Chapter 46 - Aurelia
Aurelia
Iwake up with a start, tangled within four sets of naked limbs, the last image of the dream burned into my mind’s eye making my heart pound at a thousand miles an hour.
That dream. My bungalow.
Sharp awareness roils through my veins at the realisation that this changes everything. And yet somehow it changes nothing at all.
My bungalow had originally been Ghoul’s house.
My father had brought him there from a land so far away I don’t know how much more of it he remembers. When his powers had come in, he’d likely not known how to control them and had done great damage, forcing his family to isolate him.
Ghoul had been alone from the beginning.
Had been the only basilisk anyone knew from the start.
He had been just like me. When Ghoul arrived in town, I would have still been living at Naga House.
Still going to school, living a normal life.
My mind flashes back to the night of the fake engagement party and the basilisk lord’s possessive arm around me as we walked into Naga mansion together.
The strange feeling I’d had in the depths of my being.
That feeling of another life, another time.
Another possibility. The unexpected ache in my heart makes guilt slide through me.
Scythe sits bolt upright, Savage not a moment after. “Your breathing,” Scythe says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Regina, was it a bad dream?”
Savage’s hands find my skin too as I look at my shark.
He searches my gaze and seems to understand, like he always does, that this dream wasn’t a dream.
I reach for him, banding an arm around his neck, and he pulls me into himself, that perfect tattooed naked skin like a soothing haven on mine.
He brushes my hair aside and grazes his lips against my mating mark.
I shiver in his hold. Savage shuffles closer to warm at my back.
Between the two of them, I feel more at home than I ever have anywhere else.
It settles my racing heart and the sting of the knowledge I’d just received.
Ghoul’s memories are different from the others. Sharing of memories is a serpent order power, and while my dream-memories from my other mates have been clear enough, this dream bore a stark brightness to it that I can’t ignore. Does he see his world like that? So bright that it’s painful?
For the rest of the day, I’m quiet with my own thoughts, coming to terms with what I’d been shown.
I get to see Minnie and my other animas in Raquel’s hospital room.
It’s our meeting place these days, and it turns out we’re all upset.
Eugene hops into Stacey’s lap, her eyes as red-rimmed as mine are.
Henry returns to my shoulder, cooing his own reassurances in my ear. “Stay with me,” I whisper to him.
My little nimpin buries himself in the thick strands by my shoulder as the vision of my dream runs itself through my mind on a loop.
Alone. We’d both been alone at the start. Both vulnerable to the powers looming over us. The difference is that while my life has changed dramatically, Ghoul is still alone. Still on the outskirts of things.
Stacey tearily tells us about her rex, Etienne.
How Marduk has him tied up under the school for questioning.
She brought him food under Yeti’s supervision last night, but the bastard refused to eat from her hand.
Refused to even look her in the eye. She touches her healing shoulder, grimacing under the pain of it.
“He’s just ashamed, I think,” Stacey sniffs. “That he hurt me and didn’t mean to.” She swallows as we listen in earnest. “I…I don’t think I’m going to go back there tonight.”
“He said,” Sabrina says angrily, “that he wanted to go back to The Collector’s property. That the pay was good, and now he has no income. That we ruined that for him.”
Stacey trembles, clutching onto Eugene, who looks at her with worry. “He’s just confused. It’s not the meeting either of us dreamed of.”
A single tear slips from my eye as I stare at the blank wall behind Stacey.
Another follows it. A sob escapes my mouth, making Minnie’s head snap towards me.
Stacey and I leap for each other, Eugene darting away just in time.
I squash Stacey to my chest, and she clutches onto me so tightly my ribs creak.
Minnie and Sabrina rub both our backs and we cry, loud and broken.
Half of me can’t comprehend it. Stacey’s heart had been pining for mates she’d never met, and the moment she’d met her rex, also alone, he’d shot her like a pussy.
My little house had been my home for seven years, and I thought I had been alone.
I thought it had been Charlotte’s abandoned guest house, but it had been there before Charlotte’s house had even been built.
My mate had been there before anyone else.
The final piece of my soul had lived there, slept in that bed, showered in that bathroom, and sat on that very same couch.
I clutch onto my friends with all my might because I don’t know what to do with any of this.
How to process it. I can’t even say it out loud.
How old had he been when he’d arrived there? Thirteen? Fourteen?
“Dear Wild Mother.” Except it’s not me saying it. It’s Minnie. Someone hands me tissues, and I wipe my face.
“I know why I’m crying,” Stacey asks. “But why are you crying, Lia?”
“I think it’s just everything,” Minnie says soothingly. “Isn’t it, Lia? This world is just too fucking much sometimes.”
I hear their own burdens in their voices, and it pulls me out of my misery for a moment.
Standing back, I huff a breath. Maybe I should have known.
Some part of me should have felt that my mate had been there.
Shame creeps through me like old poison.
“It’s just dumb regina things,” I say thickly.
“Feeling shame about things I had no control over.”
Minnie sighs into the ceiling. “Tell me about it.”
I groan and rub my eyes. “Do you think we’ll look back on this when we’re older and laugh? Or will we just sit in our rocking chairs and cry about it again?”
