Page 114 of Her Tortured Beasts

The happiness is short-lived, however, because after a few days, I see no other change in her colouring or size. She eats verysmall amounts of what I offer and still overall looks unwell. So I start to brainstorm other ideas.

My eye catches on the golden grand piano I keep in the corner. Excitedly, I tune the ancient thing then place Aurelia’s tank on top of it. At first, I play my favourite Beethoven, mostly to calm myself.

With a grimace, I play something girly. Something she and Minnie would likely dance to when no one was looking. Or wheneveryonewas looking. I snort at the memory of the two of them, thinking they were sneaking past me on their way to the Bouncing Bazookas nightclub. I’d let them go because I didn’t really care at the time and couldn’t be bothered trying to stop them. If they were stupid enough to go against Scythe’s orders, they deserved whatever consequences came afterward.

But as I watch Aurelia now, and can’t help but think that there is something devastatingly sad about how she has reduced herself to something so small. So fragile. She is as beautiful now as she always was, and there is a great power in a creature that can re-grow an entire limb, but she is still so vulnerable.

Any other beast could just come and devour her and that would be the end of…her.

I realise that my fingers have trailed off mid-song, stopped playing at the thought of her simply not existing in this world.

Some pain at the centre of me blooms anew and I press my lips together as I watch her. In this time, in this place, the Wild Goddess saw it fit that her care be designated to me.

I strike up the song again, the sounds filling me up, intoxicating me, making me sway. There are only two of us in this place, so far from the rest of the world, listening to this song. I wonder what she’s thinking in whatever is left of that mind of hers. Does she even know that it’s me who has her? Does she think it’s someone else?

The thought angers me, of course. The idea that my efforts could be attributed to some other bastard. She needs to know that it’s me. That I’m the one who’s making sure she gets better.

And yet, if I can claimthat, I should also claim that I’m the one who made everything worse.

My fingers shift into a new song, a beautiful, moving one that means something to me. It might mean something to her. Might be enough to pull her back to us at the end of this.

Chapter 68

Xander

In This Shirt – The Irrepressibles

Something changes on the third night.

There’s a giant smash and I awaken with a start, leaping up to standing from my spot on the cavern floor next to the piano.

It’s dark but my eyes can see the tank I’d set atop the piano is on the floor in shards, water everywhere.

Debris, plants and rocks lie in between the clear shards, and when I round the corner, Aurelia is there, in her human form, choking out water from her lungs. She heaves and coughs, eyes squeezed shut, chest wheezing.

Immediately, I can see her amputated leg has re-grown to the knee, but the end of it is red and raw.

“Aurelia!” I cry, rushing through the glass and skidding to her side.

She opens her eyes, takes one look at me, one look at her leg, andscreams.

“No!” I say, pulling her wet body into my chest. “No, it’s okay! It’s?—”

She doesn’t stop screaming. She doesn’t fight me. Her body is limp, and I don’t know how she’s doing it, but she doesn’t stop for breath. Her scream continues on and on and on.

The sound pierces my ears, but still, I clutch on to her.

“Aurelia!” I shout, rubbing her wet, naked back. “Aurelia!”

She can’t hear me.

“Shift!” I scream back. “Shift, damn it!”

She continues to scream in that awful, high-pitched sound of pure terror.

I see what I have to do. I set her down onto the floor, where her mouth opens wide with that scream up into the cavern ceiling. Then I hit her with a bolt of fire right to the neck. She violently flinches, her scream stopping for a second. “Shift!” I command.

She obeys.

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