Page 167 of Her Tortured Beasts

“Of course.” I turn to look at said dragon, who I can tell is trying hard not to listen in. “He wants to help where he can.”

When he realises we’re all staring at him, Xander finally regards us. I beckon him and he smoothly gets to his feet, that whiskey glass dangling from his fingers. I can’t help the way he takes my breath away as he stalks over. I know he doesn’t mean to walk the way he does, but he could never get rid of that arrogant dragon’s stalk, no matter how humbled he might be feeling.

“You may sit,” I say regally, patting the end of the bed. “Minnie has some questions she would like to ask of you.”

It starts to rain outside. On our top-floor dorm room, it sounds like bullets pelting down overheard.

“I need to hear it from you,” Minnie begins. Her voice is brave, but her eyes glimmer with sorrow. Suddenly, I’m reminded of Lorian, lying on his side in the Collector’s dungeon. My heart clenches. “What did it feel like when you broke your bond with Lia?”

I suppress a flinch. I’ve never asked him. Never wanted to know. But this is important, Minnie just realised it before me.

Xander stills, as do the other males in the room. Minnie clutches my hand and I shuffle in next to her, with Stacey close on her other side, holding her other hand. When Xander speaks, it’s gentle, as if he’s trying to save us from the truth. “It felt like fading away. Like a song that’s come to its end and all that’s left is silence.”

Minnie’s face crumples as she lets out a sob, heart-wrenching and awful. I release her hand and she covers her mouth. I put my arms around her, hiding my own flood of emotions.

“And,” Xander continues, “every day I found myself growing emptier and emptier. As if…if I lost focus for a moment, I’d become nothing. Like a shadow. Barely a beast at all. Barely human.”

I blink into Minnie’s hair. Had I known this? Had I seen it in his anger, his rage, as he held on to his old life with everything he had?

“What makes you different from Titus?” Minnie asks in a hushed voice. “Why do you want Lia again?” There’s no jealousy in her question, not even envy. Just sadness, pure as grief.

“I fell in love, Minnie,” Xander says. “I fell in love with Aurelia, that’s what’s different.”

Minnie and I inhale sharply at the same time. My heart pounds, the shattered pieces chiming like glass shaken in a bottle.

“Titus is not capable of love, Minnie. There’s too much hate in him,” Xander says, gravely.

“But why?” Minnie chokes. “Why does he have to be like that when he could have me?”

Xander looks out the window, where the rain turns the world grey. “Choices. He chose that path. Willingly, knowingly. Just like you choose to love people, he chooses to hate them.” His eyes glow with that golden colour, mesmerising in the way it seems to glitter. “Mate or not, regina or not, it’s our choices that make us who we are. Not some idea you have of him in your mind. Consider him dead to you, Min. Your heart is too precious to have it tainted by someone who can’t see its beauty.”

My vision blurs as I hear Xander’s kind words to my best friend. This side of him we rarely see, that he rarely shows to the world, is something I’ll hold like a gem in my own secret horde of Xander’s goodness.

We’re silent after that; some of us in shock, some of us in grief. The rain hammers the roof now, less like bullets and morelike an assault of sadness. When it finally eases, leaving a hush in its wake I stare at Xander, and he silently gazes back at me.

“If Raquel had mates,” Stacey whispers into the quiet. “They might have gone to save them.”

I wipe my eyes as guilt strikes me right in the sternum. “Is there a way?” I ask Xander. “Can you not do anything at all for Raquel?” Xander’s eyes flicker and I can tell he wants to. That he feels guilt for our wolf anim. “Please, Xander?”

He sucks in a breath at that. “Let me see what I can do.”

“You’ll get to her telepathically, like last time?” Sabrina asked quietly.

“Yes.” Xander gets off the bed and seats himself on the floor.

“In that case, I want to come as well,” I say, placing my good foot onto the carpet. “I need to see Raquel again.”

“No, Lia!” Minnie cries, lunging for me. “I won’t risk anything happening to you as well!”

I pat the small hand gripping my arm. “I need to do this, Min. I left Raquel there. I can’t stand the thought of that.”

“Aurelia is more powerful than Raquel, Minnie,” Xander says, watching me hobble over to him. “Don’t forget that the only way anyone ever captured her was because she went willingly.”

The room is quiet for a moment. Well thank fuck he finally remembered that. Stacey shivers, rubbing her arms. “Be careful.”

“I’ll be there, too,” Savage says, making his way over to me and pressing himself against my side.

I nod and we take our seats opposite Xander. Sitting cross-legged makes my knee ache, but I nudge it out a little and Savage puts a comforting hand on my thigh.

---