Page 79 of Her Tortured Beasts

It’s dark as Ghoul flexes his fingers over the controls and wheels me behind the stage to a different room. He then leans into the cage and takes the ball gag out. I lick my dry lips, making him stare.

“Like what you see, basilisk lord?” I purr.

He flashes a fang at me before hopping down, violently jostling the cage. I swear under my breath as those awful spikes puncture my skin.

“Close ranks,” Ghoul snaps. “We can’t hand over the goods until money is exchanged. Until then, guard her with your lives, because if anything happens to her, that’s what I’m taking from you.” For the first time since the start of this whole event, he leaves my side.

The serpent militia closes in around me, facing outward with their guns. Immediately, they begin gossiping.

“We’ll find out who it was soon enough,” says a loud voice. “Settle down.”

One of the guards lowers her hood and I’m surprised to see a familiar face. It’s Natalia, a serpent I’d grown up with. I’d also released her when Scythe, Savage and Xander held her captive for days. For all intents and purposes, she’s still my enemy.

“I bet you’re enjoying this,” I say, gesturing to myself.

Natalia shrugs, though her face bears no emotion. “A little.”

It’s fair. Her friends are dead because of me. Sure, they’d kidnapped me first and attempted to torture me before Xander came and off’ed them, but they’re still dead.

“Do the terms include her getting pregnant?” asks another female voice, hooded, so I can’t see her face.

“Wait, so this auction wasn’t to keep her?” asks one.

“No, you idiots,” Natalia says. “It’s just for the duration of her heat. The whole point of it is so they can use her to repopulate the dying species. Why do you think Damien Agnis was so excited?”

More murmurs.

“That much money for a week is insane.”

“Well, if they get her pregnant, she’ll be out of action for nine months,” Natalia says. “So really, they’ve paid for nine months.”

I blink dryly at her, my insides burning like they’ve been scraped with sandpaper down to the quick.

I’d asked for this. I’d signed up for this. I only have myself to blame.

A commotion outside stops my thoughts in their tracks.

“The beast that comes through that door is the man who’ll be attempting to impregnate her,” one of the generals says, hoisting his gun up more securely. “Look alive, lads. Here comes a wealthy bastard.”

Except when the door slams open and the sounds of Damien Agnis and The Collector shouting become deafening, it’s Xander who stalks through it.

I sigh, the tension in me suddenly whooshing out. “Well, who is it, then?” I ask impatiently.

“It’shim!” Damien answers my question, storming in behind Xander. “You fucking cheat!”

Xander freezes mid-step. Except it’s less of a freeze and more of a predator’s stillness. He swivels around on his heel and steps towards Damien. They’re both tall, being mythic shifter males, but Damien is two inches shorter than Xander’s near seven feet. As a result, when Xander steps chest to chest with Damien, he’s looking down into the phoenix lord’s upturned face.

The old bird goes as pale as his white blazer.

Everyone in the room goes deathly silent as Xander snarls in the softest, most lethal of voices, “Call me that again, phoenix swine, and I’ll finish Lyle Pardalia’s hack job.”

Xander talking nasty to me is one thing, but Xander talking nasty to Damien Agnis is like music to my sore ears.

“Hear, hear,” I say, slapping my bars.

Natalia and several of the serpents give me sidelong looks that tell me I must be mad. Other beasts have entered the room behind them—Flores, Mace Naga, the auctioneer, and some of the other bidders, their faces a combination of anger and surprise.

“See that?” Xander snarls, pointing at my gold collar. “That means I can do whatever the fuck I want. And if I paid for it, I fucking own it.”

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