94. Aurelia
Chapter 94
Aurelia
“ N o!” Savage dramatically clutches his face, his eyes wild. “That’s not fair, regina! We were trying to kill him!”
I extract myself from Xander, sighing as his still-hard cock leaves me. Carefully, I crawl over him and step onto the carpet. My mates stand before me with bated breaths, barely containing themselves. Planting my hands on my hips, I raise my chin in my air.
“This was my choice. I know you might have some big feelings about it and I guess so do I. But it’s happened now. So…” I inhale deeply, my gaze softening as I meet Scythe’s eye. I can’t read his expression. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Scythe exhales a slow and measured breath before he reaches for me, pulling me into his arms. “You haven’t hurt me,” he whispers into my hair. “I just don’t want him to hurt you .”
My throat thickens as he kisses the top of my ear and I feel Lyle’s caress, then Savage’s hand tugging at mine. “Take me away before I try to kill him again, regina,” my wolf says.
I let him lead me away, casting a backward glance at Xander, who has remained silent the entire time. He lies on the bed, leaning on his elbows, his golden eyes following my every movement. Something tender in my heart grows at the sight of him. It’s new and strange, but…I like it.
Lyle follows us into the bathroom, undoing his tie. “Minnie wants a sleepover tonight,” he says unhappily. “She wants everyone there.”
I get the feeling he’s trying to distract himself. I can work with that. “Not an animas night?” I ask, as Savage turns on the shower.
“No, I get the feeling she wants to speak to Xander specifically. Titus and his followers have been harassing her.”
My heart twists for my friend, angry heat spiking through my veins. “What’s that bastard up to now?”
Savage pulls me into the shower, growling to himself as he soaps my body.
“He sends her videos of the explicit variety of him with other women.”
There is nothing but fire in my veins as I let Savage take care of me. “Can’t we stop that? Have we not blocked him on every platform?”
“They use different numbers and accounts each time,” Savage says. “I think we made it worse after we destroyed the Clawson businesses.”
“Either way, she wants her friends around her,” I nod. “Pack your things, then. I’m guessing this’ll be your first slumber party, Lyle.”
My lion’s lips twitch. “I’ll get my hair rollers.”
We arrive at the Devi pack room to find Marduk hanging pink heart balloons over the windows. He greets us with a sombre bow, before offering Scythe and Lyle whiskey on a liquor trolley he’s prepared. Yeti brings out a pile of board games behind Minnie, who’s wearing a new, pink sparkly onesie with her mates’ names written in rainbow cursive across the ass.
Minnie’s pack bed lies in the middle with new pink sheets, while the mattresses on the floor make it clear who is to sleep where.
“This is our bed of love,” Minnie says, gesturing to her bed. “But it’s animas only tonight.”
Stacey snorts when she enters the room with Eugene tailing and her orange and yellow nimpins chirping in greeting. I immediately loop my arm through Stacey’s, deliberately turning my face away from Savage in faux dismissal. He growls and hijacks Eugene, immediately going to inspect Yeti’s board games.
Sabrina and her cheetah twins arrive straight after, their arms laden with food they’ve nicked from the kitchen, including a super-sized bag of caramel popcorn and a metal tray bursting with hot, juicy burgers.
We have a great time as we eat dinner, chatting about harmless things like hair and the nimpins. It’s exactly what we all needed, despite the fact that my eyes keep straying to Xander, sitting by himself with his half-eaten burger, trying to keep his eyes off me.
“You smell like Xander,” Minnie says quietly, delicately wiping her mouth with a serviette. She’s the only one who uses his name these days.
I nod. There’s enough buzz in the room from male voices that I hope Xander can’t hear us. “We had a moment before.”
“Smells like more than a moment ,” Sabrina muses.
Heat fills my cheeks as I attempt to hide behind Henry. “Don’t look at my face.”
Minnie huffs a laugh. “I’m not one to judge, Lia, you know that.” She gives a shuddery sigh, glancing at the strangely calm dragon. “If you’ll allow it, I’d like to talk to Xander.”
“Of course.” I turn to look at said dragon, who I can tell is trying hard not to listen in. “He wants to help where he can.”
When he realises we’re all staring at him, Xander finally regards us. I beckon him and he smoothly gets to his feet, that whiskey glass dangling from his fingers. I can’t help the way he takes my breath away as he stalks over. I know he doesn’t mean to walk the way he does, but he could never get rid of that arrogant dragon’s stalk, no matter how humbled he might be feeling.
“You may sit,” I say regally, patting the end of the bed. “Minnie has some questions she would like to ask of you.”
It starts to rain outside. On our top-floor dorm room, it sounds like bullets pelting down overheard.
