50. Aurelia
Chapter 50
Aurelia
I f I thought there was nothing worse than being chained to Xander, I was wrong. Being chained to his father is much worse.
Luckily, I’m too numb to really feel it when his hand slides down my ass for the first time in his office. Or when I’m told to kneel on the floor by his seat the entire time he has his meetings. Some of them are in person, some of them are on screen. The first meeting is with Fabian Drakos, and the fucker runs his thumb along my bottom lip with great interest, then tugs experimentally on my hair before taking his seat.
They talk of things I don’t even hear, because there’s a ringing in my ears that makes hearing anything impossible.
Or caring about anything.
The next meeting is with Ragnar Firewing, the father of Selena’s children, and I barely pay attention to that too. In some weird power play between the two dragons, Ragnar requests to touch my breasts. Flores declines with an arrogant drawl.
I fall asleep after that, my head bowing as Flores speaks figures and plans with people on his computer screen. It’s not until the evening when Francesca arrives, standing primly before me, that I’m forced to wake up.
Because she yanks me up by the hair. I grunt, getting my feet under me just in time before she slaps my face, hard. I choke on my own spit before she slaps me on the other side for good measure.
“Whore,” she hisses. “You reek of him.” She paces the room, huffing and puffing, her face pink and shoulders heaving.
Flores chuckles. “Get it out of your system, my love, but leave some for tonight.”
Francesca points at me. “You might have escaped this week,” she spits. “But the first beast to take you won’t have as much class as us. You will be expected to perform .” She addresses Flores now. “Why don’t we just strap her down and inseminate her with your chosen ally? We could make a healthy sum if we do it now. Her heat is due any time now and it would placate everybody.”
Flores nods. “Great minds, Francesca. I’ve already put the plans in place for a private auction. The Collector will not pass up the chance.”
“Nor will Lord Agnis,” Francesca nods. “He’s especially impatient.”
“As am I,” Flores murmurs. “Let us go to dinner.”
“Not with her,” the dragoness sneers. “She only gets dog food from now on.”
The next three days are the same. I sit by Flores Drakos’ knee in his office, and when he doesn’t tote me around, I’m locked in my cage in his room, forced to hear him loudly fuck Francesca every night.
I understand pretty quickly that he’s trying to get her pregnant. It has to be the only reason he hasn’t tried with me.
I don’t see Xander or any of the other family members. They only feed me tiny brown kibble in my dog bowl, and on the second day, I’m lightheaded and desperate enough to try some. It’s actually not bad, and if I squint a certain way, it tastes like Vegemite.
The worst part is that I’m not allowed to use his bathroom. The servants, a new set of humans who don’t talk to me, actually take me outside three times a day. None of them want to do the job the old-fashioned way, so they all end up sneaking me into the servant’s toilet in their quarters under the castle.
Got to count your blessings where you get them.
Finally, on a day that I think might be the fourth, Flores tells his butler he’s going out for the day for an important business meeting.
I assume the business is me, but they don’t take me and he tells everyone to keep me in my cage. After he leaves, I sigh in great annoyance because my back is starting to hurt from being cooped up in there. The numerous servants all look around sort of sheepishly.
“It’s the children, miss,” one says quietly. “They’re asking for you. Daily. Miss Selena was hoping you could come down to the garden for a bit now that His Majesty is out.”
The butler hisses in shock. “You can’t do that! He’ll have our heads!”
“Miss Selena will take the blame,” she says quickly. “She said so herself.”
My voice emerges as a croak from disuse, but the thought of sun on my skin and the sight of the open sky sparks a light in me. “Let’s go then.”
Lady Drakos sits in a chair, arranging flower pots on a trestle table. Her hair is tied in a chignon and she wears white long sleeves protecting her arms from the warm sunlight. “Aurelia, darling!” she says with delight. “There you are!”
Eugene rushes at me, squawking loudly, as his bedazzled goggles reflect the sun and he peers at me to check if I’m okay. I catch him in my arms with a pained grimace and he pecks at me affectionately.
“I’m glad to see you all,” I say quietly, letting Eugene down. He presses himself against my leg.
“Are you alright?” Selena asks worriedly, getting up from her crouch and lifting her sun hat to get a better look at me. Then she pinches her nose. “Stupid question. I’m sorry.”
I rub my tummy where there’s now a constant, empty sort of burn. “There aren’t any snacks around here, are there?”
Selena jumps as if she’s remembered. “Oh yes, of course. I’ll send for some right away.” She rushes off to speak with one of the maids waiting nearby. I almost smile at the thought of real food.
“Lia!” Emmerson cries. The twins are crouched amongst a line of strawberry bushes, broad-brimmed hats covering their inky hair and in matching yellow overalls and gumboots. “Where have you been? Look at this massive strawberry!”
I all but jump over to the little boy and the basket of fruit he carries. He holds up the biggest one for my inspection, and I squint at it with great importance. “Can I have it?”
Emmerson giggles. “Yeah, but we have to wash it— Hey!”
I’ve snatched it from his gloved hand and shoved the entire thing into my mouth before he can finish his sentence.
