Page 115 of Her Tortured Beasts

Immediately, her body shrinks, her skin turns blue and knobbly, her arms and legs becoming uniform as her head disappears into the starfish. Quickly, I pick her up.

But now I realise we have no water. She’s going to suffocate within seconds.

“Fuck!” I shout. “Shif—” I cut myself off short because what should she shift into? My stomach heaves as I realise that there is only one solution.

“Shift into a snake!” I shout, pushing a pulse of power through my voice. “Do it now.”

She must feel the command because her body changes, growing longer, her skin smooth and cool. A head and eyes appear again, a hood expanding on either side of her face.

In my hands now, Aurelia lies tightly coiled in her serpent form. A form that has no amputated leg for her to look at. To scream at.

I cradle Aurelia against my chest, and for the first time in eight years, I weep. Only it’s not tears that leave my eyes. “I didthis,” I whisper, the liquid tracking down both sides of my face, burning as it goes. “I did this to you.”

I have to hope her Boneweaver magic will heal her leg while it lies dormant. I take her to my pile of blankets in the corner of my cavern and set her on my bare chest.

The image of her human face when she’d laid her eyes upon what remained of her leg will be forever seared into my memory. The memory of that sound she made… The sheer terror still rings in my ears. It was more than just physical pain.

It was the sound of someone being tortured.

My hand trembles when I place it gently on top of her soft body. I allow my healing power to seep into her scales like sunlight soaking into her skin. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, but my voice comes out as brittle as a scorched leaf. “Aurelia, I’m sorry.”

Perhaps now she can finally hear me.

Days pass in much the same way. I place Aurelia’s cobra form on my chest and focus my power into her. I rush away to take care of my own physical needs before rushing back and healing her again. I offer her food and sometimes she’ll take it. I catalogue the feedings in a notebook with the accuracy of a scientist. I’d been around them enough to know the level of detail that was best. So basically everything.

It’s in my close observation of her that I notice she stops responding altogether. Panic almost consumes me before I notice her scales look dull and wrinkled. I quickly search up serpent shedding images and sigh in relief.

Over the course of a few days, Aurelia sheds her skin, but because she is unmoving, it appears difficult. They usually rubthemselves against rough surfaces and she can’t do that right now.

So I help her.

I keep her warm with my power and get a shallow bowl of warm water. I’ve bathed her before, but never in this form, and after some debate, I gently pick her up and set her in the pool I’ve made.

Her muscles seem to relax with that, and satisfied, I gently rub her at her scales. She wriggles a bit, and I wonder how much of this is conscious.

Suddenly, this feels very intimate. Something Savage or Lyle would jump at the chance to do. Or perhaps, something she’d prefer to do alone.

She’d never let me help with something like this if she was fully aware. Swallowing that thought down, I gently rub behind her head with a washcloth. New scales appear beneath the old sleeve, and something in me sighs with relief at the sight of it.

It takes two days of my ministrations before her skin is fully shed, the old skin a crispy off-white material in my hand. After some thought, I find one of my trinket boxes and empty it of its contents before placing the skin inside and locking it with my power.

Glancing at her coiled form in the nest of blankets, I swallow the lump in my throat. This will just have to be between me and Aurelia’s cobra for now.

Perhaps this entire thing will have to stay just between us. Because I can sense that it’s almost time for her to wake up and become fully aware. And when she does, it won’t be me she wants to see.

Chapter 69

Aurelia

It’s a dragon that appears before me, black tinged with blue, with golden eyes so wise, so ancient. So ferocious. “My queen. My jewel of jewels, what torments you? Let me know its name so that I may destroy it.”

“They tried to break me,” I whisper. “Body and mind, I am torn apart.”

“Never. Not in this life nor in any other did you succumb. You said as much yourself.”

“But it hurts so terribly,” I whisper.

“You are queen of the darkest beasts. It was always going to hurt. But you are stronger than you know and more powerful than even your enemies know. Get up.”

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