If Roxy had known that traveling in a covered wagon with two pre-Rut apex predators would be like trapping herself in a sauna with ticking ti bombs, she might have asked the System for a teleportation scroll.
Syris didn’t co because he was hibernating and chose to sleep in his room and protect the cabin.
The journey had started well enough. They left the Iron-Wood under the cover of the midday sun, the wagon piled high with furs, dried at, and weapons.
But as the day wore on and the sun began to dip, the atmosphere inside the canvas covering shifted from "family road trip" to "suffocating tension."
The wagon was cramped.
With the triplets sleeping in a makeshift crib strapped to the side, and Drax curled up on a pile of furs, there wasn’t much room for the adults.
Kaelen was driving the ox-beast, perched on the wooden bench outside. But the thin canvas wall didn’t block his pheromones. His scent had turned heavy. A scent so potent it made the hair on Roxy’s arms stand up.
It was the scent of a Wolf staking his territory.
And Zarek? Zarek was a problem.
The Dragon King was sitting opposite Roxy, his long legs tangled with hers in the narrow space. He was wearing the robe she had bought him, but he had long since discarded the sash, leaving his chest bare to the humid air.
He wasn’t sleeping. He was just staring at her. As if he wanted to bore a hole into her head.
His golden eyes were unblinking, the pupils blown so wide they were almost black. He tracked every movent she made. If she shifted the sleeping Iris to her other shoulder, his eyes followed. If she brushed a stray hair from her face, his eyes followed.
"Zarek," Roxy whispered, trying not to wake the babies. "Stop staring. You’re going to burn a hole in my dress."
"I am watching," Zarek rumbled, his voice sounding like gravel grinding together. "To ensure you are safe."
"I’m in a wagon moving five miles an hour," Roxy pointed out dryly, shifting her legs. "Unless a snail attacks us, I think I’m okay."
He leaned forward, invading her personal space until his nose was inches from her neck. He inhaled deeply, a long, shuddering breath that vibrated in his.
"I wish I can have you right now," he murmured, his tongue darting out to taste the air near her pulse point. "You sll like mine."
Roxy’s breath hitched. The intensity in his gaze wasn’t just affection; it was hunger.
"Zarek, behave," she warned weakly, though her heart pounded against her ribs. "The kids are sleeping."
"Let them sleep," Zarek growled. His hand moved, heavy and hot, landing on her knee. His thumb rubbed circles into her skin, possessing it. "I am hungry, Roxy. And the closer we get to the Tiger... the hungrier I get."
Before Roxy could answer, the wagon lurched to a halt.
The canvas flap behind the driver’s seat was ripped open. Kaelen’s face appeared. He looked wild. His jaw tight, and his blue eyes were glowing with a feral light.
"Why did you stop?" Zarek snapped, his hand tightening on Roxy’s knee possessively.
"The Moon," Kaelen choked out, pointing a shaking finger toward the horizon. "Look."
Roxy leaned forward to look past him through the opening.
The sun had vanished, and in the eastern sky, the moon was rising. But it wasn’t the pale, silver orb she was used to.
It was pink.
It wasn’t the blood-red of the full Rut yet, but it was blushing. A soft, sickly rose color that bathed the forest in an eerie, feverish light.
"It begins," Kaelen whispered, his voice trembling. He looked at Roxy, and for a second, she didn’t see her husband. She saw a Wolf looking at a rabbit.
During their rut season they lose all rationality.
But Roxy’s mate stil hard sanity inside them slling her scent.
"Get inside," Roxy ordered softly, sensing the shift in him. "Switch with Zarek. You need to be near the pack."
Kaelen didn’t argue. He practically fell through the opening, scrambling into the back of the wagon like a man seeking shelter from a storm. Zarek grunted, reluctantly untangling himself from Roxy to take the reins outside.
"Do not let him touch you too much," Zarek warned Kaelen, his eyes flashing with jealousy as he climbed out. "She is fragile."
"She is ours," Kaelen snapped back, his voice guttural.
As Zarek climbed onto the bench to drive, snapping the reins, Kaelen collapsed onto the furs next to Roxy. He didn’t sit; he sprawled, burying his face in her lap imdiately. His large arms wrapped around her waist, locking her in place.
He was shaking.
"Kaelen?" Roxy whispered, running her hands through his silver hair. "Is it bad? The headache?"
"It is noise," Kaelen gasped, pressing his face harder against her stomach, inhaling her scent like it was oxygen. "A thousand voices in my head. Telling to hunt. Telling to kill anything that cos near you. Telling to drag you into the woods and..."
He trailed off, a whimper escaping his throat.
"And what?" Roxy asked gently, massaging the tension in his neck.
Kaelen looked up at her. The pain and desire warring in his eyes were heartbreaking.
"To breed you until you cannot walk," he confessed, his voice rough with sha. "To fill you until you sll of nothing but Wolf. The voices... they want to erase the Dragon. They want to erase everything but ."
Roxy flushed crimson, her thighs clenching involuntarily. The bluntness of it turned her on. But it was also undeniably arousing. The lingering effects of the venom in her system seed to hum in response to Kaelen’s need.
"I’m right here, Wolfy," she soothed, leaning down to kiss his forehead. "I’m not going anywhere. You don’t need to drag into the woods. I’m right here in the wagon."
"The pink light," Kaelen muttered, nuzzling her belly. "It itches under my skin. It hurts."
"Focus on ," Roxy commanded softly. "Focus on Iris sleeping. Focus on Drax snoring. We are real. The voices are just the moon."
Kaelen closed his eyes, his grip on her waist tightening until it almost bruised, but he didn’t move further. He used her as his anchor, grounding himself in her scent.
The hours dragged on.
The wagon rocked back and forth. Outside, Zarek drove the ox-beast with aggressive speed, occasionally letting out a roar of fire to clear the path of shadows that didn’t exist. Inside, Roxy was the eye of the storm.
It was suffocating. It was hot. The scent of musk was so thick she could taste it on her tongue.
But strangely, she didn’t feel afraid.
Mara had said they would beco monsters. But looking at Kaelen—who was trembling, sweating, fighting every instinct in his body just to stay gentle for her—she realized they weren’t monsters. They were just n in pain, desperately clinging to the only thing that kept them sane.
"How much further?" Roxy called out to Zarek after what felt like an eternity.
"We are crossing the boundary line," Zarek yelled back, his voice tight.
Roxy shifted, carefully extricating herself from Kaelen’s grip.
"Stay," she whispered when he whined and reached for her. "I just want to look."
She crawled to the front of the wagon and peeked through the flap behind Zarek.
The forest was thinning out. The gnarled, dark trunks of the Iron-Wood were giving way to manicured groves of fruit trees and white stone markers. The wild, untad nature of their ho was gone, replaced by order.
And in the distance, glowing against the night sky, was the Golden Citadel.
It was staggering. Even from miles away, the lights of the city turned the clouds gold. It looked like a beacon of civilization in a world of savages. Spires rose into the air, and white walls glead under the pink moonlight.
But to Roxy, it didn’t look like safety.
Under the sickly pink light of the rising moon, the Golden Citadel looked like a beautiful cage. Or worse, a mouth waiting to swallow them whole.
"We are here," Zarek said He looked back at her, his eyes wild and protective. "Do not let the Tiger touch you, Roxy. If he touches you... I will burn his city to ash."
"He won’t touch ," Roxy promised, reaching out to squeeze Zarek’s shoulder. "He wants to talk. We’ll talk."
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