YOU!”

Far ahead, on the back of a silver wolf, Roxy heard the faint echo of that roar. She squeezed her eyes shut, burying her face in Kaelan’s fur to muffle her sob.

[System Notification: The Dragon King has entered a rage state.]

[Time until Dragon Invasion: 65 days.]

***

If Roxy had to rate her ride on the Wolf King Express, she would give it five stars for speed and negative one million stars for comfort.

Kaelan was terrifyingly fast.

But running on the back of a giant wolf without a saddle was basically an assault on her spine.

“Hey! Watch the potholes, Fur-ball!” Roxy hissed into his fur, clutching his fur like life depended on it, which it did. “My uterus is still recovering, you know!”

Kaelan ignored her. He just ran harder, his massive paws tearing up the earth.

After feeling like an eternity of being jostled like a sack of potatoes, the trees finally thinned. Roxy lifted her head, squinting against the biting wind, expecting to see rocks like the Dragon tribe.

What she saw made her jaw drop.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she whispered.

The wolf tribe was covered with thick and long dense trees, with barely any sunlight, which would have made it beautiful, because it felt like a large mat above her head with vines.

They were caves, yes, but the caves were decorated with shrubs and roots. The massive roots strangled the stones, creating dark, jagged spires.

It was freezing. It was damp. And even from here, the smell hit her.

This place was a swamp, and the smell of pine and fresh rain didn’t hit her.

What hit her was the smell of stagnation. Of wet fur that never dried and decaying roots. Kaelen slowed to a trot, passing through a massive archway formed by two twisted trees.

He finally came to a halt in the center of a muddy courtyard and crouched low, allowing Roxy to slide off.

Bile rose in her throat.

“Gross,” Roxy muttered, pulling her dress tighter around herself.

Why are all the species suffering? Don’t they have a sense of aesthetics in their heart?

[TheMotheroftheWorld and TheWorldbuildingGod shook their head.]

[TheWorldbuildingGod says, when they have no reason to live, how would they care about how their surroundings looked?]

[TheMotheroftheWorld nods her head. She says that the pack was slowly dying, so they have lost the enthusiasm to take care of anything any long, even the males are having it hard to going out and hunting for food.]

Roxy bit down on her lips hard, and for some reason, she could understand. Her mind flashed with a bad memory, and she quickly slapped her cheeks to get rid of it.

Kaelen shifted. The sound of cracking bones filled the air, and a moment later, the silver wolf was gone, replaced by the Wolf King. He was tall, lean, and stark naked in the cold until he grabbed a fur from a nearby pile and wrapped it around his waist.

He didn’t even wash it!

He looked at her with those piercing, icy blue eyes. He expected her to cower or cry like the other females he knew, or rather beg for mercy now that she was in the heart of the enemy territory.

Instead, Roxy looked around the courtyard and wrinkled her nose.

“So,” she drawled, kicking a piece of grey slush. “This is the Den? I’ve seen better conditions in a subway station bathroom.”

Kaelen blinked, his mask cracking because he didn’t understand a thing she said. “It is a strong Den that has been blessed by the moon goddess. It has stood for a thousand years.”

Roxy rolled her eyes.

What’s with all these beastmens and their pride with their territory?

“Yeah, well, it smells like it hasn’t been cleaned in a thousand years,” Roxy countered. “It’s freezing, Kaelen. Do you guys not believe in fire? Or roofs that don’t leak?”

“We are Wolves,” Kaelen growled, his pride stung. “We endure the cold. It makes us strong.”

“It makes you miserable,” Roxy corrected.

She turned away from him, scanning the courtyard. And that was when her anger increased!

She saw the Wolf Pack.

They were emerging from the shadows of the root-huts, drawn by the commotion. But they didn’t look like the fierce warriors Kaelen had brought to the border.

[The gods exclaim in horror.]

You have got to be kidding me.

The females were skeletal. Their fur was patchy and dull, clinging to ribs that protruded sharply against their skin.

Their eyes were hollow, devoid of the fire that burned in the dragons.

And it was quiet. Too quiet.

In the Dragon Clan, there was noise. Grunting, fighting, snoring. Here, the silence was heavy, suffocating.

Kaelen hadn’t been exaggerating about the extinction. This wasn’t a clan; it was a graveyard waiting to be filled.

[TheFinancialDefender gasps, clutching his pearls at the poverty levels.]

[TheMotheroftheWorld begins to weep silently.]

Roxy felt a heat rising in her chest. An intense sadness filled her heart.

She felt the same rage she felt when she saw the dragon females eating scraps. But this was worse.

The [Title: Mother of Civilization] passive effect flared in her mind. Her instinct to nurture, to build, to fix screamed at her.

“Where is the food?” Roxy asked, her voice low and dangerous.

Kaelen stiffened. “The hunters have not returned.”

“For how long?” Roxy turned on him, her eyes blazing. “Look at them, Kaelen! They are dying! You are the King, and your people look like walking corpses!”

How am I meant to conceive a child, when the air reeks of wet dogs! Who hasn’t washed for years!

Kaelen’s jaw clenched. Shame flashed in his eyes, quickly replaced by defensive anger. “We survive! That is the Wolf way! We do not need the comforts of lizards!”

“You need calories, you idiot!” Roxy shouted.

The shout drew the attention of a female wolf lurking near a pile of crates. She was emaciated, her grey fur matted with mud.

Her eyes locked onto the bag Roxy had removed from her inventory, the diaper bag.

Roxy had packed it in a hurry. Inside, along with diapers and wipes, were the leftovers of the [Beast-Mom Recovery Meals] she had been eating earlier.

The scent of rich beef stew, even cold and sealed in a container, was leaking out. To a starving predator, it must have smelled like heaven.

The female wolf didn’t think. Instinct took over.

With a low, guttural snarl, she lunged.

“Give!” the female rasped, her claws scrabbling on the frozen ground as she charged at Roxy.

“AAAAAH!”

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