Felicity's Beast World Apocalypse

Chapter 307: I Was So Scared

His eyes cleared. The red bled away, leaving behind the normal dark amber that she was learning to love.

Behind them, six men let out a collective, shuddering exhale. The pressure lifted. Dimitri could hear them breathing hard, hear the creak of floorboards as they slowly, carefully pushed themselves upright. Victor’s wings folded with a sound like canvas snapping, and Voss leaned against the wall, his knuckles white where they gripped the doorframe.

Dimitri didn’t look at them. Not yet.

He was on the floor, Felicity in his lap, her weight a perfect anchor against the spinning that still lingered at the edges of his vision. She held his cheek, her thumb tracing the line of his jaw, and when she looked up at him, her eyes were enormous and wet and so painfully innocent that something in his chest caved.

"You were asleep for nearly three days," she whispered. "I was so scared."

She pressed her face into his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her, tight, burying his nose in her hair and breathing her in. A deep, rumbling purr built in his throat involuntarily, primal, the sound his body made when she was close and safe and his, and he pressed his lips to the top of her head.

Then he looked up

Victor was standing, barely. His silver hair was dishevelled, his wings still twitching with residual tension. Voss had both hands braced on his knees, his chest heaving. Ivan leaned against the staircase railing, his scarred face unreadable, but his eyes sharp, calculating. Damien was crouched low, his gaze fixed on Dimitri with something between wariness and grudging respect. Lucan and Exile looked like they’d been hit by a truck, pale, swaying, clutching at furniture to stay upright.

Dimitri gave them a single nod. Not an apology. Not a challenge. An acknowledgment. This is what I am now.

Felicity tilted her head back, her big eyes searching his face. "What level are you now, my love?"

"One-ten." The word came out flat, matter-of-fact, like he was telling her the time.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Felicity’s mouth fell open. Behind her, Victor went very, very still. Voss straightened, his analytical mind clearly already running calculations, reassessing every variable, every threat projection, every defensive formation they’d built around the manor. Ivan’s jaw tightened. Damien’s pupils dilated.

One hundred and ten.

Victor, the strongest among them, the one who could level a town on his best day, was ten levels below him. The gap was staggering. Unprecedented. In a world where power dictated survival, where a five-level difference could mean the difference between dominance and submission, ten levels was insane.

Dimitri felt Felicity’s small hand press flat against his chest, right over his heart.

"One-ten," she repeated softly, like she was tasting the number. Then her expression shifted, fear bleeding into something fiercer, something protective. "Does it hurt? Your body, does it feel different?"

He considered. The spinning had mostly stopped. His limbs felt heavy but powerful, like every muscle had been rewired with something denser, something that hummed just beneath the surface. When he flexed his hand, the air around his knuckles warped slightly—a visual distortion he’d never seen before.

"It feels," he said slowly, "like too much."

Felicity’s fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt. "We’ll figure it out. Together."

Behind her, Victor finally spoke, his voice rough but steady. "We’ll need to test the range. The control. If that was a fraction of what you can do now—" He stopped himself, and Dimitri caught the flicker of something in those red eyes that might have been respect or might have been fear. "We’ll need to know what we’re working with."

"We’ll figure it out," Felicity said again, firmer this time, and the way she said it—like it was already decided, like the seven of them standing in a ruined living room with shattered furniture and trembling limbs was just another problem to solve together—made something warm unfurl in Dimitri’s chest.

He pressed another kiss to her hair and held her tighter, and the purr that rolled through him was loud enough to rattle the broken lamp on the floor beside them.

One-ten. He was one-ten, and she was in his arms, and the world could spin itself into oblivion for all he cared.

His gaze dropped to her belly. The nightgown was pulled taut across it, the fabric thin enough that the shape of her was unmistakable even in the dim light. She watched his throat work as he swallowed. Watched his hands curl into fists so tight his knuckles went bone-white

"Felicity." Her name again, but different this time. Rougher. Like he was dragging it up from somewhere dark inside himself. "I need you to listen to me."

"I’m listening."

"I have been..." He stopped. His jaw clenched. She could hear his teeth grinding, a soft, terrible sound. "Every night, every night since we started moving as a team, I have stood outside your door. Did you know that?"

She hadn’t. The realization landed in her stomach like a stone dropped into still water, ripples spreading outward, warmth moving around her chest.

"I’ve listened to you breathe," he continued. His voice was barely above a whisper now, stripped of everything except raw, bleeding honesty. "I’ve listened to you talk in your sleep. I’ve listened to the cubs moving inside you, and I-"

Another crack. Wider this time. She could see it happening, could see the restraint fracturing in real time, the careful walls he’d built around himself coming apart at the seams.

"I’ve memorized the sound of your heartbeat," he said. "I can hear it from three rooms away. I know when you’re anxious because it gets faster, and I know when you’re about to cry because it goes thick and slow, and I... "

He cradled her cheek and looked into her eyes. She could see his eyes. They were wild. Bright with something that looked almost like madness, except it wasn’t madness at all. It was something far more dangerous.