Chapter 241: If you die, I will be extremely angry

Chapter 241: Chapter 241: If you die, I will be extremely angry

His voice came low.

Rough.

"You are."

Her heart hurt.

"Kael..."

"You and the cubs."

His black ears were flat.

His pupils had gone almost round.

Panther fear.

Not cowardice.

The horrible animal certainty that his family was surrounded and he could not put his body between them and every threat at once.

Swanly crossed the room.

Wrapped both arms around him.

Kael froze.

Then crushed her against his chest.

His nose pressed into her hair.

Scenting her.

Checking.

Alive.

His hands were shaking against her back.

Not from weakness.

From the knowledge that if he left, he might return to find only blood and empty spaces where his family had been.

Swanly felt it.

The pure animal terror of a male who finally understood he could not be everywhere at once.

Swanly whispered:

"I can do this."

"No."

"I survived worse."

His grip tightened.

"You almost died the last time I left you alone."

Swanly went still.

Damn him.

Kael pulled back enough to look at her.

"That is not comforting."

She almost laughed.

Instead she touched his face.

"I have my magic. I have weapons. I have the boys."

Kairo straightened.

"And I have two tiny venom monsters."

Sira sniffled.

"Monster?"

Swanly immediately kissed her head.

"Beautiful monster."

Sira accepted this.

Eira stared at Kael.

"Ka."

His expression almost broke.

Swanly looked back at him.

"You are one of the strongest males here."

Another scream.

Closer.

"If you stay with me, somebody else dies because you weren’t there."

Kael’s jaw clenched.

"I don’t care."

"I do."

Silence.

That was the end of the argument.

Not because he agreed.

Because he loved her enough to understand why she could not live with herself otherwise.

Kael pressed his forehead against hers.

"One scream."

"What?"

"If I hear you scream..."

His voice dropped.

"I come back."

Swanly smiled faintly.

"You’ll hear plenty of screaming."

"Yours."

Her smile vanished.

He kissed her forehead.

Then turned.

Swanly caught Soren before he could speak.

"No."

Soren’s silver eyes narrowed.

"You do not know what I was going to say."

"Yes I do."

"No."

"See?"

His tail wrapped around her ankle.

Swanly looked down.

Then up.

"Soren."

His jaw tightened.

She stepped closer.

Pressed both hands against his chest.

"Please."

He hated that word.

She saw it.

Not because he hated her saying it.

Because it gave him no place to hide his fear.

His hand moved to her waist.

"You remain inside."

"I will try."

His pupils thinned.

"Swanly."

"I’m not promising something I might have to break."

His expression became murderous.

She cupped his cheek.

"I’ll protect them."

His eyes moved toward the five children.

Eira reached for him.

"Pa."

Soren took her tiny hand.

She wrapped all five fingers around one of his.

Sira reached too.

"Pa."

For one heartbeat, Soren looked less like Ironwood’s cold ruler and more like a father who wanted to coil his entire body around his nest and never let anything touch it again.

Swanly whispered:

"Go save the people who can’t fight."

Soren looked at her.

Then kissed her.

One hard, brief kiss.

No seduction.

No softness.

A promise disguised as possession.

He pulled away.

"If you die, I will be extremely angry."

Swanly blinked.

"That’s your romantic farewell?"

"Yes."

"Awful."

"You chose me."

Then he transformed.

White scales burst outward.

The enormous snake left the shelter and went straight into the screaming.

Swanly touched her lips.

Miko stared.

"Mama."

"What?"

"Snake Papa kissed you during an apocalypse."

Kairo slapped the back of his head.

"Not now."

Miko rubbed it.

"I’m just saying."

Nilo whispered:

"They’re both strange."

Swanly pointed at all three.

"Focus."

Outside, Ironwood became hell.

Soren’s coils crushed two Hollowmaws against the outer wall. Armor cracked. One still moved. He tightened until the creature’s body folded the wrong way and black fluid sprayed across the stone.

A third tried to climb over his back toward a group of children.

Soren twisted and bit clean through its neck. The head rolled. The body kept crawling for three more steps before it finally stopped.

Kael fought nothing like him.

He vanished.

That was what terrified the creatures.

A Hollowmaw climbed toward a wounded child.

Nothing happened.

Then golden eyes appeared in the dark beneath a broken shelter.

Kael launched.

He hit the Hollowmaw’s exposed belly.

Claws opened the soft underside from chest to tail.

The creature folded over him.

Kael rolled free before its mouth could close.

Gone again.

Raku learned quickly.

He stopped attacking the armored backs.

Waited until they lunged.

Caught the head.

Rolled.

