Chapter 467: Episode 465: Once you are well.

The echoes of Roxy’s raw, agonizing scream had barely faded into the sterile air before the heart monitor completely flatlined into a continuous, high-pitched wail.

The relentless, shrill siren was the absolute worst sound the six men had ever heard in their long, blood-soaked lives. It was the mechanical screech of a terrestrial body actively tearing itself apart.

Roxy was thrashing against the white hospital sheets, her breathing reduced to rapid, shallow gasps. Her brilliant green eyes were completely wild with a suffocating, maternal panic, searching the faces of her Kings for a lifeline they simply could not provide. Her physically ravaged body, starved and electrocuted in Elias’s basement, could not sustain the catastrophic surge of adrenaline running through her veins.

"Roxy!" Ren shouted, his voice cracking with pure terror as he lunged forward, trying to gently pin her trembling shoulders to the mattress so she wouldn’t rip the IV from her hand.

Before any of the Alpha Kings could intervene, the heavy wooden door of the hospital room was violently, forcefully shoved open.

A rapid-response team of four nurses and the stern-faced head doctor burst into the small room. They did not care that the six men crowding the bed were towering, broad-shouldered apex predators.

They did not care about the lethal, intimidating gravity radiating from their modern clothes. The medical staff operated on pure, adrenaline-fueled instinct.

"Move! Get away from the bed!" the head doctor bellowed, waving his hands aggressively.

When Torian hesitated, his blue eyes flashing with a protective, feral instinct, two orderlies physically shoved the massive White Tiger Alpha backward. Torian’s jaw locked, his muscles tensing to throw the terrestrial men across the room, but Zarek grabbed his arm in a vise-like grip.

"Stand down," Zarek snarled under his breath, his golden eyes wide with panic as he watched the medical team swarm his mate. "Let them work!"

The Alphas were ruthlessly, violently pushed into the far corners of the room, completely helpless.

A nurse grabbed Roxy’s thrashing arm, her movements quick and clinically precise. "Her heart is going into tachycardia! She is completely spiraling!"

"Push two milligrams of lorazepam, right now," the doctor ordered sharply, leaning over the bed and shining a small, blinding penlight into Roxy’s dilated eyes. "Mrs. Bell, you need to look at me. You need to breathe. You are having a severe panic attack."

"My babies!" Roxy choked out, her fingers weakly clawing at the doctor’s white coat. Tears streamed relentlessly down her pale, bruised cheeks. "They left them! I have to go back!"

"Push the sedative!" the doctor yelled over the blaring monitor.

The nurse uncapped a syringe and plunged the needle directly into the plastic port of Roxy’s IV line.

Roxy felt the cold, heavy rush of the chemical agent instantly flood her bloodstream. She fought it with every single ounce of willpower she possessed. She didn’t want to calm down. She wanted to scream until the Heavens themselves cracked open and gave her children back.

But her terrestrial body was entirely broken. The fierce, undeniable fire of the Matriarch was snuffed out by the heavy, artificial ice of the medication.

Her thrashing violently slowed. The white-knuckled grip she had on the bedsheets slowly loosened, her fingers going completely slack. Her heavy, tear-soaked eyelashes fluttered, fighting the crushing weight of the drug, until she was staring blankly at the ceiling tiles, her chest rising and falling in slow, manufactured breaths.

The blaring, continuous wail of the heart monitor finally stuttered, dropping back into a rapid, but steady, rhythmic beep.

The head doctor let out a long, heavy exhale, dragging a hand across his forehead. He checked the digital readings on the screen, completely ensuring her vitals were stabilizing, before he turned around to face the six men.

The doctor’s expression was absolutely furious.

"Out," the doctor commanded, pointing a rigid finger toward the hallway. "All of you. Now."

Syris opened his mouth to object, his aristocratic features hardening into a mask of cold authority, but the doctor did not give him the chance.

"Do not argue with me," the doctor snapped, his voice dropping into a harsh, unforgiving whisper so as not to disturb the sedated woman. "Step into the hall before I have security forcefully remove every single one of you from this wing."

The invincible Warlords of the Beastworld—men who had commanded vast armies, frozen oceans, and incinerated entire cities—silently filed out of the hospital room, completely entirely subjugated by a mortal in a white coat.

The hallway was quiet, illuminated by the harsh, buzzing fluorescent lights overhead.

