Baby System: I'm the Beast World's Only Hope!-Chapter 208: Episode : I Don’t want to Let You Go

"I want to see you," he whispered, his hand hovering over the place where her tail began.

Roxy stared at him.

Looking at the dry couch, a sudden, fierce longing pierced through her chest.

"Okay," Roxy whispered.

She swam over to the force field that separated the water from the air pocket. She pushed through the membrane.

The transition was jarring. One second she was weightless; the next, gravity slammed into her. She tumbled onto the soft, moss-green velvet of the chaise lounge, gasping as her lungs switched from water to air.

The iridescent pink scales that covered her lower half shimmered and dissolved. The powerful tail split, reforming into bone and muscle.

When the light faded, Roxy lay on the velvet, breathing hard.

She looked down.

She wiggled her toes. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

"Oh, thank god," she groaned, stretching her legs out. "I missed you guys."

Caspian had pulled himself out of the water. He didn’t have legs, so he dragged his massive, powerful body onto the edge of the dry lounge, his indigo tail hanging off the side into the pool. His wet skin glistened in the dim light, water droplets running down his chest like diamonds.

He froze.

He stared at her legs.

He reached out his webbed fingers hovering over her knee.

"So soft," he breathed, touching her skin as if she were made of glass.

He traced the line of her calf, his touch careful and soft. To him, her human form wasn’t weak; it was precious. It was something rare and fragile that shouldn’t exist in his brutal world, yet here she was.

Roxy felt a different kind of heat rise in her cheeks. This wasn’t the overwhelming biological urge of the mermaid form. This was quieter. More intimate.

"Come here," Roxy whispered, reaching for him.

Caspian pulled himself higher, looming over her. He buried his face in her neck, inhaling the scent of her skin, no longer smelling of the ocean, but of the surface. Of flowers, sun and earth.

"My Roxy," he groaned.

***

Hours later, Roxy was asleep.

She had reverted back to her mermaid form, Now, she floated in the center of the massive clam bed, her pink tail curled protectively around her body, her hair drifting like a silk cloud in the current.

She looked peaceful. Her chest rose and fell in a slow, rhythmic motion, she didn’t have a gill like they do, so she breathed through her nose.

But Caspian was awake.

He lay beside her, propped up on one elbow, watching her sleep.

The bioluminescent jellyfish in the ceiling cast moving shadows across his face, highlighting the sharp angles of his jaw and the deep furrow between his brows.

He reached out, intending to touch her hair, but stopped his hand inches from her face.

He pulled back. A cold, slimy feeling was twisting in his gut. It was guilt.

He looked at her sleeping face. He remembered the way she had looked at him during the ceremony, not with the burning passion of a mate who had found her other half, but with the terrified resolve of a soldier marching into battle.

She had to lie, he had realized.

He remembered the lie she had told his mother. Caspian closed his eyes, exhaling a stream of bubbles that rose to the ceiling.

He wasn’t stupid. He was a King. He knew how to read fear.

She hadn’t mated with him because she couldn’t resist him. She hadn’t married him because she wanted to rule the ocean.

She had done it to survive.

She was a prisoner. A beautiful, cherished, worshipped prisoner, but a prisoner nonetheless.

"I trapped you," Caspian whispered to the silence.

He looked at the new coral ring on her finger. It looked like a shackle now.

He thought about the perimeter. He thought about the Leviathans he had ordered to patrol the outer wall, not just to keep enemies out, but to keep her in.

And he thought about the others.

The Surface Kings.

He knew they were there. For weeks, his scouts had reported strange echoes from the surface, the taste of magic that didn’t belong to the sea.

Ever since he diverted them, he knew they still survived and was still working on getting to Roxy again.

He had known. He had sensed the desperate, frantic energy of the Dragon and the Wolf searching for their lost mate.

And what had he done?

He had ordered the currents to be diverted. He had ordered the Mana-Shields raised to full power, masking the city’s signature. He had hidden her away in the deepest, darkest crack of the world, telling himself it was for her safety.

But he had to do it, because she was like a beautiful presence in his cold and blue life. He didn’t know what he could do without her.

He doubted he could survive with her gone.

Safety? Caspian mocked himself, his jaw clenching. Or possession?

He looked at Roxy again. She shifted in her sleep, murmuring a name that wasn’t his.

"Z..."

Caspian flinched. He looked away, staring into the dark corner of the room.

As he lay there in the cold, Caspian felt like the monster in the story.

He had saved a bird and instead of releasing it, he had dragged it underwater, and then convinced himself it was happy because he gave it a cage.

He reached out again, his fingers brushing the iridescent scales of her tail, the tail she hadn’t asked for, the tail she had taken to save his life.

"I am selfish," Caspian rasped, the confession tasting bitter in the water.

He loved her. He loved her more than he had ever loved anything in his life. He would die for her.

But was he loving her? Or was he just keeping her?

He looked at the closed doors of the Pearl Wing. He knew the way to the surface. He knew how to open the Gate. He could wake her up right now, take her to the teleporter, and send her back to the sun and the men she called out for in her sleep.

But he didn’t move.

He couldn’t.

The thought of losing her, of the room being empty, of the silence returning... it was a terror greater than the Kraken.

So he stayed. He laid back down, wrapping his arm around her waist, pulling her body against his chest.

He buried his face in her hair, squeezing his eyes shut against the truth.

Am I wrong? he asked the darkness, his heart heavy with the weight of his stolen happiness. Am I wrong for keeping the light, even if it means putting out the sun?