88. Savage
Chapter 88
Savage
O ut in the foyer, Marduk and Yeti whisk Minnie away after a little hug with my regina and her friends. Blair and Blade take Sabrina away to comfort her and then Stacey stands by the door, with two nimpins on her shoulder and Eugene by her foot, but otherwise, she has no mates.
Sadness pangs through my organs.
“Go and see Raquel,” Aurelia says, opening the door for her. “They could use a visit.”
Stacey wipes her nose. “Yeah, good idea, Lia.”
At least she has her nimpin with her now. Even then, as I pull my regina into my arms and carry her bridal style, I send a message to Mutton, one of my messengers. “Send Beaky to guard Stacey in the medical ward. I don’t want her to be alone.”
“And a lion as well, boss?”
I look down at my regina’s face as I climb the stairs. She’s already watching me, and one of her hands reaches up to run across my chin. “Nah. An eagle fixed my heart. I reckon an eagle can fix Stacey’s too.”
“Aye-aye, boss.”
“I sent Beak to watch over Stace,” I proudly tell my regina.
“Is that so you don’t have to look at him?”
I grin. “Maybe.” Then I frown. “I wish I was born as an eagle so we could fly together. Then I could heal you too.”
She smiles softly. “I love your wolf. This way we can speak secretly. Birds can’t do that.”
My heart shines like a full moon and I howl into the ceiling to let her know how I feel. “I love you too, baby.” Henry gives a squeak, rolling around to look at me with his big, black eyeballs. “Yeah, alright; I love you too, Hennie.”
He squeaks with satisfaction. I still want to eat him, but you can still love something and want to eat it, right? I might ask Lyle about it later.
“I hope someone cleans the mess downstairs,” I frown. “Phoenix blood is spicy in the nose.” I wonder what it tastes like.
“Yeah,” my regina says, drawing my eyes back to her face. She looks sad. There’s more colour in her cheeks compared to a few days ago, but there’s a great tiredness under her eyes. Like she’s been hunting all night and needs to go to bed. Only I know she’s been sleeping even more than she used to. “I want to give Henry a bath. He smells.”
Henry clucks sadly.
“We can do it together!” I say excitedly. Henry turns around to give me a worried look, but I ignore him. “Do you feel better or worser after Xander’s speech, regina?” We reach the empty third-floor corridor and I head towards our hidden stairs.
“Worser,” she sighs. “Definitely worserest.”
“Is that a word?” I ask.
“It is now.”
“Good.” I climb up our hidden stairs and put my regina down, taking her wee little face in my paws. “Are you happy that old turkey is dead?”
She closes her eyes briefly, putting her hands over my own. “Yes.”
I remove my hands and wrap my arms around her, pulling her close so she can feel how my heart beats for her.
Lyle, Scythe and unfortunately Xander, now with clothes on, make their way up the stairs as we part. Lyle is holding Xander’s golden chain and I give them both a dirty look. “She needs to recover from that fucking soppy sop speech,” I tell them. “Get the blind lizard out of here.”
“We all need to recover from that soppy sop speech,” Lyle replies. “But Xander wanted to say something to Lia in private.”
My regina is not paying attention to us, giving Henry kisses and petting him by the dining table. I suddenly get the urge to eat the furball again.
“Aurelia,” Scythe says, going over to them. He pets Henry with a finger.
She looks up at him with admiration. “You did this, didn’t you?”
Scythe puts a possessive arm around her and kisses her lips.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Lia turns to Xander then, her eyes flicking down to his collar and the chain still in Lyle’s hand. Our lion offers it to her.
She places Henry on her shoulder and strays towards Xander, eyeing him. “Take off your shirt.”
“Excuse me!” I cry.
She casts me a look and I sigh. “Now,” she commands.
Xander fiddles with the shirt. I don’t understand why there’s so many buttons on those things, but eventually, the black shirt opens and he drops it to the floor.
I roll my eyes and throw my hands up in the air in annoyance.
