Chapter 41
Scythe
Riding back to Animus Academy on Lia’s back is something I never imagined I’d be doing. I am well practised at riding Xander, but when he suggested he bear us, Lia glared at him like she was going to lash her teeth around his throat.
“Over my dead body,” she snarled.
It made the rest of us snarl to hear her talk that way, instinctively gathering around her.
She looked us each in the eye with such determination, then began to shift.
We’d all had to sprint to the corners of the apartment roof to avoid her massive blue limbs.
Savage was the first to recover, as he often is, treating this like it’s some great game and climbed up her body with enthusiasm, seating himself in shotgun position.
Lyle pats Aurelia’s foreleg before levitating himself up onto her back. I glance at Xander, who holds Katerina’s head in a plastic bag hanging from one hand.
“Is it strange riding another dragon?” I ask, heading towards her hind leg.
“Yes, it’s pretty fucking weird,” he replies. “You go on.”
Katerina’s head soars through the air, and Lia raises her forepaw to receive it in her massive grip.
I bear climb up my regina’s hind leg, hand over hand, until I’m on her flank, at which point I walk down her spine and settle behind Lyle.
Her scales are pleasantly warm under me, and it’s reassuring to feel that through my trousers.
It’s the only type of warmth I crave these days. The only type of touch I want.
Compared to the touch of The Collector, which had filled me with such…
poison. The Wild Goddess knows the type of toxicity that would have plagued me had she gotten her way with me.
Deep instinct tells me she didn’t. So when Xander pulled me aside last night, with a quiet voice and earnestness in his eyes, a part of me had already known.
“I didn’t let her, Scythe,” he’d said, gaze flicking down to the floor. “I stayed awake and made sure you wouldn’t do what she was asking. Connor didn’t fasten my shackles properly, so we have to thank him for that when I see him next.”
“Thank you, brother,” was all I’d been capable of saying.
How could I have said more, when the very thing I’d hated him for had been the thing to save me?
It was only the severance of his bond that led him to have a clear mind while under the spell.
The Wild Goddess was more likely to be a twisted, laughing crone if this is the type of fate she deals out.
Lia’s power now envelops us in a bubble of warmth just before she launches into the night air. A moment later, a black dragon joins us in the sky, flying low, directly under us as if protecting Aurelia’s underside from those below.
Earlier today, Rufus informed me of the goings-on in my absence, including the ambush Aurelia received after leaving the Jewel of the Jungle and the way she’d destroyed multiple council helicopters.
My regina has grown. She has matured into a full-grown Boneweaver, and now the world knows what she’s capable of.
In just the same way, her sire’s plans are also maturing.
His investments are claiming full interest. Mace Naga is the council now.
He can wield full political power and has been steadily using it against us.
The loss of my cleaning businesses is a heavy blow, but nothing we can’t recover from.
I’d built my enterprise to be resilient in that way.
But one thing is now clear, Mace is getting bolder.
Last night, there was a council raid of warehouses owned by some other underworld crime lords.
It had appeared on human news as a great success by Mace.
Some propaganda about cleaning up the corrupt animalia community.
This had been his end goal all along. A way to get the serpents’ full power over the other orders he’d perceived as their enemies.
He’d not forgotten the Great Serpent Purge of 1970.
Not forgiven the council and all those in it who had persecuted his people for their powers.
Who had marked their faces for carrying venom and executed all feral serpent families.
But what does Mace intend to do with all that power? How is he going to exact his revenge?
Marduk reports that he and his pack, along with the other animas are back at the academy, except for Connor who has taken the rest of Katerina’s captives to safety in the accommodations I’ve provided.
I’ve utilised my contacts from the Lily Institute to send them the staff to ensure their proper medical and psychological treatment.
This is important to me because it’s important to my regina.
Marduk also has a captive with him by way of Stacey’s newfound rex.
This news, while inconvenient, might come in use.
“How long does a treasure haze typically last?” I ask Xander.
“Mine was three days,” Xander says. “But Aurelia has four treasures, and she killed for hers. So I don’t know if that will extend it.”
“I’m enjoying it,” Savage says. “She’s so cute and powerful. But if she wants to wash us all every single night, that might get difficult.”
“Agreed,” Lyle says. “For her sake, I hope she comes out of it soon.”
Aurelia huffs beneath us, probably aware we are conversing without her.
She is a seasoned flier, and I marvel at the command she has over her own unique body.
Her ability to shift into different beasts and seamlessly adapt to them in essentially no time is astonishing.
It takes beasts of regular orders a while to learn how to use their animal body, and Aurelia looks like she was born to be a dragon.
She had fought as one not long after shifting into one for the first time.
And then what had happened on the riverside bank of Katerina’s property…
Xander flies on ahead as if he’s scouting for us, no doubt listening for any sign of a faraway helicopter or anti-dragon weapons. There is little chance anyone knows where we were for the last two days, but the closer we get to the academy, the closer we get to visibility and predictability.
We reach the dark turrets of the academy deep into the night.
I never thought I’d feel glad to see the place.
Guards move in their towers, and I sense Aurelia’s telepathic communication with them as she circles the perimeter of the academy grounds in a wide arc, as if looking for signs of anomaly or enmity.
Once she completes her circuit, I expect her to veer towards the animus dorms, but she doesn’t.
Instead, she angles her nose towards the road before the front gates.
Her landing is slightly different from Xander’s, her newest leg unable to take the full brunt of the required weight.
But we’re only jostled a little before she commands us to the ground.
To my surprise, she shifts into human form.
I watch her long-limbed figure kissed by the light of a gibbous moon, her eyes glinting with something wholly primal.
Something that makes my primitive shark gnash his teeth and pay attention.
All four of us follow our regina’s every movement as she takes Katerina’s head from its plastic bag and walks up to the front gates of the academy.
When I see my regina levitate upwards and slam the head of our enemy onto the central spike of the school gates, the only appropriate thing to do is smile.