84. Xander
Chapter 84
Xander
Skin and Bones – David Kushner
M y ears wake me up in the middle of the night, Aurelia’s soft—to my ears, loud—moan jerking me to attention. I’ve turned to face the bigger bed in my sleep, and if I open my eyes, they’ll light up the room, so I keep them shut and listen carefully. She’s trying to be quiet, I can tell by the strain in her throat, and it’s Scythe’s sharp intake of breath I hear, and the rapid beating of his heart.
Lyle and Savage remain fast asleep, their breaths steady and slow in deep NREM.
The curiosity is killing me. Eating at me, in fact, so I crack open one lid, completely risking it.
What I see makes me salivate. Scythe’s eyes are closed, his head tossed back as Aurelia moans around his pierced cock; the lower rungs of his Jacob’s Ladder glint under the light from my eye. Aurelia is in the perfect position for me to see her, lying between Scythe’s open legs, her own long legs hanging off the end of the bed. Scythe’s breaths come in stutters now, his hand buried in her dark mass of hair. She takes the entire length of him, swallowing him down to the base just before she gags, then comes up and licks the side of his cock.
It’s then that she pauses, her open eyes seeing the light from mine.
But she doesn’t stop. Doesn’t look away from me either. As if she knows it’s torturing me, she opens her mouth wider, lets me see her tongue as it traces the length of Scythe’s dick, the piercings reflected by the warm, golden light of my eyes. She maintains that angle, holding my gaze as her hands run up Scythe’s bare abs, her nails scraping gently. Those plush lips suck on the tip of him before she flicks his Prince Albert with her tongue. I exhale slowly, fighting the urge to sit up and watch them more closely. Her chemise slides up her ass, showing me her bare skin. Though I’ve seen it before, obsessed about it before, this moment feels so intimate, and I imagine myself crawling up behind her, kissing her beautiful thighs and finding her wet and ready. Her scent fills the room, heady and intoxicating, calling me in.
I don’t know when my eyes fully opened up, but they are now, and my hand is clutching my cock for dear life. Aurelia’s eyes bore into mine, catching my light and reflecting it back to me. Her eyelids lower seductively as she pops Scythe’s cock out of her mouth and uses that sinful tongue again, but I can’t turn away, and I can’t help the hard-as-obsidian-cock that pulses with each rapid heartbeat. I run my hands down my length until I come to my new gold cock ring, imagining myself buried in her, feeling that gorgeous wet heat and the moans that come from that perfect mouth as I fill her completely.
She bobs faster on Scythe, clutching at him, moaning softly as he pulls at her hair. Faster and faster she takes him and faster and faster my own hands go, my breath coming in pants now. My balls tighten, begging for release. For release into her. Scythe makes a sound of pure pleasure and his head tilts back further as she sucks him tightly.
“Aurelia,” he breathes as he comes into her mouth.
Her throat bobs as she swallows him eagerly down, a look of pure bliss on her face as each wet swallow fills my ears like the sweetest song. When he’s done, Aurelia withdraws slowly, making him shiver, milking the last drops from him and audibly swallowing. Scythe opens his eyes and sits up, helping her carefully crawl up to his body. They kiss passionately, him holding her face, her holding his shoulders as they devour each other like they’ve spent a lifetime apart.
It may have very well felt that way because even the days she wasn’t a constant presence by my side felt long to me. I see it for what it was now.
Her pink tongue snakes into his mouth and I explode into my own hand, trying to keep silent as the thought of her mouth tears me open. I don’t know if they hear me, hell, I don’t even care at this point, but she ends up draping herself on top of Scythe, and shortly after, they both fall asleep.
I lie there for a few moments, just to make sure, before I get up to head to the bathroom.
The next morning, after everyone is dressed for the day, Savage gets an evil glint in his eye and has a telepathic conversation with Aurelia. Her jewel-eyes are uncertain for a moment before she nods.
“You have to listen to Savage’s commands,” she says to me.
Fuck.
Savage takes the gold chain from Aurelia’s hand and bares his teeth. “Hands and knees, lizard,” he snarls with hate.
I drop to my knees and barely get my hands down before the mad wolf lunges for the stairs. I have half a second of mental preparation before I face plant, sliding along the carpet and thudding down the stairs in rapid succession. My shirt wrenches up and I feel each blasted wooden stair like a punch to my ribs.
