Page 107 of Her Tortured Beasts

Lyle shushes him.

Celeste’s pallid cheeks turn pink, then bloom red with effort. “It’s strange…”

“What’s strange?” we all say at once.

Her jaw clenches before she opens her eyes. They glint an ethereal gold, but the expression on her face makes my insides bleed.

“She’s gone to a place I cannot follow.”

Savage roars and whirls around, wrenches the door open off its hinge, and storms out. “How many!” he screams outside. “How many do we have to kill to get her back!”

My great white demands my attention as I too turn on my heel and stalk out of Celeste’s office. “We know the candidates,” I say evenly, staring out the window. “We know who has the money. We just track them down one by one. And I know just where to start.”

Lyle has gentle words with Celeste before joining us in heading to the elevator. “If she’s shutting out even the phoenixes, she still has substantial power. She can’t be too badly hurt or injured.”

“You don’t know her power then,” Savage says, shoving at Lyle.

Lyle shoves him back into the elevator wall, making it shudder violently. “I know her power. I remember how she endured her father’s attacks and walked around like nothing was happening. Hid it from us.” He grinds his teeth at the memory.

Savage slams his fist against the elevator wall as it opens it to let us out. The emergency alarm sounds and we continue back to the Animus dorm.

Instead of going back up to our rooms however, I stop at the rec room, where I find Connor sitting pale faced with a group of lions. With only one look from me he strides over, his face drawn.

I rest a hand on his shoulder and he looks at me alarmed. “I know about the call you received three days ago and the offer that was made to you.”

He opens his mouth but I shake my head. “You’re not in trouble. Have you come to a decision?”

Connor tugs nervously at his long black mane and I note his aura of clear, sky blue. He’s not happy about it, and there’s no betrayal in his heart. “Yes. I want to do it.”

“If you needed the money, I would give it to you, but you would be sworn to me.”

Connor nods, his dark eyes considering this. “I would like to remain a free agent, if you don’t mind. And if this will help my grandfather and potentially Aurelia, then I want to. To be honest, I’ve been expecting it for a while now.”

I nod gravely. “You’re braver than me, Connor.”

He looks alarmed as I wave Lyle over. “Hand him the contract.”

Connor pulls out a stapled booklet, complete with council seals from his satchel and smoothes it over, staring at it before handing it to Lyle.

I don’t have to look at it to know why Lyle’s brows shoot upward. It’s an official contract of ‘employment’ stating that in exchange for a large sum of money and freedom from the academy, Connor will participate in the scientific research of his anima. He is a rare beast after all.

I get out my phone and dial it.

“Scythe,” purrs The Collector. “Alwayssucha pleasure to hear your sweet voice.”

Five hours later, Lyle drives us through the barbed-wire gates of the crocodile sanctuary The Collector calls home. She gets plenty of money from the state government for ‘conservation’ but it’s much in the same way Frank Ulman got funding for his park of horrors. Lyle’s fists tighten on the wheel as he lays eyes on the barbed wire cages and finds them all too familiar. Connor’s eyes stare unblinking around his new home. The saltwater in the man-made rivers calls to me, as does the wild call of the other predators, and I find I can’t tear my eyes off the glistening surface.

“She’s been here,” Savage says with his head out the window. “I can feel it, but I can’t tell if she’s still here or not.”

I agree with him and it makes my eyes dart around the air, trying to sense the timing of her arrival or departure. She’ll have scent masking on—potentially all of her shields—to hide from us and others. All reports say they’ve kept obsidian off her this whole time. It was the only way to make sure we’d not come to get her.

We pull to a stop outside the front of her white swan-like dwelling and Savage and I are out of the car before the engine is even off.

I can’t sense Xander, but a dragon has lingered here. Flores, perhaps, but not his son. Thank the Goddess, because it may have driven me mad if I’d also sensed him.

The four of us are at the wide closed door and pounding on it in three heartbeats. Two females pull it open, roo shifters, by their scents, and in gossamer dresses so sheer it leaves nothing to the imagination. They bow as they stand aside.

“Mr Kharkorous,” the first says quietly. “Mr Fengari, Mr Pardalia. Connor. Please be welcome.”

---