“I need to hear it from you,” Minnie begins. Her voice is brave, but her eyes glimmer with sorrow. Suddenly, I’m reminded of Lorian, lying on his side in the Collector’s dungeon. My heart clenches. “What did it feel like when you broke your bond with Lia?”
I suppress a flinch. I’ve never asked him. Never wanted to know. But this is important, Minnie just realised it before me.
Xander stills, as do the other males in the room. Minnie clutches my hand and I shuffle in next to her, with Stacey close on her other side, holding her other hand. When Xander speaks, it’s gentle, as if he’s trying to save us from the truth. “It felt like fading away. Like a song that’s come to its end and all that’s left is silence.”
Minnie’s face crumples as she lets out a sob, heart-wrenching and awful. I release her hand and she covers her mouth. I put my arms around her, hiding my own flood of emotions.
“And,” Xander continues, “every day I found myself growing emptier and emptier. As if…if I lost focus for a moment, I’d become nothing. Like a shadow. Barely a beast at all. Barely human.”
I blink into Minnie’s hair. Had I known this? Had I seen it in his anger, his rage, as he held on to his old life with everything he had?
“What makes you different from Titus?” Minnie asks in a hushed voice. “Why do you want Lia again?” There’s no jealousy in her question, not even envy. Just sadness, pure as grief.
“I fell in love, Minnie,” Xander says. “I fell in love with Aurelia, that’s what’s different.”
Minnie and I inhale sharply at the same time. My heart pounds, the shattered pieces chiming like glass shaken in a bottle.
“Titus is not capable of love, Minnie. There’s too much hate in him,” Xander says, gravely.
“But why?” Minnie chokes. “Why does he have to be like that when he could have me?”
Xander looks out the window, where the rain turns the world grey. “Choices. He chose that path. Willingly, knowingly. Just like you choose to love people, he chooses to hate them.” His eyes glow with that golden colour, mesmerising in the way it seems to glitter. “Mate or not, regina or not, it’s our choices that make us who we are. Not some idea you have of him in your mind. Consider him dead to you, Min. Your heart is too precious to have it tainted by someone who can’t see its beauty.”
My vision blurs as I hear Xander’s kind words to my best friend. This side of him we rarely see, that he rarely shows to the world, is something I’ll hold like a gem in my own secret horde of Xander’s goodness.
We’re silent after that; some of us in shock, some of us in grief. The rain hammers the roof now, less like bullets and more like an assault of sadness. When it finally eases, leaving a hush in its wake I stare at Xander, and he silently gazes back at me.
“If Raquel had mates,” Stacey whispers into the quiet. “They might have gone to save them.”
I wipe my eyes as guilt strikes me right in the sternum. “Is there a way?” I ask Xander. “Can you not do anything at all for Raquel?” Xander’s eyes flicker and I can tell he wants to. That he feels guilt for our wolf anim. “Please, Xander?”
He sucks in a breath at that. “Let me see what I can do.”
“You’ll get to her telepathically, like last time?” Sabrina asked quietly.
“Yes.” Xander gets off the bed and seats himself on the floor.
“In that case, I want to come as well,” I say, placing my good foot onto the carpet. “I need to see Raquel again.”
“No, Lia!” Minnie cries, lunging for me. “I won’t risk anything happening to you as well!”
I pat the small hand gripping my arm. “I need to do this, Min. I left Raquel there. I can’t stand the thought of that.”
“Aurelia is more powerful than Raquel, Minnie,” Xander says, watching me hobble over to him. “Don’t forget that the only way anyone ever captured her was because she went willingly.”
The room is quiet for a moment. Well thank fuck he finally remembered that. Stacey shivers, rubbing her arms. “Be careful.”
“I’ll be there, too,” Savage says, making his way over to me and pressing himself against my side.
I nod and we take our seats opposite Xander. Sitting cross-legged makes my knee ache, but I nudge it out a little and Savage puts a comforting hand on my thigh.
“There’s a chance we can bring Raquel back with us,” Xander says, closing his eyes. It’s strange how much I miss that light when it goes out like that. “But that’ll rely upon me actually getting in and shoving aside the Lunaris wolves.”
“They might still obey you?” I ask.
Xander exhales through his nose. “That’ll be up to them. Savage better stay back in that case. Your presence may rile them up.”
Savage growls. “I’m going where my regina goes. If I’m staying at the perimeter, then so is she.”
“I’ll make that decision,” I say in a disapproving voice. “Now let’s go.”
