1. Aurelia
Chapter 1
Aurelia
I ’m jolted out of a troubled, heavy sleep by the sound of multiple truck doors slamming shut. My body is nothing but pain after the endless hours of travel, sprawled on the floor of this rumbling monster of a vehicle, and my bladder is close to bursting. After shock melded with fatigue, I managed to get a few hours of sleep, but chained to the side of a titanium, military grade hunting truck was like a small torture to my rattled bones. My rattled soul.
A soul that has been torn asunder by a nightmare made reality.
One of my mates has formally rejected me. While the wound on my arm has healed into a shallow red scratch, there is a deeper, darker serration within that primal place reserved for the other parts of my soul.
The part of me that was reserved for Xander Drakos is now shredded beyond repair. The regina in me lies in a pool of her own blood, her eyes barely open against the agony, her beak open under a low, aggrieved keen.
But I have no time to mourn a severed soul bond.
Because I am in enemy territory, clutching tight onto a promise.
I need to be alert. I need to be observant. Because whatever is coming for me outside of this truck is the key to my revenge. I’d sworn a solemn vow over my mother’s funeral pyre: to destroy the monster who kept and abused her body for fifteen years. The monster who’s a threat to every person I love.
So I scrape the aching parts of my mind out of that proverbial pool of blood and force the predator in me to come forward and bare her vicious teeth. I am the regina of the Boneweaver pack. Savage Fengari, Scythe Kharkorous and Lyle Pardalia are my mates. And though I’ve forbidden them to pursue me and have shut them out of my mind, they will always be with me, prowling steadily alongside my own uncertain gait.
The truck doors, on the other hand, slam open with heavy certainty, creating a new void in my reality. I crane my neck to get a look outside. The silhouette of a hulking beast forms a shadow against the night sky, and even without seeing his body, I’d know his dark, infernal presence anywhere. It tickles my deep regina instinct and I clamp down on that with all my might.
Because Ghoul is also my enemy.
A cold night wind brushes past him and rustles my long blue evening gown as the basilisk lord steps up and into the truck with ease, his weight jostling the floor like a boat on choppy water. He undoes the steel chains binding me to the wall, then hooks his arms under my armpits and hauls me up to standing.
Despite this truck being made for massive beasts, Ghoul, at seven feet, still has to stoop to be inside of it. I stare up at him, those mysterious shadows slithering around his body like dangerous, seductive snakes.
I don’t miss the way he inhales the scent of my touseled hair before he steps away, flashing a bit of fang.
“You’re an asshole,” I mutter into his head. “You could’ve made me a bit more comfortable.”
“But where would be the fun in that?” comes the emotionless reply.
A pang of anxiety hits my stomach as he grabs me by the bicep and hauls me towards the edge of the platform, where a rowdy group of serpents hiss and jeer at my dishevelled appearance. It looks like they’ve all come to see the prized prisoner . Ghoul says, “Let’s see how well you can jump, Lady Boneweaver.”
I gape at the high drop before narrowing my eyes at him. The beast behind the skeleton mask gazes coldly back behind his shadows, only a flash of a red gleam showing off his eyes. I’d kicked off my stilettos a few minutes into the ride, so I’m barefoot now, and before I can think too much about it, I hike up my gown and step off the truck, landing in a crouch, the gown flaring about me in a halo. Ghoul efficiently jumps down after me, his military boots making a loud thump on the concrete. I grimace as he leans down, retakes my bicep, and forces me up to standing. The group of snakes, a mixture of dark-eyed males and females with black military uniform similar to Ghoul’s, parts to let us through.
Their hisses trail me like a foul smell. As do their greedy, lecherous gazes.
Ghoul swings us around, and it’s only then that I get my first look at where we are.
And all my dark suspicions are confirmed.
This building can only be described as a castle, because “mansion” is simply too small a word to encompass the dark, gothic magnificence of this dragon’s lair. Beyond a perfectly clipped green lawn, black brick extends four stories tall. It stretches out on either side of a grand entrance of wide double-arched doors inlaid with precious stones. At least five turrets with pointed roofs frame the castle, stretching into the cloud- strewn night sky, giving the impression of a regal aristocrat, stern and unforgiving.