“My vote is for cry,” Stacey says darkly.
“Well,” says Minnie, “Eugene and I think we’ll have learnt a lot by the time we get to rocking chairs. We’ll all have our mates and have parties for our grandbabies—” Minnie abruptly shuts her mouth, glancing at Sabrina sitting huddled inside her hood. “I’m so sorry Sabrina, I’m a fucking idiot.”
“It’s fine,” Sabrina says in that deadpan. “I’m fine.”
I blow out a heavy breath against the tension you could cut through. Fucking hell. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to be pretending to be pregnant with Ghoul’s imaginary progeny. “One step at a time,” I mutter, grasping Stacey’s hand. “We do this one fucking step at a time.”
Stacey and Sabrina are booked for their counselling sessions with Theresa, so we split up for the afternoon, each of us finding our thoughts in the darkest of places.
When the day draws to a close, I eat an early dinner with Savage, who’s planning a moonlight run with the other wolves of the academy.
It’s a full moon tonight, and the others are at the gym before it closes for the wolf-exclusive use of the grounds from sunset to sunrise.
“You sure you don’t want to come?” Savage asks, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
I shake my head. “I need to fly to clear my brain.”
“More alone time?” Savage nudges me. “That’s perfectly fine by me,” he says, trying hard to appear nonchalant. “I’m not upset that I can’t fly at all.”
Kissing him on the cheek, I lower my voice by his ear. “I’m gonna suck your dick so hard when I get back.”
Savage’s cheeks bloom pink as his eyes brighten on me. He goes to reach for me, but I dance out of his grasp. “Bye!” My wolf’s deep laugh follows me out into the night.
Once again, I instruct Beak to cover for me, fully aware that his narrowed eagle eyes follow me north where I need to go again.
I check Ghoul’s house first, and finding it vacant, stretch my wings in the direction of the new Naga mansion.
Ghoul had shown me the way in his own car—inadvertently or not, I’ll have to figure that out—but it also makes me realise there are no hyena magic protections against my entry like there were in the old house.
Ghoul had brought me right in without incident.
Which means I can potentially spy without incident too.
Serpent heat sensors make it difficult for me to simply walk in there under my invisibility shield. Not all serpent shifters have thermal detection in their human form, only the most powerful or feral ones, and there are definitely those around in Naga House at night.
As I approach the house from the air, the many golden lights making it a beacon amidst the grand open lawns that surround it, I note the activity around the back of the house and give the property a wide berth as I come at it from its back side, and manage to land in the tall trees that line the fence, bushing branches aside with my beak so I can see better.
There are several serpent generals gathered on the white gravel, including what looks like a whole team of armed forces, organising themselves into military vehicles.
A shiver runs down my spine as Ghoul, the tallest of them all, takes a long drag on a cigarette before discarding it on the ground and digging his heel into it.
As he heads into the first vehicle, a small serpent ducks behind him and scoops up the cigarette with a dustpan and brush.
I recognise the thin, dark-haired boy immediately.
Thomas Krait had been at Animus Academy a while back and had been responsible for outing Sabrina and me for sneaking into Titus’ room the time we stole his laptop.
It had all been worth it in the end, but he still hated my guts for the death of his twin brother, Theo.
Now Thomas is here, picking up trash and it’s only a disgruntled feeling I get through my gut at the sight of him.
The trucks rumble off down the long drive and out the front gates, and I follow in the sky, keeping a distance and watching Ghoul’s vehicle in the lead.
They travel a little way down the highway and turn into serpent territory.
So this is not some mission for an enemy attack; this is court business.
Ghoul’s vehicle rumbles to a stop, but he doesn’t get out of the car.
Instead, another general gets out and knocks on the door.
There is a conversation before two boys exit the house—no older than thirteen—shouldering duffle bags. They are led into the trucks.
The convoy rolls up to the next house and, in the same manner, a young boy and girl get out with bags and load up the vehicles. My stomach turns.
By the third house, I know exactly what this is.
Ghoul doesn’t get out until the next house, when there is an extended conversation and a man’s raised voice.
I swoop down low to get a better look. An elderly male holds a young granddaughter around the waist. The pale hatchling has a barcode and ID number on her right cheek, marking her as venomous.
“You’re not taking her!” her grandfather exclaims. “Sophie, get back in the house.”
“I don’t want to go!” Sophie cries. “You can’t make me!”
But then Ghoul strides up to the door, and the little girl lets out a shrill cry. Ghoul’s voice booms through the night. “Get in the car, unless you want your granddaddy branded as a traitor.”
Sophie shakes her head, and on shaking legs, bravely steps out of her grandfather’s grip. Satisfied, the general turns away from the house, letting Sophie walk up to the convoy.
“Monster!” the grandfather cries after them. “The lot of you are monsters!”
Ghoul halts and slowly turns around. My heart beats rapidly.
The basilisk lord makes some signal, because from the vehicle, four serpents spring out of the cars and march into the house, dragging the man with them.
The door shuts, and all I hear is a scream as Ghoul casually gets back into the vehicle.
Moments later, the house is silent and the serpent militia exit the house, knuckles bruised and stained with blood. I can’t stop watching as the night wears on.