Chapter 143: Homecoming from Hell

“Is it Kael?” Ren asked, her voice trembling against his shoulder.

But her question was gone with the wind.

Vex took off.

He wasn’t kidding when he said he was fast on two legs. He moved with a supernatural speed, a blur of motion that whipped the trees past them like green streaks of paint.

Ren tightened her grip on his neck—careful not to choke him—and buried her face in the crook of his shoulder to shield her eyes from the stinging air. The cool wind slapped against her skin, but it did nothing to cool the panic rising in her chest.

’It must be Kael’s blood,’ Ren thought, her heart hammering against Vex’s back. ’He and Syris… they must have already started fighting.’

She squeezed her eyes shut. Kael must have known by now. He must have figured out that she had added him to her reverse harem without checking the “terms and conditions” first.

Ren knew both Kings would be inconsolable. Kael would be furious because she was Syris’ mate too—a fact that would bruise his massive tiger ego. And Syris? Syris would be in icy, lethal rage because she had lied to him and run off in the middle of the night.

’I’m dead,’ Ren internalized. ’I am actually going to die. I won’t even know what to say when I see them. “Hey guys, stop trying to murder each other, and by the way, I might be pregnant, and one of you is the father?”’

Her stomach gave a nervous lurch.

What a way to make a bad situation catastrophically worse!

And based on the timing, it was likely Kael’s. Or maybe it was Syris’. Ren was hoping that the nausea she was feeling right now was just motion sickness from Vex’s super-speed.

’If it’s a tiger… claws,’ she whimpered internally. ’If it’s a snake… egg. Oh god, do I have to sit on it? Do I need a heat lamp? How do snakes even feed their young?’

While Ren spiraled into a maternal panic attack, Vex’s thoughts were racing down a completely different, far darker path.

He rushed down the familiar trail leading to the White Tiger Clan, his bare feet finding purchase on roots and rocks with practiced ease.

Some weeks ago, a horde of Shadow Beasts was heading for this part of the forest. Vex had prepared himself to collect specimens amid the chaos, but the horde had seemingly changed course. They never came. To Vex’s dismay, the forest had remained peaceful.

But now?

The scent Vex was picking up the closer he got was unmistakable.

It smelled of wet earth, copper, and the cloying, sweet stench of rot and death.

It was the scent of a Shadow Beast.

Vex’s eyes narrowed as he leaped over a fallen log. ’Is it a Tiger Shadow Beast that wandered back home?’

It wouldn’t have been the first time. Sometimes, when the corruption took hold and a beast turned into a mindless monster, a flicker of muscle memory remained. They would instinctively drag their rotting bodies back to the place they were born.

But usually, when that happened, they didn’t just visit. They massacred everyone and everything in their path.

’But strangely…’ Vex thought, his nostrils flaring, ’I am mostly smelling Kael’s blood.’

If a Shadow Beast had rampaged through the village, the air should be thick with the scent of dozens of tigers. But it wasn’t. It was just the rot, and the singular, potent scent of the White Tiger King.

’Did Kael intercept it?’ Vex wondered.

The scent of blood was getting stronger. It was fresh.

Vex didn’t particularly care if Kael was dead or alive. In fact, a small, dark part of him was hoping for a specific outcome.

’If Kael managed to defeat the Shadow Beast,’ Vex mused, his eyes gleaming with morbid curiosity, ’the corpse should still be there. I can dissect it.’

Vex had been studying Feral Madness and Shadow Beasts for years. It was his obsession. He was particularly interested in Shadow Beasts that showed any form of intelligence or beast instinct.

’And if it isn’t dead…’ Vex licked his lips. ’I can track it. Capture it. An alive specimen is even better than a dead one.’

Ren felt Vex slow down.

His rapid pace decelerated to a jog, then a walk, before he finally came to a stop.

Ren lifted her head from his shoulder.

The stench hit her instantly. It was a heavy, metallic tang mixed with something that smelled like spoiled meat left in the sun.

“Ugh,” Ren gagged, covering her nose.

Then, she looked up.

Her green eyes widened in horror.

They were standing at the edge of the clearing that housed the White Tiger Clan. Or rather, what was left of it.

The place she had once called home—even if just for a little while—was unrecognizable.

The poorly built huts were badly damaged, their roofs caved in as if crushed by a giant hand. The grass and dirt, usually packed down by foot traffic, were torn up and stained with large, dark splashes of drying blood.

Ren’s gaze frantically scanned the area until it landed on a familiar spot.

She gasped.

The house she had worked so hard to build was gone.

It was obliterated.

There were no walls standing. There was no roof. There was now only a chaotic, splintered heap of timber. It looked as if a tornado had touched down directly on top of it, or a giant had stepped on it and twisted his foot.

Even the defensive trench she had asked the wolves to dig was useless now—filled with debris, mud, and fallen leaves.

Ren remembered that before her kidnapping, they were busy preparing for the horde of shadow beasts.

Ren had never seen a Shadow Beast in the flesh. She had only heard of them. But looking at the devastation, a sharp pang of fear and horror pierced her chest, but also a selfish sliver of relief that she wasn’t here to experience their rampage.

She thought about the refugees who had come. The hungry members of the Wolf Clan, who had been on the run and sought safety with the tigers.

’Is Bark dead?’ Ren thought, her throat tightening. ’Are the cubs dead? Where is everyone?’

She scanned the wreckage again. There were no corpses. And the only blood present was by where she and Vex currently stood at the entrance of the village.

’Maybe they evacuated,’ she hoped desperately. ’Maybe they found somewhere safer.’

The village looked completely abandoned. It was a ghost town.

“Vex,” Ren whispered, her voice trembling. “Did Shadow Beasts do this?”

“Possibly,” Vex responded.

But his mind was focused elsewhere, particularly on the drying blood stains on the ground.

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