Page 163 of Her Tortured Beasts

There’s only one language my mates will understand right now. Gentle Aurelia is of no use here. I get to my feet, hopping up to protect my leg. I hobble up to Scythe and grab a fistful of his shirt, pulling his face down towards my snarling one. Nose to nose, I hiss. “He gave me mercy when I needed it most, Scythe Kharkorous, and that’s what counts. Stand. Down.”

I let him go, and he straightens, studying me. “Scythe Boneweaver,” his shark says.

“What?” I snap.

“I have claimed you, regina, I am Scythe Boneweaver.”

It’s not easy to glare at someone when you’re craning your neck to look at them, but I manage it. “We’re not married.”

“Not yet.”

Annoyed, I whirl around and hobble up to Lyle, shoving him in the chest. “Enough, lion.”

He lowers his hand, albeit begrudgingly. “As you wish, regina.” Savage is next, frowning deeply at Xander and refusing to look at me. I force his face to turn, but his eyes stubbornly strain away from me. I kiss him on his snarling mouth. “Stop, my love.”

His whole body seems to relax and his shoulders sag when he sighs, “Yes, regina.”

I turn to Xander and carefully kneel again, recommencing my healing, one body part at a time.

It’s well past sunrise by the time I finish, but I’m not tired. My mates won’t leave my side but can’t watch as I work. Once the last students stream into the dining hall for breakfast, I levitate Xander to waist height and head back to our dorm. There’s no one else to see us climb up to the top floor, and even my matesstay outside as I drop Xander onto his bed. Henry wakes up from where he’s sleeping cuddled against Eugene and he chirps in greeting as I go to the sink and get a bowl of water and washcloths. I get the two of them their own bowl, setting it on the shower floor where Henry happily plonks himself in and shoots water out of his beak.

Xander’s eyes are closed as I dip the washcloth into the water and begin cleaning the crusty blood off his face. His brow is furrowed, but I smooth those lines away and find that his face is, luckily, back to its normal handsome, if arrogant, state.

His eyes remain closed as I work my way down his body and still when I change the crimson water twice over. It’s not until I get to his lower stomach that I hesitate. His cock is thankfully the only part of him not covered in blood, and there’s no damage to it. But I can’t help but glance at the golden cock ring he wears at the base.

“Pretty sure Savage thought about ripping that off a few times,” Xander muses. I turn to see him watching me staring at his now semi-hard dick. “I’ve seen him do it before.”

My cheeks flush.“Luckily, he didn’t. You, unfortunately, can’t shift into a starfish and grow one back.”

Xander is silent at that, simply gazing at me.

I can’t read his gaze, so I settle on avoiding it and washing his legs. “I think you did this better than me,” I say quietly.

“I was…thorough.”

He shifts and his cock lengthens. “Did you see what it says?”

“What?”

“My cock ring.”

I raise my brows at him. “What does it say?”

“Take a look,” he says gently.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I shuffle up the bed and peer at the base of Xander’s cock where ink dark curls are cropped close to his skin.

He may have listened when I told him to remove the slave collar from his neck, but he’s only put it on a place no one else could see. The collar sits at the base of his dick now, the same words, PROPERTY OF AURELIA BONEWEAVER, etched along its golden surface, just in miniature.

I’m struggling to breathe.

“I won’t touch you unless you tell me to, Aurelia,” Xander says. “ But I want you to know that it’s yours. I want you to claim it.”

I can only stare at him, my body heating with each passing second. His voice, his offer, eliciting something new in my core.

Xander drops his voice. “The power you have over me is something I crave.” He licks his lips. “I…miss you, when you’re not near me.”

The taut expanse of his body, his masculine perfection, offered to me, almost in the same way he used to offer me food in his dragon’s lair. I suck in a breath. “Are you still in pain?”

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