78. Aurelia
Chapter 78
Aurelia
T he next morning, I wake up with a start. My heart rapidly slams into my chest as I expect to see the bars of a cage around me. Expect to hear the voice of Flores Drakos as he fucks his daughter-in-law. My body trembles, my thigh burns and my eyes prickle with tears.
But none of the things I expect to see are here.
Instead of cold, I am warm. Instead of Flores Drakos filling my nose, I scent comfort.
And instead of the bars of my cage pressing against my body I am enveloped by three warm, muscular bodies. My mates’ scents wrap around me, nothing but warmth and comfort soaking deep into my feathers. I realise I’ve been sleeping shifted and that I’m lying on Lyle’s bare chest with Scythe and Savage cuddled up on either side of us.
I scratch at an itch in my side, my beak scraping between my feathers. The movement wakes up Lyle and I turn my head to peer at him.
The sunlight comes through the window in a beam, turning his hair into gold, his eyes into coins. When I first saw him, I thought he looked like the Archangel Michael, come to weigh my worth. But there is only love in his eyes now and a warmth I feel all the way down to the end of my claws as he strokes down my back.
“Let’s shower before these animals wake up,” he murmurs, smiling lazily at me.
“I heard that,” Scythe mutters, rolling over to give us space.
Their voices centre me and my heart attempts to slow its pace. Once we get into the bathroom, I realise I’m reluctant to shift from the comfort of my eagle form, but a single, meaningful look from Lyle has me shedding my feathers and beak for human skin. I let him haul me into the shower, where he gently pushes me against the wall, gets onto his knees, and hungrily devours my pussy whole.
“Is this an approved therapy technique?” I sigh, running my hands through his unbound hair.
He chuckles into me, sending sweet vibrations twirling right up into my stomach. “For me, yes.”
Lyle takes his time with his ministrations, during the shower and after, as he dries my hair and gently rubs moisturiser on my face. I try not to look at the black and gold tiles of this bathroom. Try not to see Xander in the dragon spouts. Try not to be reminded of Drakos Estate in the golden hardware.
“I am in Animus Academy,” I whisper to myself, touching my neck. “I am safe now.”
Lyle looks up at me from where he’s carefully rubbing moisturiser into my right thigh. His eyes are stitched with pain. “You are with us, regina. There is only love here.”
I close my eyes, nodding in agreement as he stands and warms me with his presence.
Voices from outside make me open my eyes and put my hands over his where they press against my cheeks. We quickly dress and head out into the main sitting room.
I’m met with a tableau. Minnie is jabbing a finger at her phone, showing the screen to Scythe, as tears flow down her cheeks and her face is screwed up in an expression of such pain that it breaks my heart.
“Min?” I whisper.
Her head snaps towards me, her eyes widening all the way around as she stares. Her eyes flick down to my legs, then back up again. “Is it really you?” she breathes. “Is that my Lia?”
My own face scrunches up and I nod. She doesn’t run at me. Doesn’t cry out. She walks slowly, as if underwater, her movements careful. When we are toe to toe and I can smell the incense on her skin, the silver bangles on her wrists chime as she raises her hands and gently holds the sides of my face.
“Goddess,” she whispers. “Thank the Goddess.”
My legs give away and I fall into her arms. Even though she’s so much smaller than me, she catches me with feline strength. My head lands on her boobs and there is something about laying your head on the soft mounds of your best friend’s tits that heals one of the cracks in my tired heart.
I’m coughing through my crying, sagging and clutching onto her for dear life, because I missed her scent, I missed her friendship and I simply…missed her . I can tell Minnie is using her telekinesis to keep me up when Savage ends up having to hold me up from behind. Yeti and Marduk stop Minnie from falling backwards too, and it’s a strange, wonderful group hug. Just the thing I needed.
“I love you,” Minnie murmurs into my hair.
“You don’t hate me?” I say, wiping my nose and adjusting my head on my new pillow.
I’m pretty sure Marduk is wiping Minnie’s nose for her, because she’s muffled as she says, “I always knew you’d try to run away from here. I haven’t forgotten that botched escape attempt, after which Savage held me hostage .”
“I would never!” Savage gasps in horror.
“Liar!” Minnie and I say at the same time.
“What were you showing Scythe on your phone?”
