Page 135 of Her Tortured Beasts

Xander

Helvegen — Wardruna

Ifly towards the academy, Eugene in one of my claws while we watch over Celeste’s car as she drives through the gates. The shadow I cast is huge.

With the dome intent on keeping me out, I have no choice but to land outside the gates and shift into human form, dropping my bag onto the bitumen. The academy guards hoist up their rifles, and for some reason, Eugene sticks by me.

“What, going to use those on me?” I snap.

“S-Sorry, Mr Drakos,” calls one of Scythe’s employees. “Protocol, you know.”

“Of course I fucking know. I helped set up those protocols.”

“R-Right, sorry!” he calls again.

I quickly dress and cross my arms, glaring at the two of them until they break eye contact and shuffle closer to one another. Sighing, I turn away from them to lessen the threat. I don’t know if Celeste will meet my request. She has no obligation to, of course. I just have to rely upon the fact that she’s a good person.

Sort of in the same way Aurelia relied upon the fact that I was a bastard of a person when she asked me to help her into the hands of her own enemy. It was a risk for her to rest her plans on me because I could have stopped her at any point. I could’ve stopped Ghoul, too, if I’d wanted.

But she’d known.

Known me so well that her entire plan hinged on me being a complete asshole. I glance at my bag and what I have in it. The offer I have to make.

They make me wait, of course, and it’s hours later before Lyle, Yeti and Marduk stalk down the driveway.

The look on Marduk’s face tells me he’d happily hang me by my colon in the way he’s done to many before. He uses the colon so you have to smell your own shit before you die. Crafty asshole. But I deserve that look.

Yeti, his snow-white hair worn loose, looks like he let Minnie trim it. It’s still long but a bit uneven around the front. He’s smoking a joint and his pale blue eyes avoid mine like the plague.

Lastly, the head feline of the school vibrates as if he’s smelled an enemy and is trying to keep the lion’s chain tight in his grasp. He’s impeccable in his regular three-piece, today a stormy grey, but the tamed violence in his aura is an even darker shade.

I wonder if I should let them have at it with me. It might help my old friends feel better to draw some of my blood. I’d gladly give it to them.

They come right up to the gate, but don’t open it.

“Nice hair, Yeti,” I smirk.

“Fuck off,” he says in disgust.

I clench my teeth against the pain of that. But how can I expect any sympathy from them when their own bond-brother did the same thing to their regina?

“Your request,” Lyle says coldly, “has been accepted on one condition.”

Relief pours through my chest, a cool mountain stream. “Anything.”

“You come to her crawling.”

I barely give it thought. “Done.”

I feel the dome around the school change for me, it’s a dangerous sizzle burning down to embers.

They open one gate a fraction, and although Eugene hurries through it easily, I’m left to squeeze through it, and in the way of prisoners, stride past them to take the lead, so they can do what they want to me. They don’t of course, but a strange feeling enters my chest as I walk through the familiar grounds and down the path to the animus dorms.

Though our bond is broken, I know she’s in this dorm, waiting for me, and it’s the sole thing that makes my heart pound as I lay my hand on the glass door.

“Look who’s back,” sneers Bastien, the gargoyle above the door. “The disgraced dragon lord.” He looks down his nose at me from where he sits above the door, stick-like legs dangling down.

“That’s right,” I say evenly. “I’ve come to make amends.”

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