Chapter 463: Episode 461: Your husbands are here.

Zarek was right there.

He reached out, his hands trembling as they moved to pull her broken body entirely into his protective chest.

But Roxy never felt his embrace.

The surge of adrenaline that violently spiked through her veins was simply too much. Her physical body, which had been ruthlessly starved, electrocuted, and pushed to the absolute brink of death for the last twenty-eight days, completely collapsed under the monumental weight of her relief.

Before Zarek’s calloused fingers could even brush the dirt from her pale cheek, Roxy’s eyes rolled completely back into her skull, and she plunged headfirst into a heavy, silent, and absolute dark.

***

There was no biting cold in the void this time. There was no damp, suffocating smell of concrete and copper, and there was no mechanical whine of a terrestrial machine waiting to electrocute her.

Slowly, agonizingly, the dark began to lift, replaced by a warm, floating sensation.

Roxy drifted back to consciousness in agonizingly slow increments. The first thing she registered was the smell. It was clean. Crisp linens, faint antiseptic, and the subtle, soothing scent of lavender.

The second thing she registered was the sound. A steady, rhythmic, and incredibly reassuring beep... beep... beep... echoed softly in the quiet room.

It wasn’t Elias’s basement.

Roxy forced her heavy, bruised eyelids to flutter open. The light in the room was not the harsh, flickering green of server monitors, but the soft, golden glow of the afternoon sun filtering through a set of pristine white blinds. She was lying on a soft, thick mattress.

A clean, heavy cotton blanket was tucked securely around her shoulders.

She was in a hospital room, but it was nothing like the sterile, terrifying ward she had been trapped in after giving birth. This room felt secure. It felt deeply, entirely safe.

She slowly turned her head against the plush pillow, her neck stiff and sore.

Sitting right beside her bed, occupying a small vinyl visitor’s chair, was a man. He was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, holding her pale, heavily bandaged hand delicately between both of his own.

Roxy’s breath completely stalled in her throat. Her brilliant green eyes dilated, entirely unable to process the visual information her brain was receiving.

It was Ren.

He was not a glowing, ethereal projection. He was not a fragmented memory from her darkest days, and he was not an illusion woven by Fedor.

He was in the flesh.

Ren sat beside her, looking devastatingly handsome and utterly real. His red hair fell softly over his forehead, catching the afternoon sunlight. He wore a simple, soft charcoal sweater that clung to the solid, broad lines of his shoulders.

His skin was warm, his thumb gently, rhythmically stroking the back of her knuckles. When he saw her eyes open, his breathtaking face instantly broke into a smile of such pure, overwhelming, and absolute love that it physically ached to look at him.

He was warm. He was solid. He was alive.

Roxy’s chest hitched violently. She opened her mouth, desperately trying to say his name, to ask him how it was remotely possible that he was sitting in a hospital holding her hand.

But her vocal cords, shredded from screaming in the basement and ravaged by severe dehydration, refused to work. Only a weak, pathetic wheeze escaped her lips.

The overwhelming, impossible reality of him crashed over her. Hot, heavy tears instantly flooded her eyes, spilling rapidly over her lashes and soaking into the clean white pillowcase.

She was too weak to move, too weak to hold him back. She could only cry, her narrow shoulders shaking under the heavy blanket.

Ren’s smile softened into something incredibly tender. He leaned forward, his warm, solid hand reaching up to gently brush a dark, clean curl away from her forehead.

"Shh," Ren coos softly, his voice a rich, melodic balm that poured directly into her battered soul. "I am here, my love. You are perfectly safe now. I am right here."

He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her temple, his skin radiating a gentle, vital heat.

"It’s the first time she is seeing you in a while, and you are making her cry?"

The deep, gravelly voice rumbled from the foot of the bed, vibrating with a heavy, masculine authority that Roxy would recognize even in the deepest trenches of the afterlife.

Ren chuckled softly, entirely unfazed by the scolding. He pulled back just enough to look down at her, his own violet eyes completely red and swimming with unshed tears.

"Tears of joy, I must say," Ren replied smoothly, his thumb swiping a tear from Roxy’s pale cheek.

