Apocalypse Villainess Transmigrates Into The Beastworld With Debt

Chapter 141: He had kept his peace

​Ren stood frozen in the center of the cabin, the heavy, suffocating pressure of a hundred pairs of eyes drilling into his back.

His heart was hammering so loudly he could hear it in his ears. These were the people he had bled for, the people who had looked up to him to hunt the mountain deer and fend off the rogue wolf packs. But then he looked back at Hana.

​She was sitting perfectly still on the pelts, her dark eyes completely unblinking, waiting for his decision. She wasn’t begging him, and she wasn’t pressuring him. She was giving him a choice.

​Ren closed his eyes, took a deep, grounding breath, and when he opened them, the anxious, sunshine-brained cat was completely gone. His posture straightened, his black-striped tail flattening into a rigid line of absolute certainty.

​"Yes, Chief," Ren said, his voice ringing out clear, steady, and loud enough for every beastman outside the hut to hear. "I am joining her household. I plan to give Hana my mark."

​A collective, horrified gasp rippled through the crowd outside. Brenda looked like she had just been struck by lightning, her face turning a ghastly, pale white.

​"Ren! How could you?!" Brenda wailed, clutching her bruised wrist. "She’s a monster! She’s taking our strongest claws!"

​"My claws belong to the female who went out of her way to save our captive women when she had absolutely no reason to," Ren fired back, his voice dropping into a fierce, commanding rumble that instantly silenced Brenda.

He looked directly at the old chief, his expression softening with genuine respect but remaining entirely unyielding. "Chief, the tribe is not going to starve, and you will not be defenseless. Hana is not a thief. If you actually listen to what she has to say instead of listening to a jealous female’s gossip, you would see that she isn’t bad at all."

The old chief’s brow furrowed, his grip loosening slightly on his cane as he looked past Ren’s broad shoulders toward the small, hairless human sitting on the furs.

​As the silence stretched, Ren’s chest rose and fell with heavy, hot breaths. The anger vibrating through his muscles wasn’t just about Brenda’s screeching or the interruption. Standing here, facing the very people he had bled for, a lifetime of buried bitterness threatened to tear through his usual cheerful mask.

​He remembered being a cub. He remembered the vicious whispers of the other children, the cruel laughter of the elders who called him a half-breed just because his tail bore thick, dark stripes instead of the neat, rounded spots of a pure Frost-Claw leopard.

They had isolated him, mocked him, and treated him like an outcast. Yet, the moment his claws grew long enough and his strength surpassed every single warrior in the tribe, those same people had turned to him for survival.

They begged him to lead. They called him their Alpha because they needed his body between them and the wolves that could tear them apart.

​For years, Ren had just smiled it off. He had shrugged away the tribal gossip, looked on the bright side, and swallowed his own resentment for the sake of the bigger picture.

He had kept the peace. But keeping the peace didn’t mean he was stupid. If they thought they could use his loyalty as a leash to drag him away from the one female who he wanted—who didn’t care about his lineage or his strange stripes—then they were about to find out just how terrifying a smiling warrior could be when he finally snapped.

​Hana calmly adjusted the fabric of her white dress over her knees, her dark eyes tracking the intense spike in Ren’s breathing, and the tight, dangerous flex of his jaw.

​"Your warrior isn’t being stolen," Hana said flatly, her voice dripping with an absolute, clinical authority. "He’s simply choosing for himself."

​She leaned back into the furs, her face expressionless as she rested her hand over the heavy curve of her belly.

​"And if you respect him, then you will let him pick his own path. Though..." She turned her gaze, looking directly at the furious Brenda. "I don’t know how much of that respect you actually have for your Alpha."

​She narrowed her dark eyes, a chilling, unbothered calculation reflecting in them. Brenda flinched violently, taking a sharp step back into the crowd as if a physical blade had been pointed at her throat.

​The heavy silence returned, thick and suffocating. The snow leopard warriors at the door shifted uncomfortably under Hana’s unblinking stare.

They looked at Ren’s rigid back, then at the dangerous, protective wall that Caspian, Raiden, and Kulu formed around her. It was clear that this human wasn’t a witch casting spells; she was a leader who stood behind her choices, and their Alpha was choosing to stand with her.

​Mina stepped up right to her brother’s side, her chin lifting with a fierce, loyal finality. "Hana speaks the truth, Chief! If my brother chooses to follow her, I support him entirely. He has given everything to this tribe. He deserves to choose his own path. Please, let him have what he wants just this once."

​Brenda opened her mouth, her face twisting as she tried to find words to spark the anger of the crowd again, but no one moved. The warriors were silent, their aggressive grips on their spears loosening completely.

​The old chief rumbled tiredly, raising his hand to silence any further murmurs before they could begin. He let out a long, heavy sigh, the deep wrinkles on his face tightening as he looked at Ren.

He saw the unyielding, dangerous devotion in the young Alpha’s eyes and knew there was no stopping it. The tribe had pushed the boy too hard for too many years, demanding everything while whispering about his stripes, and now his heart belonged to one who wasn’t from the tribe.

Such was the irony of life.

​The chief turned back to Hana, slowly lowering his cane. "If... if this is truly our Alpha’s choice... then the Frost-Claw tribe will not stand in his way."

​"Good," Hana said flatly, not wasting a single second on the departing crowd as the chief began to usher the whispering tribespeople out of the cabin.

​She looked up at Ren, her dark eyes locking onto his icy blue ones, completely pulling him out of his past memories and back into the present reality. "From this moment, you will be mine." She said and Caspian huffed from the side, his arms folded over his chest. "I am ready to receive your mark."