Page 169 of Her Tortured Beasts

“I didn’t realise you knew so much about my family,” Xander says to Marduk. He’s on his feet already, pacing the room.

“If the council knows about it, I know about it,” Marduk replies coolly. “What will you do?”

Xander runs his hands through his hair as Savage helps me to my feet. I wipe the panicked sweat off my forehead. “This is my fault,” I say. “I…tampered with her entire supply of medicine. I thought it was making her sick.”

Xander stops his pacing to stare at me. I can see his golden eyes shift as he remembers how Lady Drakos always asked me to prepare her medicine. How she’d always asked me specifically, and I’d never questioned it. Finally, that day when we’d cooked together in the Drakos kitchen, when she’d shown me the entire supply, and hadn’t stopped me when my power flared outward.

As if that’s exactly what she’d wanted.

Lady Drakos may have been delirious and drugged, but somewhere inside of her, she’d known what I was capable of. That I might be the one to free her from the slump her mind had forced to endure.

But at what cost?

Xander finally shakes his head, his eyes dull. “Itwasmaking her sick. That’s how the potion works. But it doesn’t matter now, Aurelia. This is a long time coming. I…” He looks at me, his eyes flashing with leashed emotion, telling me what his mouth won’t.

So I give him what he needs. “You should go,” I say. “Go now. And quickly.”

He takes a single step towards me before seeming to think better of it and grinding his teeth as he turns on his heel.

We all watch Xander leave with a dead sort of feeling. Then we hear him as the top of the dorm shudders under his shifted weight. And then there’s silence, that mighty presence now launched into the sky, back to where he came from.

I feel bereft now. Feel a niggling, nagging feeling inside my heart. Savage is frowning at the ceiling; Scythe has stopped breathing.

Then Marduk, bearing that strange wisdom that comes from a beast weaned into the underworld, says, “You all know this is a trap for him, right?”

Chapter 95

Xander

What Could Have Been – Sting ft Ray Chen

The castle is dark as I arrive, only flickering candles lighting the entrance hall, as if the estate is already in mourning.

The thought lights a fire in my arteries and twists my face into a snarl as I ascend the stairs and charge through the corridors.

One of the maids shrieks and drops her bundle of linen as she sees me coming. I step over the tumble of sheets and continue to my mother’s room.

To my continued annoyance, it’s Francesca who stomps out of the room to greet me.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she grouches.

“Get out of my way,” I snarl.

She stands her ground, crossing her arms, an ugly twist to her mouth. “This is no longer your home.”

I lean down and get into her face. “It never fucking was. And you were never my fucking wife.”

Her face, that I’d once thought was beautiful, now turns horrendous as her power flares like knives about her.

“If you keep me from my mother, I will kill you.”

“It’s alright, Francesca.” My father’s drawl carries a dark weight tonight, and it makes my dragon bristle. “Let him in.”

I stare at her hard as she steps aside, her head still somehow tilted in an arrogant manner.

They all stand in my mother’s room, three male dragons: my father, Fabian, and Ragnar. I hate the fact that they’re in her private space, watching her like some performance as her night gown rides up her legs.

My mother pants, sweat pouring off her as she snarls softly. Her head whips towards me as I appear and she frowns, baring her teeth. I wonder if she can see me.

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