85. Aurelia
Chapter 85
Aurelia
“ I ’m not comfortable with this,” our male counsellor, Ryland, says as I enter the class with Xander on his golden leash.
“Well it’s a good thing nobody asked you, Ry Ry,” Savage says lightly.
Ryland’s pupils dilate as Scythe enters behind me. “Is there a problem?” my shark asks in his quiet rasp.
“N-No, Mr Kharkorous. Not at all.” Ryland purses his lips and shuffles the papers he’s holding.
Theresa is more subtle with her words, and I think a part of her thinks Xander deserves this. “There is a lot to talk about,” she says slowly, indicating that I should take my seat. I do so, and Xander silently kneels before my chair. “But I don’t want him bleeding all over the carpet. It’s not hygienic.”
“That’s fair,” Lyle says. “Heal it just enough to stop the bleeding.”
I have a good view of Xander’s back and the freely bleeding, red raw skin from his ride over the lino, stairs, and concrete. He should have stopped bleeding by now, which indicates that he’s suppressing his own healing. I wiggle the chain and Xander’s magic pulses in tiny vibrations around him, his immense power kept close to his skin to knit the bottom layer of ruined tissue.
“Right, well,” Theresa says, “Lia is back, everyone!”
“And thank fuck for that!” Sabrina cheers. Everyone claps after that and I give the circle of them a small smile.
“How did you get out?” one of the more clueless jaguars asks, frowning at me. “Didn’t he have you captive—” he trails off and turns pale under the combined flat stare of Savage, Lyle and Scythe. “Sorry.”
“Lia won’t be answering any questions,” Theresa says sternly. “But I believe Minnie has a request.”
“Right!” says Minnie, jumping up and saluting Theresa like a soldier. She opens her binder and reads from it. “Xander’s first task is to give a formal apology to Lia in front of the entire school. And he has to do it naked.”
Ryland makes a choked sound but says nothing. Xander glances at me over his shoulder. “Of course.”
“Oh, and he has to cut his hair before the speech?—”
“No!” the word blurts out of my mouth without warning and I clamp my lips shut as everyone, including my mates, stares at me. I try to shrug it off casually. “What? I…like his hair.”
“Fair enough, Lia,” says Minnie kindly, then glares at Xander as if to say, ‘See? She’s a better person than you’ll ever be.’
“There’s a lot of pages in that binder, Minnie,” Scythe says. “What else is in there?”
Minnie’s cheeks turn pink as Yeti and Marduk grin with pride. “Well, we spent the night brainstorming, Scythe. There was a lot to think about.”
Scythe nods in approval. His voice enters my head. “May I have my own orders for Xander, regina?”
“Of course.”
He smiles at me. I blush every time Scythe asks my permission for something, or smiles. Or does anything, really. I doubt I’ll ever get used to the fact that he’s here and mine.
“You’re staring, angel,” Lyle says into my head, a hint of jealousy in that baritone.
I blink in surprise and smile sheepishly at them both. “I’ll stare at you in the next class, ” I reassure my lion.
“And me in the next,” Savage interjects.
It’s then that I notice Xander is staring at me from over his shoulder. I can’t decipher the look on his face, but the smile fades off mine, and he purses his lips.
I’d been an outsider once. I know how that feels to be at the edge of everything, cast aside like something less than. Rotten. Unwanted. Watching from the outside as everyone else enjoys company. My father had done that to me. And then Xander had done that again. The walls of the classroom close in on me like the bars of my cage in Xander’s room. My lungs collapse, my ears turn fuzzy. I have to get out. I need the air, the open air and nothing else. I need to be free.
Before my next breath, I drop Xander’s chain and am hobbling out of the room and out the door. I can’t do this. I can’t be at the academy and pretend that I’m fine. I’m not fine. I’m a mess. Mentally and physically.
Lightning strikes my leg again and my sob turns into a yelp. My eagle has no choice but to burst from my skin and it feels like a sweet release to be off my leg and flying through the corridors with the speed I desire.
My mates call after me, but I need to keep moving. I need the air. I back flap to turn a corner and use my beak to butt open a glass door. Warm air meets my face and I move my wings in the way I love best. Sweeping and catching the wind, feeling it move over my feathers in powerful movements.
My chest opens up and I can finally let in air again, the spring air blasting past my face, refreshing me and keeping me focused. I sigh in a long exhale and wheel high above the school. The tall gum trees that line the perimeter look welcoming, and I choose the tallest, settling into the highest branches, the ones that sway like a pendulum under my weight. Gently I ease my weight onto the branch, my left claw secure around it and my right lightly clasping it for stability. I take a deep breath, closing my eyes for a moment and calming the braying of my broken soul.
“No fair, regina,” comes Savage’s voice in my head. He’s in wolf form, a black mass of fur at the base of the tree. “I can’t get up that high.”
“She wouldn’t be up there if she wanted your company,” Scythe says firmly. “ Give her a moment.”
I can feel Savage’s sulking from up here, but he ends up settling on his belly. Lyle is in his shifted form to my surprise, telling me he’s feeling my pain and probably his own too. He sits on his belly next to Savage, and they face away from me as if protecting the tree from enemies. Or maybe one enemy in particular.
Scythe lights a joint and sits down next to Lyle, stretching out his muscular legs and resting his back against the smooth trunk of the gum.