“You might choke!” Delilah cries, rushing over and wiping her dirty hands on her overalls.
The hairs on the backs of my arms stand on end as I swallow the strawberry. I rub at my skin, glancing up at the sky.
“Have another!” Emmerson says, wiping off a second strawberry. “This time, chew carefully or you’ll choke.”
I take it from him with a forced smile, chomping on half of it and using my teeth like a normal person. “It tastes so good. Are you guys adding sugar to the soil or something?”
Emmerson makes a face, his cheeks a pink from the sun. “They’re sort of sour, actually. Mother is preparing cream for us to eat them with!”
Delilah licks her lips and nods, showing me her basket laden with crimson cherries.
As I lean in to inspect her haul, a chill runs down my spine and I straighten to glance around us again.
A barely perceptible boom, sort of like an aeroplane, rumbles over us.
“What’s that sound?” I say, wiping juice from my chin.
Eugene promptly keels over, falling flat on his face. Delilah and I lunge for him with a cry.
Emmerson frowns at the bird before looking around and scanning the sky. “Yeah, I heard it—” He quietens before he shouts, “Look!”
It happens so quickly.
I turn around to see a massive, fast-moving shadow in the sky.
Selena’s scream shoots across the grass. Both children set off running towards their mother. But the back lawn is so expansive, so huge, that when the mighty cloud-coloured dragon swoops down, none of us are close enough to stop it from snatching up Delilah in his car-sized claws.
The scream that tears out of Delilah’s throat is enough to curdle my blood.
And set it on fire.
My bare feet are pounding over the grass as I tear my dress off and shift into my favoured form. My wedge-tail eagle wings pump hard and with relish after so long cramped inside my body.
A dragon might be faster than an eagle in open air, but they’re also heavy, and the effort it takes him to heave himself up into the sky after such a low swoop is massive. He’s slow and I catch up within seconds.
In the back of my mind, I wonder why neither Lady Drakos nor Selena have shifted, but I don’t dwell on it. Lashing out with my telekinesis, I try to drag Delilah out from the dragon’s claws.
Delilah screams again, punching at the claws entrapping her. “Let me go!” But those claws only squeeze her small body tighter and she squeals in pain.
My mind scrambles. I’ve never been faced with a dragon before. Never thought of how I’d bring one down. But a phantom Savage’s voice appears in my head. Get him in the soft parts, regina.
But eagle claws are no match for a dragon’s hide. The dragon wheels around, heading out of Drakos Estate. I need to act fast.
I blast through his natural protections with a ferocious cry, seizing his heart in my mind like I’ve seen Scythe do. Those powerful chambers shudder under my grip and the dragon falters in mid-air. I squeeze tighter and his wings tremble.
I hold that massive heart with all my might, squeezing, squeezing.
And then he stops moving completely and his eyes close as he falls from the sky. His claw opens up and Delilah goes tumbling out of his hold.
I let the dragon’s heart go and nose dive for Delilah, who’s shrieking in terror as she plummets, her two plaits streaming upwards. She reaches a hand out for me and my claws close around her forearm. Completely taking on her weight, I madly beat my wings, whipping out my telekinesis to keep us both aloft.
We’re so high off the ground that Drakos Estate looks tiny beneath us. I descend rapidly, letting Delilah’s weight pull us down and sweeping my wings to regulate our speed.
A heaving choked sound comes from somewhere in the distance, followed by a thump, and I know that the white dragon has fallen outside the estate somewhere. I turn around to look and see a bomb-sized dust cloud and a massive body scrambling to take flight once again. This time, away from us.
I’d been too distracted on the way up, but entering the estate from the top, I feel it when we pass through the aerial protections of Drakos Estate. It has a dome just like the one at Animus Academy. How, then, did this enemy dragon get through?
I glance behind us again, and the dragon is speeding away into the distance.
It’s not until we’re in line with the lower turrets of the castle that I sigh in relief, my heart banging against my ribs. Delilah sobs beneath me, clutching onto my legs like the lifeline they are.
Selena, along with about a dozen servants, sprint towards us. “Oh, Wild Goddess!” Selena cries. When we’re low enough that Delilah’s legs skim the grass, she tumbles out of my grip and straightens before breaking into a sprint. I land on the grass and watch the little girl safe in her mother’s arms. They both sob, clutching on to each other.
My heart pounds with adrenaline, my wings wanting to take flight again. That had been close. Way too close. Who the hell was trying to steal Drakos hatchlings? It had to be in some kind of retaliation for the events of the past weeks.
After a moment, Selena wipes her eyes and catches mine. “If it weren’t for you, Lia, he would’ve taken her! He would’ve taken her!”
I stand there in eagle form, panting, staring at them at all.
In my furore, my question comes out in a scream, directed at Selena via telepathy. “Why didn’t you shift?”
She blinks at me.
“Selena, why didn’t you shift?”
In the quietest voice, she says. “I’m not permitted to.”
I stare at her in a mixture of horror and disbelief.
A shadow appears to the side and I look up to see Xander’s towering form, standing frozen in shock, staring at me with empty eye sockets and obsidian shackles.