Savage rounds the staircase and flies down the corridor at a near mythical pace, shouting, “Wolf on the loose!” as he goes. I’m left to slide along the linoleum, my skin burning, making a god-awful squeaking sound.
Beasts jump out of the way, some snarling as they see me, some whooping with excitement. I don’t even bother to try to get my hands and legs under me; we’re going too fast, and it’ll only satisfy us both if I bleed.
Savage rounds the corner, and instead of leaping over the rail to get down the three flights of stairs, he takes them the hardest way for me. My head bangs against the corner of the first rail and I end up flipping under my own weight and am rapidly dragged down the stairs on my back. My skin finally tears halfway down, the burn sweet and cruel as the next steps hit it in the exact same spot.
Savage’s shouting and singing draws an audience, and by the time we get down to the ground level, the entire animus dorm is vying to get a view. Someone holds open the glass front doors and I manage to flip over again.
The concrete path awaits me.
Suppressing a grimace, Savage hits the path running, and I go, shirt tearing, skin shredding, leaving a trail of blood behind me. He skids to a stop before the dining hall, barely breaking a sweat, hardly panting as he looms over where I lie on my back, squinting up into the sky.
“It’ll do,” he says in a quiet, lethal voice he usually reserves for our most hated enemies. “For now. Up!”
I only let out a little grunt as I haul myself to my feet. My magic is already healing my skin where the concrete grazes turned into lacerations.
“Hm,” Sabrina hums, sauntering up with her two quiet leopard bodyguards, Blade and Blair. “Sort of looks like someone took a massive cheese grater to it.”
We all look down at my bare abs. She’s right, there’s more blood than skin.
“That was my doing,” Savage says proudly.
“Well,” Minnie’s voice comes from behind them, Marduk and Yeti scowling at the sight of me. She brandishes a new purple binder thick with typed papers. “We’ve got the list.”
They’re plotting my demise.
A sharp intake of breath tells me Aurelia has finally waded through the crowd with Lyle and Scythe. Savage proudly hands her the golden chain, and she takes it, her face carefully blank.
Avian power brushes against me before snapping back as if she’s remembered herself.
Her natural instinct is to heal me.
I clench my jaw as I follow her into the dining hall, to stop the stabbing pain that’s suddenly assailing my chest, worse than the pain of my burning skin. Her hand is clenched tight around the gold, her knuckles white. She trembles.
I want to say I’m sorry, again and again ad infinitum. But words are of no use here.
Only my blood is. Only my pain is. That’s the equivalent of what I dealt.
“Surely he’s not allowed food,” Sabrina says, her mouth twisting as she lines up behind us at the buffet.
“They used to give me dog food,” Aurelia says quietly. “Kibble.”
A cold, shocked silence seeps like a festering wound through the buffet line. Blood drips from my shredded skin, splashing onto the floor. Suddenly, I can’t breathe.
“I won’t eat,” I say.
“Hunger strike, is it?” Minnie says, her binder tucked under her arm. “Let’s see how long he lasts. I’m sure we have dog kibble around here somewhere.”
I watch Aurelia collect her food, which isn’t much this morning. Toast, eggs, some blueberries, and an iced coffee. Theresa and Ronald are supervising the line, and towards the end of it, Theresa comes around and hugs Aurelia.
“We’ll talk later,” the cassowary anima says, a happy light in her grey eyes. “Minnie has requested a few things from me for this morning.”
That tigress works fast.
Theresa glances at me, a completely disturbed and unsettled look on her face that makes me feel like she wants to kick my soul out of my body.
Everyone stares as we sit down at the usual group table towards the back. Chairs have been added for Sabrina and her new mates and Minnie makes sure Aurelia takes a seat at the head of the table. Without conversing about it, I take up my spot, kneeling next to her.
“Such a good boy,” Sabrina says viciously. Having lost her own mates, she’s also taken the severing of my bond to Aurelia personally.
Because of my height, even kneeling, my head is well above the table and I get to smell everyone’s food as they eat. Savage ends up strategically sitting next to us, but Lyle’s and Scythe’s reactions interest me. Both have been caged—Lyle literally, Scythe figuratively—but he watched his mother caged for many years. It unsettles them to see me with a collar on, but not because they think I don’t deserve it. It’s too close to home, but they endure it because it’s what I deserve.
It only validates my need to do this.
After breakfast is finished, we leave for our first class, which is group therapy with both animas and animuses. If I thought Savage’s physical treatment was bad, it’s nothing compared to the thrashing the animas have prepared for me.