With the three of them settled, I cast my eye up to the open blue. There are a few clouds scattered through the periwinkle and not much else. I scratch at an itch under my wing, yanking at the feather that sits on top of it. The burn is sweet.
“Sabrina and Minnie are asking if you need them,” Savage says, likely talking through another wolf.
I don’t know what I need. There’s a dark feeling inside my chest and I don’t think anything is ever going to make it go away. I pull at an irritating feather below my wing again, the sensation of the burn as I pull at it grounding me. The feather comes out, the sting hitting two parts of me, knitting them together for a few short moments. I drop the feather from my beak and watch it fall before I sweep it behind the tree with my telekinesis.
A prickle of awareness makes me cast my eye over the academy grounds. From the dining hall entrance, the tall figure of Xander, shredded abdomen and all, emerges. He pauses at the entrance, uncertain if he should move closer.
It’s then that Scythe gets up and makes his way over to the dragon, silver hair rippling in the breeze, making it look like it has a silver halo, which should be funny given that it’s Scythe, the grim reaper himself. But I don’t have it in me to laugh as the two of them have a conversation I wish I could hear. Scythe’s shoulders are tight, as if he doesn’t like the idea of being that close to, or talking to Xander.
My chest clenches at the sight of them. Xander nods and waves a hand, dismissing something, but I can’t read the words his mouth is making.
They both turn away and head in opposite directions, except Xander stops to take a seat by the doorway of the dining hall, taking out a joint and lighting it with his finger. Scythe returns to the base of my tree.
Eventually, my left leg gets sore from carrying the brunt of my weight and I spread out my wings, fluttering down and back flapping to slow my landing right onto Savage’s back. He raises his head, ears pinning back, and I flop onto my belly on top of him, turning my head to the side and resting it on his warm, thick fur.
Scythe comes over and checks my leg. “You need to rest it, regina,” he says.
“I like being high in a tree.”
My shark tilts his head back, looking up into the branches above us. “Next time, I’ll climb up with you.”
“Really?”
He looks down at me, smiling. “Yes, regina. You know we’ll do anything you need, and”—he shrugs—“I’m guessing you’ll catch me if I fall off.”
“You wouldn’t fall off,” Lyle says. “Not how I’ve seen you on the back of—” He cuts himself off, an air of disgust forming around him.
A dragon, is what he meant. Riding the back of Xander for so many years made Savage and Scythe agile in high places.
I make an annoyed, tired sound through my beak.
“Let her sleep,” Savage admonishes. “She’s tired.”
Late in the afternoon, I wake up, cocooned in Lyle’s arms in the TV room, with Savage wafting a ham and cheese croissant under my nose. My wolf grins at me.
“See, I knew it would work. She loves these.” He breaks a piece off and offers it to my beak. I pluck it from his fingers, gobbling it down. Savage licks those same fingers and offers me another piece.
Lyle strokes my wings in a soothing motion. “They’ll assemble for Xander’s speech soon. Do you want to be in human form or eagle form for that?”
How could I forget the formal apology Xander was supposed to be writing? I sigh. “Human form, I suppose.”
I shift in his arms, bringing my human legs up and curling myself in Lyle’s lap. He holds me close, burying his nose in my hair and inhaling. “Angel, you know you can talk to us about what happened. We promise not to react adversely.”
“How can you make that promise?” I murmur, toying with a piece of bread. “How do I know you won’t want to kill him?”
“Do you not want him dead, regina?” Savage asks. “It’s your right.”
My chest goes tight again, my heart suddenly pounding as if it wants release. I squeeze my fists to avoid the tremble I know is coming. “Where is Minnie?”
Five minutes later, Minnie and Eugene are walking into the TV room, leaving Yeti and Marduk with Savage and Lyle in the dining room. Eugene was doing the rounds with the animas since Xander disappeared for the afternoon and Stacey took him to visit Raquel.
My tigress curls up on the couch next to me. “They’re making popcorn downstairs,” she muses. “You can smell it all the way to the second floor. And someone has a spit roast going on the front lawn. I don’t know who approved that.”
I can barely crack the smile she’s trying to coax out of me. “I don’t feel like laughing tonight, Min.”
She takes my hand and drops her head back onto the headrest. “I know. Of course I bloody know. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, Lia, let alone my best friend.”
A tear slips down my cheek. “I can’t handle this pain, Min. I just can’t.”
She clutches her own chest. “I feel mine here. Like something inside of me is torn, and the frayed pieces are flapping hopelessly in the wind. Like fingers reaching out for someone who’ll never reach back.”
I can’t bear to tell her about the last time I saw Titus. She already knows the type of person he is. I brush at my cheeks. “What the fuck do we do? A part of me doesn’t want to live, Min. Every time I look at him, I just…”
“It feels like it’s breaking all over again, I know.” She puts her arms around me, resting her temple against mine. “I don’t even have to look at Titus this frequently and it still hurts like a bitch.”
“He wants forgiveness, Min.”
Minnie sighs as she considers this.
It’s Lyle’s voice that sails into my mind. “Guilt doesn’t entitle someone to forgiveness, regina. Neither do his words, and what he says in a speech. It’ll be what he does that will tell you if you should trust him.”
I remember something Scythe said to me long ago, when Sabrina was taken. Judge a man by his actions .
“Are you ready?” Minnie asks.
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
She grins. “Yeah you do. We can cancel this whole thing if you want. But…a little birdy called Marduk tells me you’ll want to see this.”