Page 142 of Her Tortured Beasts

“I won’t eat,” I say.

“Hunger strike, is it?” Minnie says, her binder tucked under her arm. “Let’s see how long he lasts. I’m sure we have dog kibble around here somewhere.”

I watch Aurelia collect her food, which isn’t much this morning. Toast, eggs, some blueberries, and an iced coffee. Theresa and Ronald are supervising the line, and towards the end of it, Theresa comes around and hugs Aurelia.

“We’ll talk later,” the cassowary anima says, a happy light in her grey eyes. “Minnie has requested a few things from me for this morning.”

That tigress works fast.

Theresa glances at me, a completely disturbed and unsettled look on her face that makes me feel like she wants to kick my soul out of my body.

Everyone stares as we sit down at the usual group table towards the back. Chairs have been added for Sabrina and her new mates and Minnie makes sure Aurelia takes a seat at the head of the table. Without conversing about it, I take up my spot, kneeling next to her.

“Such a good boy,” Sabrina says viciously. Having lost her own mates, she’s also taken the severing of my bond to Aurelia personally.

Because of my height, even kneeling, my head is well above the table and I get to smell everyone’s food as they eat. Savage ends up strategically sitting next to us, but Lyle’s and Scythe’s reactions interest me. Both have been caged—Lyle literally, Scythe figuratively—but he watched his mother caged for many years. It unsettles them to see me with a collar on, but notbecause they think I don’t deserve it. It’s too close to home, but they endure it because it’s what I deserve.

It only validates my need to do this.

After breakfast is finished, we leave for our first class, which is group therapy with both animas and animuses. If I thought Savage’s physical treatment was bad, it’s nothing compared to the thrashing the animas have prepared for me.

Chapter 85

Aurelia

“I’m not comfortable with this,” our male counsellor, Ryland, says as I enter the class with Xander on his golden leash.

“Well it’s a good thing nobody asked you, Ry Ry,” Savage says lightly.

Ryland’s pupils dilate as Scythe enters behind me. “Is there a problem?” my shark asks in his quiet rasp.

“N-No, Mr Kharkorous. Not at all.” Ryland purses his lips and shuffles the papers he’s holding.

Theresa is more subtle with her words, and I think a part of her thinks Xander deserves this. “There is a lot to talk about,” she says slowly, indicating that I should take my seat. I do so, and Xander silently kneels before my chair. “But I don’t want him bleeding all over the carpet. It’s not hygienic.”

“That’s fair,” Lyle says. “Heal it just enough to stop the bleeding.”

I have a good view of Xander’s back and the freely bleeding, red raw skin from his ride over the lino, stairs, and concrete. He should have stopped bleeding by now, which indicates that he’s suppressing his own healing. I wiggle the chain and Xander’smagic pulses in tiny vibrations around him, his immense power kept close to his skin to knit the bottom layer of ruined tissue.

“Right, well,” Theresa says, “Lia is back, everyone!”

“And thank fuck for that!” Sabrina cheers. Everyone claps after that and I give the circle of them a small smile.

“Howdidyou get out?” one of the more clueless jaguars asks, frowning at me. “Didn’t he have you captive—” he trails off and turns pale under the combined flat stare of Savage, Lyle and Scythe. “Sorry.”

“Lia won’t be answering any questions,” Theresa says sternly. “But I believe Minnie has a request.”

“Right!” says Minnie, jumping up and saluting Theresa like a soldier. She opens her binder and reads from it. “Xander’s first task is to give a formal apology to Lia in front of the entire school. And he has to do it naked.”

Ryland makes a choked sound but says nothing. Xander glances at me over his shoulder. “Of course.”

“Oh, and he has to cut his hair before the speech?—”

“No!” the word blurts out of my mouth without warning and I clamp my lips shut as everyone, including my mates, stares at me. I try to shrug it off casually. “What? I…like his hair.”

“Fair enough, Lia,” says Minnie kindly, then glares at Xander as if to say,‘See? She’s a better person than you’ll ever be.’

“There’s a lot of pages in that binder, Minnie,” Scythe says. “What else is in there?”

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