Page 61 of Her Tortured Beasts

Xander roars and everyone goes flying?—

Until one of the falcons whips out his handgun and shoots three times at Xander’s chest. The dragon dodges them all, ducking to the side. I go swinging to the ground, scraping my knee and I double over, grunting in pain. A bullet catches one of the serpent generals in the stomach instead and he goes down. I’m yanked forwards once again, this time landing on my ass.Xander is snarling in the face of the shooter, breaking his hand and snapping his neck like it’s made of wood.

“How do we stop him!” someone cries. There are people running around but I can’t make head nor tail of them. I’m pretty sure the serpents have fled.

I yank hard on the chain, because I’m sick of being dragged around like this. Xander roars, turning on me.

“Where are his earphones?” I scream. “Get his earphones!”

Xander leaps on me, his face contorted into an expression of rage, shoving me back onto the ground.

But I’ve seen all the rage he has to offer me already. I’m no longer afraid of his anger, nor his betrayal. With his body heavy on my own, I do the only thing that’s left to do and cover his mouth with mine.

The dragon stills in shock, magma solidified into stone. His lips are firm until I take the opportunity to prise them open and slip my tongue inside.

His mouth softens. Xander moans, meeting my tongue with his.

Encouraged, I bury my hands in his hair, pushing the long length of it back as I suck on his lower lip.

“His earphones!”I telepath to whoever the fuck is left in this place.

Xander growls as if the telepathic waves have distracted him, and he goes to lift away from me. But I arch my naked body up into his and his hand finds my neck, squeezing possessively as he tongues my mouth. I moan into him, our tongues dancing in a dangerous, seductive tango. I’ve waited so long to kiss Xander, thought about it during class, imagined what the taste of him would be like while I was tangled with my other mates.

The reality is nothing like I’d imagined.

His power is darker and more foreboding than the others, wrapping around me as if he wants to drag my soul to hellwith his. His body might be a furnace, but his mouth is like the inside of a volcano, demanding and greedy. He tastes like fire on my tongue, the pressure of ancient volcanic rock and the scent of flowing molten lava. A rumbling sound courses through his chest and into mine, and that hand clutching my neck slides to cup my breast. His thumb runs across the taut bud of my nipple and I moan into his mouth again.

“Earphones,” drawls a voice from somewhere above us. They clatter to the floor on my right and I break off the kiss to grab them.

Xander’s mouth moves to savour my cheek, then my neck as I snatch up the two black pieces of plastic. The dragon toys with my nipple as he licks my neck, growling and scraping his teeth against my skin.

It feels so dangerously good that I worry I’ll miss it.

But it can’t be helped. I move Xander’s hair aside and put one earphone in, followed by the other, hoping beyond hope that his music will automatically take up the previous track.

I know something has changed when Xander goes still again. This time, when he lifts his head, his eyes are starlight white.

There’s a moment then. Hot, disastrous, and smoky between us. When time seems to lose its place and neither of us understands quite what just happened. I see it then. In another time and place, where we’re not enemies. Where he could have worshipped me. When I would have freely loved him.

The moment shatters when he jumps off me with a strangled sound of disbelief. My collar is yanked, my skin burns, and I leap to my feet.

“What the fuck happened?” Xander says, his head lowered in a predatory stance as he turns to survey the room through the smoke. The table still on fire, the broken chairs, the blood splattered on the floor and the two dead bodies. One serpent, one falcon.

“You don’t remember?” I ask.

Xander exhales, more black smoke joins the mix.

A slow clapping sounds from our right.

Ghoul is leaning against the wall nearby, one foot casually braced on the wall behind him and a joint dangling from one hand. “Nicely done, sweetheart,” he says mildly to Xander. “I always knew you had it in you.”

Chapter 34

Ghoul

We’re driving into town with the Naga convoy when a little snakelet tangles herself in my brain.

“Are you there?”

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