Tore.

Mora fought beside him with a stone club.

When one turned toward Raku’s blind side, she smashed two rear joints.

It collapsed.

Raku finished it.

He looked at her.

"You fight well."

Mora swung again.

"You flirt terribly."

Raku nearly missed the next creature.

"What?"

Mora grinned.

Then went back to killing.

Twenty paces away, Tilla heard them.

Even terrified, she screamed:

"NOW?!"

Mora shouted back:

"APPARENTLY!"

Nahla hurled a blood-soaked cloth into a fire.

"You can all mate after nobody is dying!"

Nobody answered Nahla.

Reasonable.

Even after all they did, people were dying.

A female went down under three of them at once.

Her last scream cut off mid-sound.

A child tried to run and was dragged backward by the ankle, still calling for his mother.

No one was safe.

Nerin stood high on a roof, one hand around his broken antler.

Blood streamed down the side of his face.

The pain was becoming unbearable.

But every time something moved underground, his head snapped toward it.

"LEFT!"

Raku moved left.

A Warder erupted.

Raku dodged.

"EASTERN WALL!"

Kael changed direction.

Nerin swayed.

Tilla looked up.

"Nerin!"

"I’m fine."

"You’re BLEEDING!"

"I know."

"You said you were fine!"

"I lied!"

Tilla stared.

Even in an apocalypse, hearing Nerin admit to lying was astonishing.

Then the roof shook.

Tilla’s face changed.

"Nerin, MOVE!"

He jumped just as pale hands burst through the thatch beneath him.

Tilla caught his wrist from the neighboring platform.

For a tiny mink female, she pulled like fury itself.

Nerin crashed against the wood beside her.

Tavi squeaked from her back.

Nerin stared.

Tilla panted.

"If you fall, Swanly will kill me."

Nerin blinked.

"That is why you saved me?"

Tilla stared at him.

"No, idiot!"

Another tremor.

"Move!"

He moved.

Back inside Swanly’s section, she heard it before she felt it.

The mate bond.

Kael.

Coming back.

Her head snapped toward the doorway.

"Kairo, keep them behind you."

Kael appeared through smoke and dust.

Of course he had come back.

Of course.

His eyes found her.

Relief.

Then the ground groaned.

A sound unlike anything before rolled under the settlement.

Stone grinding against stone.

Swanly looked down.

"No."

The old path between her shelter and Kael split.

"SWANLY!"

Kael leapt.

Too late.

The ground dropped.

Half the walkway collapsed into an old hollow beneath Ironwood.

Timber snapped.

Stone fell.

People screamed as they plunged into the dark.

Swanly grabbed Miko and threw herself backward just in time. Dust swallowed everything. When it cleared, Kael stood on the other side of a deep, jagged wound in the earth — close enough to see the panic in his eyes, too far to reach.

Between them, a woman’s arm stuck out of the rubble, still moving.

Then it stopped.

"Swanly!"

"I’m here!"

Soren’s massive white body came crashing from the opposite path.

His tail struck the rubble.

Stone shifted.

A trapped male screamed from beneath it.

"STOP!"

Swanly threw up both hands.

"SOREN, STOP!"

The snake froze.

More voices came from below.

People trapped in the collapsed passage.

If Soren smashed through?

He would kill them.

Kael’s claws dug into stone.

He was shaking with rage.

Swanly looked around.

Five cubs.

One partly standing shelter.

A thick tree.

A stone wall.

Broken beams.

Then the System screamed.

HOST.

"No."

A golden map opened.

Dozens of red signals.

Not scattered anymore.

Converging.

Toward her.

HOLLOWMAW MOVEMENT INCREASING.

"How many?"

The System hesitated.

Swanly nearly lost her mind.

"HOW MANY?"

TWENTY-SEVEN CONFIRMED. ADDITIONAL MOVEMENT UNKNOWN.

Miko’s face went white.

"Twenty... seven?" Swanly clutched her babies tighter.

The System’s next line appeared without being asked.

ADDITIONAL SIGNALS DETECTED.

ESTIMATED TOTAL: FORTY-PLUS.

CONVERGING ON HOST LOCATION.

TIME TO CONTACT: LESS THAN TWO MINUTES.

Swanly’s blood turned to ice.

Forty.

And she was on the wrong side of a collapsed path with five children and no way out.

Kael’s roar of pure rage echoed across the broken settlement.

Soren’s massive white body slammed against the rubble again, trying to reach her, but more voices screamed from under the stone. If he forced his way through, he would crush the trapped survivors.

No one was coming in time.

The first wet, scraping sounds began under the nearest wall.