Page 120 of Her Tortured Beasts

“REGINA!”comes the immediate triple reply.

I want to cry.“I… I rescind my orders.”There’s a sigh on the other end and it feels like violent relief.“Would you…”I take a breath and say in a small, uncertain voice,“Would you come and get me?”

“Where are you?”comes Scythe’s cold, cold, rasp.

I hesitate for a moment, wondering if calling them here is a good idea. But I’ve had worse ideas.

“We don’t need her to tell us,”comes Lyle’s predatory growl.“Regina, we are coming.”

An age-old ache, suppressed for these last months, burns like the sun. I move towards the cavern entrance and shift.

Wings stretch out from my body, my head elongates, human skin turns to feathers, and a beak tears through my nose.

I flex the claws of my new leg.

“Be careful,” Xander says. That note of panic in his voice is so new. So fragile. “You have not tested it. There’s not enough muscle to carry your weight.”

Pain laces through my claw and I immediately raise it and tuck it safe into my body, shifting my weight to the left.

I don’t turn to look at him. Instead, my wings flare out as a counterbalance, and I hop towards the cavern’s ledge.

I don’t turn back.

Once I’m at the lip of the rock, I peer down into the long drop, my heart leaping at the thought of flight after so long.

Home. I am going home.

“Aurelia,” Xander says. Again, that desperate, glass-like thing in his voice claws at me. Demands my attention.

I don’t turn back.

Raising my wings, I let myself fall over the edge, snapping my wings out as I catch the wind and soar into the night. To home. To the three other pieces of my soul I go?—

And leave behind the cursed dragon with the bowed head.

Chapter 73

Scythe

Lyle has been driving non-stop the entire night, refusing to give up the wheel. Even for the police that follow us.

I’ve had to faint three patrol officers already, and this fourth one brakes in time to swerve off the road, its driver unconscious, the dust kicking up in a pale red cloud. Exhaling in irritation through my nose, I search the blue, cloudless sky above us, searching for any signs of our regina.

She’d finally contacted us. She finally called for help…and she didn’t sound good. I’d waited for this day for months, and now it was finally here. That tight fist of pain and rage within me has softened.

But I won’t feel true relief until I have her in my arms. Until I have her mouth on mine.

My phone rings, and when I see who it is, I answer immediately. “Katerina,” I snap.

“I just thought I’d let you know,” Lady Crocodylus purrs, her voice filled with smug satisfaction that makes my skin crawl, “that two hours ago, Mace Naga put out a search warrant for, um…what was it again? Ah yes…” She drags it out for her own humour. “A wedge-tailed eagle with…one leg.” She chuckles and hangs up.

My phone drops to the floor. Unbidden, my teeth elongate and my vision turns red.

The car speeds up as Lyle drives the pedal to the floor and the entire car fills with his enraged growl.

“No,” Savage whispers, from the seat behind me. “No, no, no, no, no!” And then the rage comes. Hot and hard. His power flares out, so enormous that I feel it rush over me like a real wave. He punches through his passenger window and it shatters under his fist. Savage sticks his head out into the wind. “XANDER DRAKOS!” he screams, broadcasting his voice with such violent force it tears through not only the town ahead of us but through the entire fucking state.“I condemn you to death. Your execution will be done by the claw of Savage Fengari!”

Whether it was done by his hand or not, Xander is responsible for this. We all silently agree on that.

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