Page 119 of Her Tortured Beasts

The next time I wake up, it’s a human male body coiled around me.

Chapter 72

Aurelia

There’s a tanned, male hand under my cheek that I’ve drooled all over. Another hand rests on my right thigh.

My heart pounds with the reality I now have to face. Carefully and quietly, I extract myself from him and, primarily using my left leg, slide out of his hold.

Rolling onto all…threes, I keep my right knee above the ground and push myself to standing.

Xander sleeps naked on his stomach, having absently shifted in his sleep.

I’d hoped I’d get longer with the dragon. I’d hoped I’d get longer before I’d have to deal with the thing that makes my soul bleed.

Why had Xander saved me? Looked after me as if he cared?

I stand over his nest, watching his muscled sleeping form, the rise and fall of his back as he lies on his side, that arm outstretched, tattooed with his ancient, tribal family markings.

It’s jarring seeing him again.

My stomach knots and I have to tear my eyes off him.

My brain feels heavy. My limbs sore, but rested. I can smell the night outside, and I’m sure with a bit of effort, I could get out of here. A cold breeze strays towards me and I sway into it.

“Aurelia?”

I close my eyes against the pain of hearing his voice. The way it cuts so deep, even now. My own voice is small, but a paper cut carries its own sting.“Am I not ‘Spawn’ any longer?”

He stiffens as that settles between us. And when he does speak, his tone is like nothing I’ve heard before. “You… You were right. My sister was right. I am a monster. I was fashioned into one by my…anger. My choices. Only I am to blame for…” He struggles for a moment. “For everything that happened to you.”

I can’t bear to look at him. Can’t bear to hear his cursed words. Can’t fucking believe this. My hands tremble and I clutch them together. “I want to go home.”

His silence bleeds with disappointment. With what seems like great self-control, he says quietly, “I know.”

He looks at me, and it’s not like before. I should be used to his gaze by now, as I’ve sensed his attention on me for long, long hours. But I’m not, and I can’t. It burns like the worst type of poison.

I look around at his secret home, at the place he’s brought me, and likely not brought any other. It’s impossible that he regrets what he’s done. He can’t understand what he’s saying. Perhaps he doesn’t even understand what he’s doing.

So I tell him the truth and let him see it with his magical eyes as I stare at the cavern wall. “I can never forgive you.”

From my periphery, he bows his head. I close my eyes and turn away from him.

There will be consequences for this. What he’s done. The Collector won’t be happy that Xander’s taken me away for yet a second time. And there are also consequences for me.

I have failed. Utterly. Irreconcilably. My return will be laced with poisonous shame.

“Aurelia, they will be hunting for you.”

Every time he says my name, I die a small death. I want to curl up in a hole. I want to shed my entire human skin until there’s nothing left of me. I want to dissolve into water until there is no memory of who I was before.

But one thing calls to me. As old as the stars that forged us, my soul turns its head towards the mates who I have tormented for months with my silence.

Do they hate me now? Do they wish they’d never laid eyes upon me? And worse still, do they regret claiming me as theirs?

I have few options. Little hope for much else beyond them. They are everything to me and I have to try. If they want to reject me, I may as well know sooner rather than later.

So I call, in a quiet, tentative voice across the land.“Savage? Scythe? Lyle?”

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