Page 162 of Her Tortured Beasts

She stifles a beautiful gasp as the sound of cartilage crunching explodes in the air and a dragon rises up in place of a human. My big head and golden eyes are in line with her as I stand before the wall. I step forward slowly to show her I mean no harm, and to rest the edge of my muzzle on her knees gently. There’s no weight on her, only touch, only warmth and my power seeping into her tired bones.

Blue eyes glisten by the light of my own and I know I take that deep-ache away from her injured leg. I scent her, nostrils flaring, my inhale so mighty that it sounds like a gale. She smells like sun and sky, like summer and a cool mountain spring.

She raises her hand and my heart leaps. Tentatively, she reaches out and rests her hand on my snout. I want to leap into the sky and roar in triumph. Instead, I close my eyes, so the only thing I feel is her.

“None of this should have happened, you know,” she says. “None of this is the way it should be,” she sighs. “I suppose it’s useless to think about that.”

No, it would be better to burn everything to ash.

On the top floor of the animus dorm, there comes the sound of three furious snarls. Aurelia straightens as no doubt three voices in her head demand to know where she is. I remove my head from her lap, missing the touch immediately. Grunting in annoyance, I shift back, flinging myself upward at the last second to land on the wall. Giving my clothes a moment ofthought, I push them to the side and sit down, this time facing the academy.

It takes the three predators all of sixty seconds to sprint across the academy grounds towards us and I tense my abs a second before I’m brutally wrenched off the wall.

Chapter 93

Aurelia

“You don’t get alone time with her,” Lyle snarls, shoving Xander flat on his back and punching him in the nose. There’s a sickening crunch. “You haven’tearnedthe right.” Lyle punches him again on the same spot.

Naked and bloody, Xander does nothing. I stand on the wall and cry, “Stop!”

Xander raises a hand as if to stop me. “It’s past time, Aurelia,” he says in a nasally voice. “Let them have at it.”

My three mates set upon him.

I’ve seen brutal fights in my time. Awful, bloody matches where participants edge near the threshold of death.

But this? This is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s not only brutal and bloody, it’s as if I’m watching three rabid monsters let go of all inhibitions and tear into a piece of meat. They pummel Xander like they hate him. Like they want to follow him into hell and destroy his soul. It makes my heart bleed; it makes me see stars, but I don’t look away.

Even when Lyle breaks Xander’s right thigh bone, right in the middle.

Even when Scythe wrenches both arms out of their sockets.

Even when Savage sinks his teeth into Xander’s gut and shakes him like a ragdoll.

Xander’s face and body resembles something closer to an open jar of jam. There is blind rage in their eyes and they don’t look like they’re going to stop.

Xander is no longer responding with grunts and groans. He is silent. His breath nothing but a wet and raspy wheeze.

“Enough,” I say.

They don’t, or can’t, hear me. They continue as if I’d said nothing. The regina in me flares in anger, and I pull off my chemise and shift into an eagle, coming to land just behind them before shifting back.

There’s power behind my voice as I scream,“Enough!”

My three mates pause, Lyle’s clenched fist is raised and trembling as he stares daggers at Xander’s body, no part of him left unmaimed. Savage and Scythe heave with breath, but vibrate with rage.

They’re trying to fight the regina command. Not on my fucking watch.

I shoulder past Savage and Scythe and cover Xander’s body with mine. I look up at my three mates, their faces contorted with violence so profound it makes me shiver to be under it.

It’s truly terrifying to be on the receiving end of those expressions of utter primal fury, but I know it’s not directed at me, but past me to the beast who’d wronged them so badly.

“Enough,” I urge.

Xander coughs beneath me, a drowning, heaving sound. I turn to him and send healing through to his shattered nose and throat. His eyes flutter open and I realise he’s still completely conscious. He says something, but through his broken jaw and damaged vocal cords, I can’t make it out.

“You ask for mercy, regina,” Scythe says, his shark in full control. “But when did this beast ever show you any?”

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