81. Xander
Chapter 81
Xander
Helvegen — Wardruna
I fly towards the academy, Eugene in one of my claws while we watch over Celeste’s car as she drives through the gates. The shadow I cast is huge.
With the dome intent on keeping me out, I have no choice but to land outside the gates and shift into human form, dropping my bag onto the bitumen. The academy guards hoist up their rifles, and for some reason, Eugene sticks by me.
“What, going to use those on me?” I snap.
“S-Sorry, Mr Drakos,” calls one of Scythe’s employees. “Protocol, you know.”
“Of course I fucking know. I helped set up those protocols.”
“R-Right, sorry!” he calls again.
I quickly dress and cross my arms, glaring at the two of them until they break eye contact and shuffle closer to one another. Sighing, I turn away from them to lessen the threat. I don’t know if Celeste will meet my request. She has no obligation to, of course. I just have to rely upon the fact that she’s a good person.
Sort of in the same way Aurelia relied upon the fact that I was a bastard of a person when she asked me to help her into the hands of her own enemy. It was a risk for her to rest her plans on me because I could have stopped her at any point. I could’ve stopped Ghoul, too, if I’d wanted.
But she’d known.
Known me so well that her entire plan hinged on me being a complete asshole. I glance at my bag and what I have in it. The offer I have to make.
They make me wait, of course, and it’s hours later before Lyle, Yeti and Marduk stalk down the driveway.
The look on Marduk’s face tells me he’d happily hang me by my colon in the way he’s done to many before. He uses the colon so you have to smell your own shit before you die. Crafty asshole. But I deserve that look.
Yeti, his snow-white hair worn loose, looks like he let Minnie trim it. It’s still long but a bit uneven around the front. He’s smoking a joint and his pale blue eyes avoid mine like the plague.
Lastly, the head feline of the school vibrates as if he’s smelled an enemy and is trying to keep the lion’s chain tight in his grasp. He’s impeccable in his regular three-piece, today a stormy grey, but the tamed violence in his aura is an even darker shade.
I wonder if I should let them have at it with me. It might help my old friends feel better to draw some of my blood. I’d gladly give it to them.
They come right up to the gate, but don’t open it.
“Nice hair, Yeti,” I smirk.
“Fuck off,” he says in disgust.
I clench my teeth against the pain of that. But how can I expect any sympathy from them when their own bond-brother did the same thing to their regina?
“Your request,” Lyle says coldly, “has been accepted on one condition.”
Relief pours through my chest, a cool mountain stream. “Anything.”
“You come to her crawling.”
I barely give it thought. “Done.”
I feel the dome around the school change for me, it’s a dangerous sizzle burning down to embers.
They open one gate a fraction, and although Eugene hurries through it easily, I’m left to squeeze through it, and in the way of prisoners, stride past them to take the lead, so they can do what they want to me. They don’t of course, but a strange feeling enters my chest as I walk through the familiar grounds and down the path to the animus dorms.
Though our bond is broken, I know she’s in this dorm, waiting for me, and it’s the sole thing that makes my heart pound as I lay my hand on the glass door.
“Look who’s back,” sneers Bastien, the gargoyle above the door. “The disgraced dragon lord.” He looks down his nose at me from where he sits above the door, stick-like legs dangling down.
“That’s right,” I say evenly. “I’ve come to make amends.”
“Your mistake,” he says, adjusting his monocle. “You’ll be leaving in pieces.”
Already am.
Marduk presses his ID tag to the electronic sensor and the lock deactivates. I wrench the door open and head inside the foyer and left, down to the recreation room.
Savage and Beak stand at the ready before the double wooden doors.
My heart twists at the hate on my wolf brother’s handsome face. At the pain that lies under it. It feels like I have not seen him in years and the sight of him makes me blink back the burning in my eyes. He still wears the black stud I gave him many years ago. I’m surprised he still has it on but honestly with Savage it’s more likely he’d just forgotten that I’d been the one to gift it to him. Still, it’s my only consolation as he looks upon me with such contempt. I’d heard his vow on the day Aurelia was returned to them. I was sure he’d try to slash my throat as soon as I’d come in the door. “I have orders not to kill you, dragon,” he spits. “Otherwise, your head wouldn’t be attached to your body.”
Savage would never keep a cabinet of body parts like my father. No, he’d just chuck my head straight into the bin, never to be seen again.
The thought makes me want to laugh for some reason.
“Eugene?” Savage says in disbelief.
The rooster clucks happily and pecks Savage on his bare foot. Savage lifts him up to check on him. “Mate, I thought you were dead.”
“Almost was,” I say drolly. “But I fixed him right up.”
Savage frowns deeply in my direction.
“On your knees,” Lyle sneers from behind me, snatching up my bag and rudely opening it for an inspection.
My ears tell me the room beyond is full of beasts. They’ve prepared an audience for me, likely gathering the entire animus dorm. So they should have. I would have done exactly the same, and it makes old pride swell in my chest.
I drop onto my hands and knees, immediately noticing the dirt and grass particles on the linoleum. They haven’t swept in over a week, I bet, and half these ferals walk around barefoot.
Savage and Beak open the doors, before striding in and announcing my name, in growling, mocking voices. The room goes silent, over a hundred heartbeats thrumming in my ears.
I begin crawling.
It’s not so foreign, I suppose. I’m on all fours as a dragon anyway. I ignore the boot marks, toe prints and dirt on the floor, the dark whispers and mutters. The only thing I focus on is who I see when I raise my head.
They’ve sat her like a queen on the stage. Her animas, including Minnie and excluding Raquel and Connor, stand around her, Scythe standing at her right-hand side. I grimace under Sabrina’s glare. Her scent is all over one of the dungeons in Drakos Estate.
Aurelia wears a long blue dress with no sleeves and a high neckline. Her hands are curved around the ends of the armrests, her chin high as she watches me with those blue eyes that are seared into my mind.
The only thing she’s missing is a crown.
I hasten my pace a little, and rather quickly, I reach the front, getting off my hands and planting a foot in front of me.
“Uh-uh!” Savage says to me like a stray dog as he and Beak come to stand with their backs against the stage like guards. “You stay on your knees, betrayer.”
“Fair enough,” I mutter, swinging my foot back.
“Oh my god!” Minnie shrieks, pointing at Savage. “Eugene!”
Aurelia gasps and Eugene wriggles out of Savage’s arms and flies onto the stage. The animas make cooing and crying sounds, huddled around him. After each one has had a kiss, Aurelia cuddles him to her chest. But Eugene won’t stay there. He proceeds to hop off the stage and comes back to me, standing sentinel by my side.
Savage exhales irritably. The animas frown at his behaviour.
“Why have you come here?” Scythe asks, in his distinct voice that sails easily across the pin-drop silent room. “What right have you to speak to my regina?”
“Go back to your family,” Savage snarls. “The one you chose over us.”
Lyle growls, “The ones who gave you that tattoo you wear so proudly on your arm.”
I glance at Aurelia, listening to her. That heart of hers beats fast, though her breath is controlled by her concentration. Her lips part gently with breath; I miss seeing her on a daily basis.
“I have no right,” I say to her. “But I’ve come here to try to repent for what I’ve done.”
How does a man repent for something like this? How do I come back from hurting her so badly? “Nothing on this earth can make up for what I did,” I continue. “But I will tear through eternity trying to figure that out. And the first step is offering myself to you.” I glance at Lyle over my shoulder. “Give her what’s in that bag.”
Lyle stares at me for a moment. He’s seen it, what it is that I’m offering his regina. But I ignore his gaze and turn back to Aurelia. She needs to know I mean what I say.