A solid gold plaque over the monstrous front doors declares it the “Drakos Family Estate” with their coat of arms: A lone dragon holding a boulder-sized diamond in its claws, its mighty head turned to the side as it roars fire in a wreath around itself.
Beneath this grand declaration stands the object of my vengeance. My enemies.
Three arrogant males. Three scaled beasts. One with eyes that glow white through the darkness.
My father is in league with the dragon king, and has been for some time. The serpent king’s thin lips twitch with satisfaction at the sight of me.
“Beware!” one of the serpent males shrieks mockingly, “the Lady Boneweaver approaches!”
Every beast in the vicinity chuckles darkly and some asshole straight out hoots with prolonged, nasty laughter. The once sacred, secret title has become a slur. A thing worthy of a joke. Their voices coat my skin with slime that I madly want to scratch off.
Instead, I set my jaw and stare them all down as Ghoul leads me by the elbow towards my fate. A cold wind scrapes down my spine as my bare feet reach the base of the impressive golden stairs.
“Your Royal Majesties,” Ghoul calls, sweeping a dramatic bow. “I present to you, the Lady Boneweaver.”
More chortling comes from behind me.
I remain upright, my chin raised, staring at these awful, powerful beasts one at a time. My father, dark and wraith-like, the hollows of his eyes seeming to swallow the night around him as he takes me in with a satisfied gleam.
Flores Drakos, the dragon king and Xander’s father, stands in the middle, a beast of great power and wealth who shows it in his regal stance and richly embroidered clothing and golden rings. His long, straight black hair is neatly tied back, showing high cheekbones and almost bored golden eyes. He’s letting me know he’s unimpressed with me. That I am beneath him.
And finally, it’s with a vicious stab to the heart that I lay eyes on Xander for the first time since he officially rejected me as his mate. There is a new, terrifying darkness to him I could never have been prepared for.
He stands still as volcanic stone in that expensive suit, his hands clasped casually before him, gold rings glinting, eyes glowing as if nothing significant at all has happened. There’s something infinitely dark settling around him now. Something that tells every creature in the vicinity this is a beast mad enough to sever the bond to his soul-bound regina. That this is a monster, and you should run in the opposite direction.
His neck is irrevocably bare, the sacred, celestial light of our mating mark faded into nothing.
Fresh agony of my soul twinges anew, threatening to send me falling into a catatonic stupor just like the one Minnie once had.
Except I refuse. Point blank, I refuse to succumb to this terrible wound. Because whatever Xander and these beasts think, I am here of my own free will.
They cannot break me.
Ghoul tuts as he straightens from his bow. “Looks like we’ll have to teach her some manners.”
“Bring her up here, General,” the dragon king drones.
“With pleasure.”
But it’s what my father says next that gives me pause. “Make her crawl.”
Here it is. A little revenge for when I burnt down the Naga mansion.
“You heard him,” Ghoul says, nudging me with his elbow.
Keeping my face as expressionless as the basilisk’s voice, I lower my shackled hands to the third step and begin bear crawling my way up.
My father thinks he can humiliate and degrade me with this, but he doesn’t know that with each step, my mind whispers my mother’s name in a reminder of my vow.
Athena. Athena. Athena Boneweaver was her name.
Twenty times I chant her name before we reach the top and I straighten, suppressing a wince at the pain in my lower spine.
The first thing I see when I raise my eyes is Xander’s chest, and the shiny new bling that adorns his neck. A solid gold hunk of a metal etched with his family crest.
He looks all cosy standing there with his father. And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what it was that got him reinstated into the family.
Rejecting me. Exchanging me. His regina.
This entire thing had been my idea, and he’d gone and hijacked it right under my very nose. So instead of my grand plan looking mighty clever or sacrificial, he’s making it look like the whole thing was his idea. That it was his operation that got me caught.
A flame of anger ignites in my chest.
There’s no fucking way he’s going to get away with this.