Page 74 of Her Tortured Beasts

“Even with the obsidian,” Mace continues, “she won’t be compliant for the first.”

The grin that spreads across my lips shows teeth that have shifted into needle sharp points. One of the scientists gasps and Solomon stumbles a step back. “Dear Goddess.”

“I will be a compliant Boneweaver.” My voice is jeering and dark—something from a nightmare. Because if I’m forced to live in a nightmare, the smartest thing to do is become a nightmare myself.

I gnash my teeth. The horrified look on Damien Agnis’ face is truly satisfying as he stumbles into the lab, holding up his boxof nimpins. He exclaims, “You must be compliant or I will kill all the nimpins!”

My grin does not falter. “But if you kill them, you have nothing else to use against me.”

Xander finally speaks, his eyes sharp, his stance rigid. “We have Raquel, Spawn.”

“Are my eyes familiar, cursed dragon?” I leer at him. “Do they scare you?”

“Why would you ever scare me?” he snaps.

“Only the frightened reject a mate bond,” I reply smoothly. “Only the frightenedrageso hard. Only the frightened curse themselves.” My chuckle is dark and ever-cold. I am a poet. A prophet. My mates would be proud.

Xander pushes Ghoul aside and gets in my face, his own expression fierce, nostrils flaring, eyes flashing. “Then let me ask you this: how long can you stay in this state before the hallucinations appear? How long before you become haunted and demons follow you?”

I laugh in his face. “I am already haunted, cursed-one. I am already mad. The ghosts will be my friends and we will dance a mad dance as we watch you burn in black fire and cold blood.” I tilt my head back and cackle again, only vaguely aware that my great white shark is a crazy bitch.

That suits me just fine.

“Gag her,” Damien Agnis says, distaste twisting his mouth. “I don’t want to hear any more of its talk.”

I point at him. “Spine-lessandsperm-less. What’s next for the phoenix lord?”

“Lord Basilisk,” Mace snaps, his coldness rivalling mine.

My gaze turns upon him, my eyes flashing with menace as I meet his malicious eyes. “Regina-killer,” I hiss, just before a ball of thick shadows is shoved into my mouth.

The sensation is all at once strange and amusing. Ghoul’s shadows taste sweet on my tongue. Soft like velvet, powerful like a midnight storm.

My laugh is muffled around the gag of shadows and it makes the beasts all leave one by one, until the only persons left are Xander Drakos, the cursed one, Ghoul, the lord of the dead, and Eugene, my loyal poultry companion.

“It’s another long drive,” Ghoul says, taking both my wrists in his hands and pulling me up and off the steel table. His voice is quiet, but still emotionless. “Don’t do anything stupid while you are like this.”

But I can’t do anything stupid because like this, I’m clever. I respond with a hum as Xander hooks my leash back in place. I stare at them both from beneath my lashes, allowing my loose hair to slide down and frame my face.

Xander exhales through his nose. “You’ll walk in front of me.”

I chuckle knowingly.

Ghoul seems to be of the same mind as I lead the way out, high priestess of the cold deep. “Scared she’ll attack you from behind?” he jeers. “Or are you obsessing over her ass again?”

Xander makes a rude sound, but says nothing.

We head straight outside to the waiting fleet of cars and the army of serpents with drawn automatic rifles.

All this for me? Why, what fun.

“Stay behind,”I warn Eugene.“Where we go is no place for you.”

I feel his reticence, but he is a good rooster and obeys me.

The drive is long and boring. It gives me time to think, I suppose. Time to disseminate. Time to calculate. I do not know what human Aurelia expected from this surrender to the enemy.

The cold saves me from turning rabid like I did once long before. Though I suppose, in some way, the cold is a shark’sversion of rabidity. Because how else could I cope with what I’ve done?

---