The doctor pulled the hospital door mostly shut, leaving only a small crack so they could see Roxy resting inside. He rounded on the six men, his eyes blazing with a mixture of professional outrage and deep, genuine concern.

"I do not know what kind of toxic domestic situation you are bringing into my hospital," the doctor began, his voice shaking with anger, "but it ends right now."

He pulled Roxy’s medical chart from his clipboard, shoving it slightly toward Zarek’s chest.

"Look at her!" the doctor hissed, gesturing toward the crack in the door. "Do you have any actual comprehension of what that woman has just survived? She was found wrapped in a plastic sheet in a basement! She is severely malnourished. She has deep, horrific bruising consistent with heavy restraints. She is suffering from catastrophic physical trauma, and she was electrocuted so violently she has burns on her temples!"

Kaelen squeezed his eyes shut, his jaw working furiously as a wave of absolute, self-loathing agony washed over him. Caspian pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, entirely unable to breathe.

"Her nervous system is practically shredded," the doctor continued relentlessly, his eyes darting between their devastated faces. "But that is nothing compared to her psychological state. Her brain is completely, terrifyingly fragile. Whatever she endured down there has left her entirely unhinged and clinging to reality by a thread."

The doctor stepped closer, lowering his voice into a deadly, serious ultimatum.

"I am officially strictly forbidding you from stressing her out. The human heart is a muscle, and hers is currently failing," the doctor warned, his eyes locking onto Zarek. "Whatever family drama, whatever heavy news, whatever custody disputes or tragic truths you have—it stops now."

He pointed a finger directly at Ren.

"You must calmly refrain from answering any questions that agitate her. If she asks something that causes her to panic, you deflect. You agree with her. You soothe her. If you tell her a harsh truth right now, you will send her back into cardiac arrest. You will literally kill her."

The heavy, suffocating silence of the terrestrial hallway pressed down on the six men like a physical executioner’s block.

"Do you understand me?" the doctor demanded.

"We understand," Syris whispered, his voice completely hollowed out.

The doctor let out a short, sharp breath, nodding once before turning on his heel and walking down the corridor toward the nurses’ station, leaving the Alphas standing completely paralyzed in the fluorescent light.

They were trapped.

They had burned their lifeforces, abandoned their empires, and permanently severed their souls from their magic just to reach her side. They had done it because they could not live in a universe where she did not exist. But now, standing outside her sterile hospital room, they realized the horrifying, bitter irony of their terrestrial exile.

They had crossed the void to save her, and the very truth of their sacrifice was the exact thing that was going to kill her.

Zarek stared at the linoleum floor, his hands curled into tight, shaking fists inside the pockets of his leather jacket. His Warlord instincts demanded truth. He had never lied to his Matriarch. He had built his entire reign on the absolute, unshakable foundation of his honesty.

But Earth did not care about draconic honor. Earth only cared about fragile human biology.

Zarek pushed the door open and walked back into the room.

The other five men silently followed him, moving like ghosts into the dim light. They circled the hospital bed, their faces pale and completely drained of the playful, casual warmth they had worn just hours ago.

Roxy was lying flat against the pillows, the mild calming agent keeping her physical body completely still. But her brilliant green eyes were open.

She was staring at them.

The frantic, hyperventilating panic had been chemically erased from her system, but the sheer, agonizing desperation remained entirely intact in her gaze. Tears pooled continuously in the corners of her eyes, slipping silently down her bruised temples, soaking into her hair.

She couldn’t fight the bedsheets anymore, but her eyes were silently, desperately begging them for a lifeline. She was begging for the truth about Drax, Tanith, Iris, Axel, Onyx, Zale, Tyara, Fedor, and the nameless baby girl she had left in the dark. She was pleading with them to tell her that the universe wasn’t truly sealed.

Zarek stepped up to the very edge of the bed.

He looked down at the woman he had conquered worlds for. He saw the deep, purple bruising around her wrists. He saw the hollowed, skeletal curve of her cheeks. He saw the absolute, soul-crushing terror of a mother who believed she would never see her children again.

Zarek swallowed the heavy, agonizing truth like shattered glass. He buried the reality of their permanent exile deep in the darkest, most unreachable corner of his chest.

He reached out, resting his large, incredibly warm hand gently against the side of her pale face. His thumb stroked her cheekbone, entirely wiping away a fresh tear. He looked directly into her desperate green eyes, completely masking the devastating sorrow in his own golden gaze.

"Once you are alive and well, we can go back."