Chapter 188: Grumpy Morning
The air inside Felicity’s space was timeless, a golden twilight that smelled of cedar and the heavy, sweet musk of a completed heat. On the massive bed in the centre of the forest house, the hierarchy had finally found its balance. Victor lay at the centre, his skin still radiating the immense, thrumming heat of a Level 100 breakthrough. Felicity was tucked into his side, her blonde hair spilled across his chest like silk, her blue eyes closed in a deep, post-exhaustion sleep.
The others draped themselves around them. Voss, with amber eyes that never closed, held her feet in his lap. Even asleep, his hand rested on the hilt of a manifested blade. Damien and Ivan occupied the edges of the room, grounding everyone. Lucan and the newcomer, Exile, hovered like shadows. Unlike the rest, Exile was a tethered wire of manic energy; he slept with fingers hooked in the hem of Felicity’s dress. His mind ran on a frantic loop of possession. She is marked. She is ours. She will carry my kin. I will wrap around her and never let the sun touch her skin again.
When Felicity finally stirred, it wasn’t with her usual trembling hesitation. She stretched, her joints popping, and let out a long, satisfied sigh. She felt... different. Heavier. More confident.
"Good morning, grumpy," she teased, sleep thick in her voice as she poked Victor’s hard chest.
Victor’s eyes snapped open, the ice and fire in his pupils swirling. He didn’t speak; he simply crushed her to him in a hug that would have broken a normal human’s ribs. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of his own mark, deep and dominant.
"We have to go out," Felicity said, flashing him a cheeky, lopsided grin as she pulled back. "Unless you plan on staying in this bed until the City of Light finds a way to nuke us first, and frankly, Victor, you’re a bit too warm for a summer day."
Victor blinked, surprised by the spark of wit. He let out a low, huffing growl that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "You’ve grown a tongue while I was asleep, little bird," he rumbled.
"Hard not to, with all of you hovering like overprotective puppies," she quipped, leaning in the kiss he pressed against her forehead.
She turned to the others, kindness radiating as she reached out to pat Exile’s hand. "And you," she chided Exile gently. "Stop looking at me like you’re going to eat me. I’m quite certain I wouldn’t taste very good."
"I would cherish every bite," Exile rasped, devotion crackling in every word.
"Right. Moving on," she laughed, though she didn’t pull her hand away
When the veil finally shimmered, and the group stepped back into the warehouse, the atmosphere outside was like a bowstring being released. Leaf Team had stood guard for hours, a circle of Level 95 statues. Dimitri hadn’t moved an inch, his arms crossed, his Silence Domain keeping the world at bay.
The moment Felicity’s blonde head appeared, the silence was shattered.
"MUMMY!"
Two silver streaks blurred across the warehouse floor. Luna and Frost didn’t care about the terrifying auras of the husbands or the bloody history of the room. They slammed into Felicity’s legs, their small arms wrapping around her waist.
"My babies!" Felicity cried, dropping to her knees despite her husband’s protests, who didn’t want her touching the dirty floor. She gathered the two fox cubs into a massive hug, burying her face in their soft hair. "Oh, I missed you two! Were you good? Did you bother Uncle Dimitri too much?"
"Frost bit a scavenger’s boot!" Luna sang out, pride in her voice.
"He tasted like dirt," Frost grumbled, nestling his head against Felicity’s shoulder.
The sight was enough to make the hardest men in the room falter. Snow Team, standing by the carts, felt their hearts physically ache. Sam, Ash, and Kai, the die-hards of her "church"—watched with a reverence that was almost religious. To see her, so bright and blonde and blue-eyed, holding the cubs amidst the gore of Orange, was the only proof they needed that the world was still worth fighting for.
Sarge looked away, his jaw tight. He still couldn’t look her in the eye for long, the guilt of his past mistake acting like a lead weight in his chest. But even he felt the warmth of her presence
Victor stepped forward, his presence instantly re-establishing the pyramid. He didn’t mind the cubs; they smelled of Felicity, so they were part of the family. He leaned down, kissing Felicity’s forehead while she was still being tackled by Luna, a silent claim that everyone in the room acknowledged.