Roxy’s heart gave a massive, erratic flutter. She slowly, painfully turned her head away from Ren, looking past the crisp white sheets toward the foot of the hospital bed.

Standing around the small, sunlit room were the monsters who had torn the universe apart for her.

But they looked completely, unbelievably different.

The towering, invincible Warlords of the Beastworld had seamlessly transitioned into ridiculously handsome, devastatingly striking human men.

Kaelen stood near the window, leaning casually against the sill. The sweeping, waist-length silver hair that used to whip violently in the Northern blizzards had been cut into a sharp, stylishly messy crop.

He wore a dark navy turtleneck that accentuated his broad, aristocratic shoulders, looking like a billionaire heir rather than a wolf King. He offered her a small, breathtakingly relieved smile.

Beside him, Torian had entirely shed his massive, feral furs. The White Tiger Alpha’s wild mane of hair was now neatly faded on the sides, leaving enough length on top to run his massive fingers through.

He was squeezed into a tight, dark gray henley shirt that stretched dangerously across his massive chest and biceps, a pair of dark denim jeans resting on his hips. He looked incredibly playful, his bright blue eyes practically shining with boyish joy as he watched her wake up.

Syris stood near the door, his posture remaining flawlessly elegant. The King of the Swamps had traded his flowing emerald robes for a perfectly tailored, dark green modern trench coat over a crisp black shirt.

His long, dark hair was trimmed cleanly to his jawline, framing his pale, sharp features perfectly. He looked like a cunning, untouchable executive, yet the absolute devotion in his emerald eyes remained unchanged.

And Caspian. The gentle King of the Seas sat on the edge of the radiator, he wore a soft, light blue knitted sweater. His hair was a cascade of soft, golden waves that brushed his forehead. He beamed at her, his oceanic eyes overflowing with warmth.

Then, stepping out from the corner of the room, was Zarek.

The Dragon King wore a simple, heavy black leather jacket over a dark t-shirt. His dark hair was cut short and neat. He looked like a ridiculously dangerous, untouchable street brawler, but the golden fire in his eyes was entirely focused on her, burning with a possessive, unconditional love that transcended dimensions.

Roxy stared at them. Ren, Kaelen, Torian, Caspian, Syris, and Zarek. Six breathtakingly gorgeous, modern human men entirely crowding her hospital room.

How were they here?

How had they fit into these modern clothes, and what in the name of the Heavens had they done to their hair?

More importantly, what had they sacrificed to walk into this room?

What about the children????

The heart monitor beside her bed suddenly shrieked, the steady rhythm instantly transforming into a chaotic, rapid-fire alarm. The jagged green lines on the screen spiked violently, entirely off the charts as Roxy began to hyperventilate.

"Roxy?" Ren gasped, his smile vanishing as he quickly stood up.

"What is happening?" Torian growled, his playful demeanor instantly evaporating into a sharp, protective panic as he came toward the side of the bed.

Before Zarek could even issue a command, the hospital room door violently slammed open.

Three nurses and an older, stern-faced doctor rushed into the room, shoving their way past the massive, towering men with surprising terrestrial authority.

"Step back, gentlemen! You are crowding the patient!" the head nurse ordered sharply, entirely unfazed by the six lethal predators she was speaking to. She moved directly to the IV pole attached to Roxy’s arm.

Roxy’s chest was heaving. She reached her trembling hand out toward Zarek, desperately wanting to ask the million terrifying questions exploding in her mind. Her mouth opened, but only a ragged gasp came out.

"Her heart rate is at one hundred and eighty. Administering the sedative now," the nurse called out, quickly injecting a clear fluid directly into the IV line.

"No," Roxy wheezed, her eyes wide with panic as she felt the heavy, creeping ice of the sedative instantly flooding her veins. She couldn’t go back to sleep. She had to know what they had done. She had to know where her children were.

The doctor stepped up to the head of the bed, gently pressing his hand against Roxy’s trembling shoulder, forcing her to lie flat against the pillows. He looked down at her with a calm, reassuring, and completely oblivious medical smile.

"Relax, Mrs. Bell," the doctor cooed softly as the heavy darkness began to violently pull Roxy’s vision away. "Your husbands are right here."