I close my eyes and immediately feel Xander’s cavernous power expanding towards me. A smoky scent fills my nose and we’re off, my mind lifting off skyward. Xander shoots us out into the night, across the barren, regional land that spreads out so far into the distance. The sky is still overcast, but that heavy rain over the academy has stopped. The speed of travel makes me giddy, my burger threatening to vault out of my throat, but just as I clutch my stomach, Xander slows and the power of Drakos Estate unfurls before us, vast and more powerful than before.
The dragon king has been strengthening his shields.
I don’t mention it, however, as Xander loiters at the edge, testing the boundary of it. Savage stays close to my side, and in the distance, I feel Scythe’s psychic presence monitoring me.
“Will it let you in?” I whisper into the room, growing impatient. Minnie and Sabrina whisper to each other, and Lyle shifts uncomfortably. My mind remains honed in on the dragon before me, whose own power feels taut now.
“Only one way to find out.” Xander surges through the shield, and without hesitation, I follow.
“Stay, wolf,” I command.
Savage growls in protest, but I place a hand over his where it still sits on my thigh.
Xander slows for me as we breach the protections of Drakos Estate with only a mild burn in my brain.
I sense unrest in this place I was held captive for so many months. Wild power moves irregularly, like a boat unbalanced at sea. Xander senses it too, and we go on high alert.
“Something’s not right,” I tell the room.
Xander says nothing as he hooks a mental finger into me so we remain close as we fall into the castle.
But we end up in a different part of the castle than intended, and what we see sends a shockwave through the both of us.
Lady Drakos lies on the sweat-soaked sheets of her four-poster bed, all four limbs shackled with obsidian, her eyes wild and her mouth snarling as she strains at her bonds.
Flores Drakos and Francesca, with her arms crossed, stare at Xander’s mother with frank observation. Ragnar Firewing and Fabian stand behind them. Selena frets in the corner, wringing out a cloth and hurrying over to the bed and wiping her mother’s forehead. Selena leans down and whispers something in her ear. Lady Drakos falls back for a moment, sighing and closing her eyes.
“How long?” Francesca asks bluntly.
“If the potion is no longer working,” Flores says, “then nothing will help her. I will end it myself.”
Lady Drakos’ eyes suddenly fly open, looking directly at us. “Xander?” she cries. “Xander!”
The heads of the observing dragons snap towards us.
I grab Xander in a mental fist and launch us out of there. “Out!” I cry. “Xander, run!”
Although he lets me pull him out of the castle and completely out of the estate, Xander growls. “I don’t run, Aurelia.”
Scythe and Savage wrap me in their power and fly me back across the land. “What happened?” Savage demands. “What did you see?”
“My mother,” Xander answers quickly. “She’s lucid, the potion that keeps her Berserker genes at bay has stopped working and they’ve bound her to her bed. My father will likely execute her.”
“What?” Minnie asks. “He can’t do that!”
“He can,” Marduk answers darkly. “That was agreed upon by the council. It was a condition of their marriage.”
I blink my eyes open as my mind re-enters my body.
“I didn’t realise you knew so much about my family,” Xander says to Marduk. He’s on his feet already, pacing the room.
“If the council knows about it, I know about it,” Marduk replies coolly. “What will you do?”
Xander runs his hands through his hair as Savage helps me to my feet. I wipe the panicked sweat off my forehead. “This is my fault,” I say. “I…tampered with her entire supply of medicine. I thought it was making her sick.”
Xander stops his pacing to stare at me. I can see his golden eyes shift as he remembers how Lady Drakos always asked me to prepare her medicine. How she’d always asked me specifically, and I’d never questioned it. Finally, that day when we’d cooked together in the Drakos kitchen, when she’d shown me the entire supply, and hadn’t stopped me when my power flared outward.
As if that’s exactly what she’d wanted.
Lady Drakos may have been delirious and drugged, but somewhere inside of her, she’d known what I was capable of. That I might be the one to free her from the slump her mind had forced to endure.
But at what cost?
Xander finally shakes his head, his eyes dull. “It was making her sick. That’s how the potion works. But it doesn’t matter now, Aurelia. This is a long time coming. I…” He looks at me, his eyes flashing with leashed emotion, telling me what his mouth won’t.
So I give him what he needs. “You should go,” I say. “Go now. And quickly.”
He takes a single step towards me before seeming to think better of it and grinding his teeth as he turns on his heel.
We all watch Xander leave with a dead sort of feeling. Then we hear him as the top of the dorm shudders under his shifted weight. And then there’s silence, that mighty presence now launched into the sky, back to where he came from.
I feel bereft now. Feel a niggling, nagging feeling inside my heart. Savage is frowning at the ceiling; Scythe has stopped breathing.
Then Marduk, bearing that strange wisdom that comes from a beast weaned into the underworld, says, “You all know this is a trap for him, right?”