The room goes deathly silent then and Minnie’s chest stops moving. I heave myself off her so I can see them all properly. Minnie takes my hand, clearly not wanting to let go just yet. She flicks at her phone with her thumb and holds it out to me.
It’s a legal notice on the Animalia Today app, in the section with the list of wanted ferals.
Hunting Warrant Issued: Aurelia Boneweaver, 21-year-old female, wedge-tailed eagle, likely rabid, one leg.
My nostrils flare at the last two words. Someone had wanted to advertise that they’d taken my leg. That they’d turned the mythical Boneweaver into food.
Marduk is trying hard not to stare at the leg I’m very obviously keeping the weight off. I’m only letting my toes touch the ground.
“What did they mean, Lia?” Minnie asks.
I clench my teeth and gesture to it, shrugging. “Well I fucking grew it back, didn’t I?”
Minnie’s mouth drops open and her two tiger bodyguards go goggle-eyed.
“By the Goddess!” Marduk shouts, running a hand through his hair. “What a miracle!” He goes over to Scythe and slaps him on the back. “Who are we killing, friend?”
Everyone in the room turns to look at me.
“We can talk about it later,” I say. “For now, I want to see my friends.”
I can see Scythe and Marduk making the calculations. Lyle and Savage exchange a look. They know the type of mythical strength it would take to wrench a leg clean off. And they know which beasts would have the audacity to even try something like that.
But I don’t want to think about that right now.
I pull Minnie into the TV room, with orders for Savage and Yeti to fetch our anima gang.
Minnie takes my hand again, “I’m not going to call you amazing, or anything like that,” she says quietly, “because you already know I think you are. But that is fucked, Lia. What happened to you is fucked up and awful, and I’m sorry.”
We turn the TV on for background noise, something meaningless and not too cheery. The others arrive before long, and it’s Sabrina who appears first, standing in the doorway. She looks less like a ghost than before, but still wears her favourite black hoodie. It looks clean this time though, and as she wanders through the door, her hand goes to her mouth. I reach for her and she comes to sit next to me. Stacey comes next and squeezes herself between Sabrina’s leg and my left one, holding onto me like she can keep me together.
Sabrina lays her head on my shoulder. “We’ll kill them all, Lia.”
The words echo through time. I rest my head on hers and sigh. “But not today,” I whisper.
“Today,” Stacey sniffs, “we eat junk food and watch sappy regency romance.”
A regency couple appear on TV, staring with great yearning at each other from across a dining room table.
We sit there until our stomachs start to grumble, at which time Lyle pops his head through the door, and using his headmaster’s voice, tells us to come to the dining table as Marduk, Yeti, Blair and Blade bring up hot food.
Stacey and Sabrina give a girly “Yes, sir!” all the while looking at me with suggestive grins.
Around halfway through my burger and chips, a feeling makes me look out the window for a third time. Scythe runs a gentle knuckle down my cheek. “Aurelia.”
I blink slowly at him and his touch. “He’s here, isn’t he?”
His own eyes scan the sky through the glass. “How can you tell?”
I look out the window and it comes out as a whisper. “I just can.”
“I won’t let him near you. He knows to keep his distance. You do not owe him any forgiveness. Even if he rescued you from that place. Even if he…helped heal you. You owe him nothing.”
Something in my stomach twinges. Scythe had surmised the truth. I suppose he knows Xander even better than I do. “I know that. I just….” My hands tremble and I clasp them together.
Savage, who has his arm around me from the other side, nuzzles my mating mark. I want them close to me. All of them. Every time Savage nuzzles me, I feel home. This time, however, I can tell it’s for his own comfort.
The Boneweaver pack remains fractured. When Xander betrayed me, he betrayed them all. Something in me wants to fix that. To mend it and make it whole except for the fact that…
We will never be whole.
Xander created a permanent fissure. One that can never be healed. Somehow, I have to learn to live with that.
Something inside me twists in pain and I double over, clutching at my chest as my vision blurs. My hands tremble where they clutch my body. This is too much. Too much for one person to handle.
“What is it?” Savage says.
Something makes me look at Scythe. Those sky-blue eyes are brimming with pain. As if he knows exactly what I feel. He feels it too.
“What do I do?” I plead.
“I cannot tell you,” my shark whispers. “But the Xander we once knew is gone.”