Page 105 of Her Tortured Beasts

I’m escorted to the ground level,

We walk past a number of beautiful rooms, but I don’t really see any of them. Eventually, we come to a room lit with natural sunlight streaming through white curtains, a round plush rug and a single electric medical bed in the middle.

The Collector stands with Flores Drakos, waiting for me. Both are fresh-faced with smiles, as if some good news has come their way. The Collector wears an elegant dress, tightly fitted and starch white.

As if she tries to portray with clothes someone she’s not. As if she can hide the jealous, greedy monster that lurks within. More covetous than a dragon, more cunning than a snake.

“Good evening, Aurelia,” she says slowly.

In my head comes the distant sound of knocking.

A feeling like old and dead things winds its way about my heart. I’ve only felt like this one other time: when the sounds and smells around me faded to nothing and my vision tunnelled; Scythe had told me my mother was still alive.

I glance at Flores, and to my dismay, he has a strange look in his eye and his face is slightly flushed. My gaze flicks to the bed.Hedoesn’t intend to sire a hatchling from me, does he?

“I’m not in heat,” I blurt out.

“We know,” Flores drawls.

“But there is still a matter outstanding,” The Collector says. What matter? What is still outstanding? “Pop up here, like a good girl.”

It’s nicer than the steel one I’ve been used to at Drakos Estate. This has thick foam padding, a crisp white sheet, and a large, soft pillow.

Someone nudges me with their gun from behind, and I walk towards the bed. I miss Eugene’s presence. I even miss Ghoul’s overlordship over my scientific proceedings.

This path I must walk alone.

When I sit on the bed, the mattress doesn’t let out a sad exhale of air like the Animus Academy medical beds. She paid a lot of money for this.

She paid a lot of money for me.

Flores gestures for me to lie down, and reluctantly, I do, resting my hands on my stomach as I try to control my breathing.

The Collector heads over to a cabinet and rummages within it. Flores comes to my side and sighs over me, looking me over from head to foot. “I knew, Aurelia, that it would come to this eventually. There was too much fire in your eyes, and we need you…” He rests a palm on my right thigh.

Broken.That’s what they’d said.

My heart gives an arrhythmic thump before kicking up into a hammering beat. I flick my gaze between him and The Collector, who’s still searching through the cabinet.

“Hold still now,” Flores instructs with clinical coldness. “It’ll be a bit of a shock.” And with the strength only afforded to the order of dragons, he grasps my right thigh in both hands and tears the limb clean in two.

The scream wrenches from my throat with a violence I’ve never experienced. Shock drives me into a block of dry ice. Mymind seizes. On and on, my scream rips through the air. My blood saturates the sheets.

The Collector lunges forward with a cattle prod and strikes me in the cheek. “Shift!” she roars. Pain explodes through my face.

Everything turns black.

My anima screeches forth and takes over, shifting into the only thing it can think of to save us.

Chapter 60

Savage

Something rumbles through the air—wild, dark, desperate.

My head snaps up from my notebook. “Did you feel that?” I say, squinting up at the sky. A sinister feeling settles in my stomach. It makes my eyes blink hard. If I’d been in my wolf form, my hackles would have been raised. Something bad has happened. Panic strikes my chest and I whip around, looking for my brothers.

“I did,” Scythe says quietly, coming to stand next to me.

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