Page 147 of Her Tortured Beasts

Someone gasps.

I don’t turn around. I refuse.

Instead, I grab onto Stacey’s hand and she clutches onto mine with both of hers as the dragging sound gets closer.

The reek of blood hits my nose, along with Xander’s volcanic scent. My right leg starts to tremble and Savage growls softly, caressing me with his thumbs.

My heart pounds faster and faster, and still, I don’t turn around. Scythe lights a cigarette and blows smoke into the air.

When Xander’s giant, naked form appears in my periphery, I still don’t turn around, do not look at what he’s brought with him. He rounds my chair and comes to stand before me, forcing me to look at him, but not at what he’s dragging. His hair is neatly tied back, and his eyes glimmer with pleasure. There are also multiple bullets lodged in his torso.

Stacey makes a strangled sound, and Sabrina covers her mouth.

“Is that a cock ring?” someone in the audience asks in a hushed voice.

“It’s fucking solid gold,” someone replies. “Is he semi hard or is that?—”

Someone shushes them.

When Xander speaks, his voice is soft, almost intimate. “An offering to you, Aurelia. And the academy.”

He gestures at the thing on the floor. But in his other hand, he’s holding a drawstring bag and the handle of a large square box covered in a black cloth. This he sets down on the stage. My heart freezes in recognition.

Only then do I look down to see Xander’s offering.

There is no head on the body, but the deceased wears a starched white suit. Xander removes the black cloth from the box on stage.

Stacey, Sabrina and Minnie leap to their feet at the same time, shouting in shock and alarm.

Instead of the expected nimpins in the carbon monoxide chamber, the severed head of Damien Agnis sits in there, pale in death, eyes open as if in shock.

Xander opens his drawstring bag and five nimpins zip out. I cover a sob as Henry, shrieking and squeaking in paragraphs, bolts towards me like a bullet. He smacks into my chest, vibrating as I gather him up.

The others are doing the same with their nimpins, Stacey sobbing fat wet drops onto her orange nimpin, Sabrina consoling Raquel and Connor’s green and pink nimpins and Minnie crying over Gertie.

“Henry,” I whisper, cuddling him to my cheek. He chirps his version of my name. My ball of soft blue fur rubs himself against my skin as if he can bury himself into me and never be kidnapped again. I pull him away from me to look at him, holding him in both my palms, his massive liquid black orb eyes blinking at me with a million different emotions. “I’m never letting you go, ever again.”

He chirps in happiness and I hold him to my chest, where he buries his face with a big sigh. Finally, I look back at Xander, and am surprised to see his lips curved into a small, pleased smile. He seems to shake himself the second my attention is back on him, however, before swinging himself onto the stage. There is something about the way he does it that makes me stare, though. A small wince is the only sign he gives of pain as his body curves and rises to standing despite the bullets. I push that aside as Xander comes to stand at the lectern.

The last time he stood at a lectern was at the kangaroo court that condemned Sabrina and me for stealing Titus’ laptop. He’d passed judgement on us then, and now it’s our job to pass judgement upon him.

How the tables turn.

My friends calm down enough to settle their nimpins and move their gazes to Xander. The dragon holds the sides of the lectern as if bracing himself, the corded muscles of his arms bulging. When he speaks, it’s directly to me, glowing eyes serious and firm.

“I am one of the worst people you will ever meet. I’ve done reprehensible things. Hurt people. Killed people. Some who didn’t deserve it, some who did.” He gestures to Damien’s body and head beneath him. “But…” He clears his throat. “But the worst thing I did, by far, the thing that condemns me the most, is—” He casts his eyes down as his Adam’s apple bobs. My chest grows tight. Xander takes a deep breath. “Is the fact that I made my regina bleed and severed our bond.”

I thought I knew everything there was to know about Xander Drakos. I’d spent every day for months with him, watching him and his family. But the one thing I didn’t know was that when Xander cries, he cries blood. A crimson drop tracks down from his right eye, trailing down his cheek. Henry coos softly into my chest as my own vision blurs and that crucial part of me criesout. The urge to shift into the safety of feathers and claws is strong, but I push it aside as Xander fixes his attention onto me.

“It doesn’t matter how much I repent for this,” he stresses. “Nothing I do willeverrepay what I did. Nothing will ever make up, ever heal, ever resolve this. I will always be a walking, dead beast.” Stacey is quietly crying next to me, and I think Sabrina is too, as she holds Minnie in her arms. “Aurelia,” Xander says. My hands tremble. “I am sorry for what I did to you. You were the best part of me. Kind and strong.” He grimaces and his voice wavers. “Andgood. And I couldn’t let myself have that. I didn’t know what to do with that. So I broke it.” He shakes his head, his voice strong once again. “I won’t ask for death; I don’t even deserve that. I don’t deserve the dirt from your shoe.” His eyes bore into mine, and he breathes as if in pain. A fine sheet of sweat coats his forehead. “There is only one thing I will not accept. I won’t accept it if you send me away. Ineedto be near you. Scenting you hurts me, but I still crave it with everything I am. I crave your voice in my ears, your beautiful gaze on me.” He puts his hand over his heart, leaning over the lectern, his voice almost desperate. “Ineedto protect you, and I pledge to do it, body and what’s left of my soul. Anyone who comes after you will meet a bloody, violent end. Even if it is my own family.”

A thousand emotions pummel through me as a chill runs down my spine at the intensity of his voice. I have no doubt in my mind that he means every word he speaks.

Xander leans back from the lectern, stepping away and letting his hands drop from his heart. Then he leaps down from the stage and kneels before me, his hands resting in his lap. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I will beg for everything else. I beg you to let me stay.”

The room is silent. No one claps. I think everyone is far too shocked. Maybe their chests feel hollow, like mine does. Maybe their beasts are screaming in maddening protest too. I tear mygaze from Xander’s and look at Minnie. Sabrina has her arms around my best friend, holding her together as Minnie trembles, her mouth parted in distress. Gertie, her nimpin, huddles against her neck, quietly chirping reassurance in her ear. Both of them had lost their mates. What right do I have to deny a living one who clearly repents?

“His guilt does not absolve him, regina.”Scythe’s voice is firm in my head.“These are pretty words.”

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