Then, he turned to the teams.
"The breakthrough is finished," Victor announced, his voice carrying the weight of a mountain. "I am Level 100 and the world is about to find out exactly what that means."
Dimitri uncrossed his arms, his eyes narrowing. "What is the skill, Victor?"
"Selective Annihilation," Victor said. The name alone made the air turn cold. "It is a localised nuke. I can erase a city block, a town, or a single man. And I can choose who remains standing in the ashes. You, Snow Team, the cubs—you are all on the ’white list.’ Everyone else is just dust waiting to happen."
A murmur ran through the Snow Team. Marx whistled, low and impressed. "A nuke? And here I thought we were doing well with lightning and space-warps," he joked.
"It has a cost," Victor warned. "I can use it once a week, perhaps less, until I master the drain. I’ll be testing it on the road to Bowral. Anything that stands in our way, zombie hordes, beastmen after our fox, outposts, they will be the test subjects."
"Alright, everyone!" Felicity clapped her hands, standing up with a cub on each hip. "The boys have cleared the path, and I’m told Bowral has beautiful gardens. I want to see them before the world ends again. Let’s goooo!"
The warehouse sprang into action. There were no cars, no engines to draw the attention of the dead. Instead, the air was filled with the sound of bones popping and muscles expanding.
The ocean-beast members of the teams Richard and Dawn stayed in their beastman forms, their massive, corded muscles glistening as they stepped into the harnesses of the heavy supply carts. They would pull the weight of their lives across the wasteland with the steady, rhythmic power of the tide.
The rest shifted.
A massive black panther, Lucan, lowered himself to the ground. Felicity climbed onto his back with the ease of long practice, tucking the cubs into the thick fur of his neck.
"Ready, Lucan?" she asked, patting his shoulder.
The panther let out a low purr that vibrated through her seat, his golden eyes glowing with a dark, satisfied possessiveness.
As they began to move out of Orange, Felicity looked around. She expected to see the carnage she had heard through the walls, the bodies of the City of Light scouts, the blood of the scavengers. But there was... nothing.
The streets were eerily clean. Tommy had washed away the gore with his hydrokinesis, and Ash had ensured the bodies were hidden or incinerated. To Felicity, it just looked like a quiet, abandoned town.
"Oh, it’s actually quite peaceful here!" Felicity chirped as Lucan trotted past a collapsed pharmacy. She began to spin around on Lucas’s back, looking at the rusted signs and the way the vines climbed the brickwork. "Look at the flowers coming through the cracks! It’s almost pretty, isn’t it, Victor?"
Victor, walking in his human form beside Lucan, glanced at a nearby alleyway where a pile of charred bones was hidden behind a dumpster. He looked back at Felicity’s beaming, innocent face and felt a surge of protectiveness so strong it nearly choked him.
"Yes, Felicity," Victor said, his voice unusually soft. "Very peaceful.
The caravan stretched out like a line of ancient gods. In the lead was Sarge, his rhino-form a massive, armoured tank that crushed obstacles in their path. Behind him, the Snow Team moved in a loose, protective diamond around Felicity. Dako the elephant and Shadow the grizzly took the flanks, their sheer size making the trees shake as they passed.
Leaf Team moved like ghosts. They didn’t make a sound, their animal forms, leopards, eagles, blurring in and out of the treeline. They were the outer shell, the unseen death that waited for anything foolish enough to track the scent of the heat that still clung to the carts.
Exile stayed closest to Lucan’s heels, resisting his shift; he wanted to see her. He walked with a fluid, predatory grace, his gaze fixed on Felicity’s swaying hair. Every sound of her laughter sparked a spike of pure, unadulterated dopamine in him.
"She laughed," Exile whispered to himself, his pupils dilating until his eyes were entirely black. "She laughed because she is safe. I will keep her laughing. I will kill the sun if it makes her squint."