Page 158 of Her Tortured Beasts

“Which part is your head?”

I lift the limb at the top and Savage strokes me there.“Your mating mark is so small!”he exclaims.“How cute.”

I focus on my mate. I am here. I am not forgotten. Savage is holding me.

“So clever,”Scythe murmurs, dipping his fingers in the water to stroke my left arm.“So perfect.”

His touch is like heaven to my frayed nerves. They are all here with me and I am never leaving them.

“If you turned into a barnacle,”Savage says, inspiration striking him.“You could stick to Scythe and ride around the ocean with him!”

“Can’t do a barnacle,”I reply faintly.“Never touched one.”

They take turns holding me under the water and I bask under my mates’ attention. Eventually, dark thoughts start to filter through my brain. My leg might be back, but this form is too powerless, too passive for my tastes. Without warning, I shift in Scythe’s hands, my beast of choice a surprise for them all.

Quickly, he brings me above water and I curl my long body around his thick wrist and forearm, rearing up to peer at him.

His lips twitch into a smile and he lowers his head, kissing my hood before setting me down on the concrete next to the pool.

Xander sits on the floor off the side, watching us from afar with a carefully blank expression. I slither up to him and his eyes lighten with hope. Goddess, the way it makes my heart pang to see him like that. I’m aware of my other mates watching us I slither right up to his booted feet. I bare my fangs and hiss at him.

The bastard smiles and lowers his hands to the ground. I consider him for a moment before slithering into them. There’s a stunned silence behind us as Xander carefully raises me to his face. He’s shaved this morning, the skin of his cheek smooth and soft.

I strike.

Sinking my fangs into his cheek, I pump venom into him, hoping it stings, hoping he understands that I want him to hurt for everything he did and did not do. Luckily, he doesn’t drop me, just barely stiffens under the pain I’m inflicting.

I lift my fangs out of him, letting them fold back into the roof of my mouth and easing back to hiss at him again. The two puncture wounds drip blood down his cheek.

His eyes are keen on me, glimmering with different colours under my vision. “I’ll take it, Aurelia,” he says. “I’ll take anything you deign to give me.”

Xander walks around with those puncture marks on his face all day. Teachers and students stare, and even when he gets rude remarks, he simply ignores them. My animas raise their brows at both the bite and his bandaged arm and Minnie gives me a significant look, before turning back to Marduk and grabbing his hand for comfort.

“Nice one,” Sabrina says with approval.

But I can’t take my eyes off Minnie and the way Marduk pulls her into him and kisses her on the cheek, whispering something in her ear. They walk off together and I hope he’s going to eat her out or something similar. That always makes a person feel better.

“So!” Sabrina says, glancing at Xander, who’s taken a knee by my seat at the lunch table. Stacey procured the dog kibble for us and Xander picks at the bowl. Sabrina opens Minnie’s folder. “Take a look at these and see which one you like. We’re calling it the torture menu.”

Lyle chokes on his coffee, but I chuckle under my breath.

Accepting the folder, I check out the tabs Minnie has placed to section the papers. There is green, yellow, orange, and red. I flip to the yellow section and see she has written in her neat bubble cursive an addition:Dog kibble (the cheapest kind)

The dragon in question is trying to peer at what’s written, but I have the front of the folder angled upward so he can’t see.

“You should eat actual food,” I say, picking up a blackberry and offering it to him.

But Xander doesn’t take it. “Naughty boys should be fed by hand.”

It’s Savage’s turn to choke on his lamb shank. “Is he serious? Are you serious, regina?” He gapes at me.

Xander licks his lips by my side, and I can’t help but remember his tongue last night. The way it teased and coaxed tingles from me. I suppress a shiver, knowing the entire table is staring at me, though Blair and Blade are trying not to out of respect for their bosses.

Without a word, and holding my breath, I hold up the berry to Xander’s lips. It’s a fat, juicy one, and Xander leans forward and places his lips around the berry, skimming my fingers. His eyes flick up to mine and he drags his lips over my fingers as he takes the berry. My fingers hang in mid-air, now stained purple, as I watch him chew.

Savage lets out a jealous growl. “You never feed me by hand, regina.”

Xander gives him a vicious smirk.

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