Xander looks like he has chicken pox except with bullets. They’re all lodged across his torso, shoulders, and even a couple in his arms. I hope there’s a few in his ass too.
“Unless there’s one in his dick, I don’t get what the problem is,” I say, irritated because my regina, my regina is stepping forward. I want to pull her back to safety, but she only steps closer to the betrayer.
“Why don’t you heal yourself?” she asks in a softy voice.
I narrow my eyes at the dragon. He says nothing, his chest heaving, all shiny with sweat. I’m glad he’s hurting.
My regina raises her palm, but it’s as if she doesn’t want to. Like she’s fighting herself, she rests her palm on his pec. Her power ripples through the air like the downdraft of one of her wing beats. It goes into him and I scowl as, one by the one, the bullets pop out and fall to the carpet.
“That’s for Henry,” she says.
“Of course,” Xander says tightly.
“Shut up,” I drawl, stepping forward myself to sniff suspiciously at the both of them. I inspect Xander’s skin. Skin that once bled for me. Skin I once bled for. Skin that covers the creature that ripped my heart out of my body and ate it whole. His right arm is covered with his family’s tribal tattoo. The one he got after his mating mark came in and he became a man in the eyes of his ancestors. I snarl, “I should skin that family tattoo off your fucking body.”
Xander’s head snaps to me from where he was rudely staring at my regina. “Would you?”
“What?” I snap.
“Will you flay it off me, Savage? The tattoo.”
I meet his eye, letting him see the hate I have, the distrust. Letting him see the place my soul used to be and the damage he did. How I wish I could murder him with my teeth. I growl, dark and intent. “You fucking know I would.”
He smiles, but there is no happiness, no humour there. “Do you have time now?”
Ten minutes later, Aurelia is in the shower with Lyle and my shark-brother watches on as I take a claw to Xander’s skin. He sits on a dining chair with a plastic drop sheet underneath us, his dripping sweat the only tell that he’s in great pain.
I savour it like a full roast dinner.
“She wasn’t sure,” he says through gritted teeth. His first words in ten minutes. “She wasn’t sure if she should let us do it.”
“It’s not her choice,” I say, squinting at the red muscle under the tattooed skin I’m slicing away. I’m pretty good with my claws, very precise if I want to be. Scythe has many knives, but I’m old-fashioned. I’m also only doing it slow to drag it out. I can skin a lot more quickly in a regular situation. “How long will it take you to grow a new lizard skin anyway?”
“Don’t know.”
“I give you three weeks,” I say. “Because I’m going to pour salt on it after and bandage it tight.”
Xander’s jaw clenches and he takes a deep breath as I cut a particularly deep slice, cutting a bit of muscle for good measure.
“Yeah?” he says, voice strained. “How much do you want to bet she’ll try to heal me?”
I growl, tugging on the flap of skin in my left hand so hard Xander makes a sound in his throat. “Fuck you, Xander. Fuck your dad. Fuck your entire estate. I should skin your whole body and make crackling out of it.”
Xander tilts his head back and laughs like a madman, sweat dripping off his temples. “Fuck,” he drawls. “I fucking missed you, Sav.”
I drop his skin and step back, frowning at him, then at Scythe. “He’s gone off.” Sometimes that happens when you torture someone past a certain point. They go delirious and mad.
“We’ll take it up again tomorrow,” Scythe says, straightening off the table he was leaning against.
“No.” Xander shakes his head. “Get it done. Today. I want to show her.”
I roll my eyes. “This is a performance for him!” I say to Scythe. “Completely showing off.”
Scythe eyes Xander in an assessing way. “If he wants to do it. Let him.”
“It’s not fun for me if he wants it,” I complain, crossing my arms.
“Come on,” Xander groans. “You can’t stop now.”
I glare at him.
“I’ll do it,” Scythe rasps, unsheathing a small knife and coming to my side. “And I’m not stopping for anything.” There’s a determined look in his eye that scares me, so I put my claw away and head into the bathroom to find my regina, my only comfort in this life.