Chapter 69: Episode 069: Oh no!
Ding!
The blue screen flashed again.
[Milestone Reached: The Panther’s Heart.]
[Congratulations, Host! You have successfully gained the absolute devotion of the Panther King. You have completed the mating bond. Reward: 5000 Survival Points. One Gold Chest.]
Survival Points?
Rue frowned and just made a mental note to question the difference in the coins later. She sat there, clutching the thick blanket tight around her chest, feeling an overwhelming wave of pure irritation.
"You are actually joking right now," Rue snapped. Her voice was quiet, but it was incredibly sharp.
The screen just pulsed, acting like it had done a great job.
Rue shook her head. Her soft pink eyes narrowed. She was tired of the games. She was tired of being treated like a piece on a chessboard.
"I don’t want your points," Rue told the empty air. "I want to know where the rest of my rewards are. You are missing things. Big things."
I know I didn’t care before, but now it just felt like I was an important piece in a chessboard, and that this is not my own story to tell.
"What happened to the reward for Caius?" Rue demanded. Her voice grew a little louder, the frustration finally starting to bleed through her usual calm mask. "He loves me. His feelings reached one hundred percent weeks ago. He built this cabin. He gave me everything he had. Why didn’t you give me a milestone for him?"
If I can remember, it was a real mission, so what happened to those?
She squeezed her hands into tight fists beneath the blanket.
[The "No Falling In Love" skill was a placeholder.]
"What?" Rue coughed out, dumfounded.
[It was an illusion. The skill was created solely to lower your initial stress levels upon entering an unknown environment. I agreed to that, knowing you needed to feel safe to survive your first month.]
"An illusion?" Rue scoffed.
[You were never given a real choice, Host. You are a female in the Beastworld. Your biology is tied to the survival of the tribes. Now that you are fully tied to this world, you must accept your fate.]
Rue felt a hot, sharp spark of pure anger flare up in her chest. Her hands shook.
What the actual fuck?
"Accept my fate?" Rue snapped. She threw the fur blanket off her legs and stood up on the cold floor. She didn’t even care that she was shivering. "I never asked for this! I didn’t want to be dragged out of my hospital bed and thrown into a wild forest! I didn’t want to be a mother. I didn’t want to play politics with Kings and Generals! I WAS NEVER BUILT FOR ALL OF THIS"
She was careful not to wake Theron up.
"I was sick my whole life!" Rue yelled. Tears of frustration pricked the corners of her eyes. "I just wanted to rest! I wanted a quiet life where nobody bothered me! But you brought me here. You made me responsible for an entire tribe. You didn’t even do what I asked you to do for me?! Do you think you can change a heart that has already given up?"
[It’s beginning to change, isn’t it not?]
"YOU DON’T GET TO DECIDE THAT."
Before she could speak again, a weight appeared in her hands, and when she looked down, she stopped breathing. Her anger vanished instantly, completely wiped away by confusion. She slowly sat on the bed, exhausted.
Rue’s hands began to tremble violently.
It was a picture from Earth.
It was a picture of a hospital room. The walls were that familiar, boring pale green color. But Rue didn’t look at the walls. She looked at the two people sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chairs near the window.
It was her mother and her father.
They looked exactly the way she remembered them. Her mother had tired, kind eyes and was wearing her favourite yellow sweater. Her father had his glasses pushed up on his forehead, holding a small paper cup of bad hospital coffee. They were looking directly at the camera, offering soft, encouraging smiles.
They were smiling for her.
Rue stared at the photograph. The glossy paper felt cold against her warm fingers.
All of her carefully built defenses completely shattered.
The calm, unbothered mask she wore every single day to survive the wild beastmen broke into a million tiny pieces. She was just a girl who missed her mom, who left her to her death. She was just a girl who wanted to go back to her own bed.
A loud, broken sob tore its way out of her throat.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and held the small photograph tightly against her heart. She buried her face in her arms and started to cry.
She cried with her whole body. Her shoulders shook violently. Heavy, hot tears poured down her cheeks, soaking into the thick fur blankets. She sobbed so hard she could barely catch her breath. All the fear, all the stress, all the overwhelming pressure of being a mother and a mate in a dangerous world finally came crashing down on her all at once.
When last had she seen her parents’ faces?
It hurt so much. She knew she could never go back. She knew her parents had already buried her. This photograph was the only piece of her old life she would ever have.
She sat there in the quiet bedroom, rocking back and forth, crying until her throat was raw and her eyes were completely swollen.
After several long minutes, her loud sobs slowly turned into quiet, shaky hiccups. She wiped her wet face with the back of her hand, taking a deep, watery breath. She carefully looked down at the photograph again, her thumb gently brushing over her mother’s smiling face.
Then, a sound broke through the quiet air of the cabin.
The door had been opened; from where she was, Rue could smell Caius. Rue froze.
"Rue?" a deep, familiar voice called out.
He was back from the palace.
Rue’s eyes went completely wide. She looked down at herself. She was a complete mess. She was only wearing a blanket. Her silver hair was tangled in wild knots. Her eyes were bright red and heavily swollen from crying.
And worse, she could smell it. Even with her weak human senses, the scent in the bedroom was undeniably thick and heavy. The entire room smelled like Knox.
Her skin smelled like the panther. The fresh, dark bite mark on her shoulder was completely exposed for anyone to see.
Caius’s heavy boots walked slowly across the living room floor. He was heading straight for the bedroom.
Rue clutched the picture to her chest, her heart dropping like a stone into her stomach.
"Oh no."
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