Page 35 of Her Tortured Beasts

“I thought not.”

It’s then that Mace Naga, who’d been strolling down the corridor, listening to our conversation, decides to step into the light of the observation room. “I agree with the young dragon,” he says, stepping beside me as if we are in league. “We won’t make the same mistakes as last time, Solomon. We need her docile but not mad.”

The fact that he casually talks about his wife and now his daughter in this manner is vile.

“Get her out, now,” Mace says.

Ghoul hands me the key dangling on one of his gloved fingers and pipes happily into my mind. “Go get her,youngdragon.Try to cover your little hard-on while you can, but I know it’s there. You’ve already got a semi, don’t you?”

The bastard just doesn’t want to go in there while she’s in heat.“I’ll enjoy the day I get to rip your fangs out.”

His deathly red eyes glow behind his mask, and the fact that he can’t kill me with them probably gnaws at him.

I snatch the key out of his hand and whirl around, heading for the cell down the corridor. Exhaling a breath of rage, I push the old cast iron key into the lock.

Chapter 20

Aurelia

Ihave become friends with despair. I see things in the dark now. Sometimes horrible things. Sometimes wonderful things. Moments that shine brightly. A tableau that makes my gut twist. I’ve not tried to reach Scythe again, tempting though it became. He cannot help me here, and I won’t risk distraction.

When my heat came, it was nothing but torture. Not having my mates here, my hands straying down my body in an attempt to mimic their touch. Not here, I thought desperately, it is not safe. My body has betrayed me and the sharp prick in my arm only made it worse.

Perhaps it’s thoughts of Scythe that does it, or the feeling of losing control of my body, but at some point in this dark torture, something shifts within me. Something cold and ancient. The gnashing of a shark’s teeth joined the cacophony of beastly voices in my head a while ago, but this time, she shoves forth, dominant and cunning. I feel it under my skin when it happens. My body drops its basal temperature, and though I feel ‘warm’ on the inside, I’m cold to the touch. My heart rate slows down, becoming steady, and my mind…

Well, now I know exactly what it feels like for Scythe to descend into his shark. The crevices of my brain also become cold and deep as midnight depths. There is only smooth calculation and a dampening of my emotions and the sensation of the heat. They are still there, only burieddeep.

I’ve learnt something new.

So when the door of my gaol creaks open and cool light spills in, there is no joy or relief sweeping through my veins. In fact, I barely register the pain behind my eyes at seeing light for the first time in what feels like years. I only mark the imposing silhouette as someone I once knew.

“Put your scent shield up,”snaps his voice. “Right now.”

My body creaks like it has aged a hundred years. “Why?”

“So that neither I nor the others have to smell your malodorous stench.”

Something ancient in me registers that I am still in a biological heat. Why, then, are they letting me out?

“Keep me in here then,” I reply evenly.

“I can’t have you going mental,” Xander snarls. “Get out. I have better things to do than argue about something this nonsensical.”

Eugene nudges at my leg and I relent. Dragging myself off the floor, I rise to standing, noting the drop in my blood pressure as my head spins. Not enough water. Not enough food.

But I point blank refuse to faint. There are enemies about, and I need to be alert. With one hand upon the stone wall for support, I walk towards the dark-hearted dragon, the one whose heart beats in a cursed song.

“Wicked dragon,” I whisper. “Nasty, dark, evil winged creature.”

Xander blinks, those glowing whites shimmering with so many colours. I step out of my prison.

“Shields up,” he hisses.

I look at him and smile. His aura pulses with slashes of black and grey and so, so much red. Like a festering, necrotic wound. “So many sins,” I whisper. “So many scars.”

With an angry flick of his wrist, a golden chain clicks onto the collar around my throat, and the cursed dragon strides out of the antechamber as fast as he can. I am forced to follow. “Severed, yet still bound,” I whisper to Eugene, following close by my ankle. “Black heart. Black fire.”

Waiting for us in the bright room of steel and plastic is something I do not expect.

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