Page 69 of Her Tortured Beasts

I can’t imagine the disaster that would result if I walked around the castle with the scent of Xander’s cum all over me. His father might get a kick out of it, but Francesca?

She’d likely roast me alive.

Once I’m out and Xander has had his turn, I self-consciously tug the sleeves of my dress in place and turn around to accept the leash.

But he’s not standing anywhere near me.

“Not today,” Xander says, sneering not at me but at the door. “Today it stays in its cage.”

I bet he can’t look at me because he’ll be turned on again…but I can’t go back to that cage. I just…can’t.

“Please,” I grit out, hating myself for the tremble in my voice. “Don’t put me back in there.”

“Get inside your cage, Spawn.” His voice is pure cold, hard malice. The complete opposite to the gentle moans that had filled my ears like a lullaby last night.

Heather tries to usher me into the cage, but I stand my ground as heat and anger rise within me. Eugene presses his invisible self against my leg.

“You know, I didn’t see it before,” I say with disgust. “But until I saw you sit by and do absolutelynothingwhile your sister was hurt by that monster you call your father—” Xander’s massive shoulders stiffen. “You’re not a monster at all, Xander Drakos. You’re worse. You’re a fucking coward.”

His telekinesis shoves me backwards and I hit the bars at the top of the cage door. Pain explodes across my back and I fold forward, allowing myself to be stuffed inside the cage like a roast turkey.

The cage door slams shut and locks itself before Xander and the human servants leave. I cover my mouth to hold back the sobs, screwing my eyes shut to try to control myself. That bastard would be able to hear me all the way down the corridor and I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.

Instead, I hold it together all of thirty seconds before that cry of frustration that had been building up in me since yesterday morning finally lets itself out. I scream at the bars, shaking them until I think my arms are going to come out of their sockets.

Eugene flaps his wings in protest, brushing cold air over my face and squawking his alarm.

“I can’t fucking do this, Eugene,” I sob, covering my face as he climbs into my lap and I thud down onto my ass, holding him close. “The humiliation of it. The rest of it I was ready for, but toting me out in front of those awful creatures…” I shake my head. Back and forth. Back and forth. “He’s truly a different person now. So,somuch worse than before. He didn’t even feel sorry about trapping Raquel.” Leaning back into bars behind me, I let the tears flow.

Worse still, I’m confused about last night. When I’d woken to a movement next to me, it had hardly felt real. I was tired, in pain and miserable, just woken from one of his memories as a teenager. And then he’d reached for me with soft hands and I’d crumbled.

Crumbledlike an old, weatherbeaten statue, too fragile to hold itself together any more. I missed my mates and that heinous soul-wound had ached a little less by the masculine touch. Shame fills me now, the memory of how it felt on my skin, my mouth, my pussy.

I whimper and immediately get angry at myself.

“Fuck this,” I say. “What if we just went home?”

Eugene lets out a sad cluck as if he wholeheartedly agrees.

“But we can’t,” I explain. “We’re here to protect our friends. To keep my father’s fangs away from those I love. And Damien will probably kill Henry and the nimpins in retaliation. Flores will kill Raquel. We’ll have to figure out a way to rescue them.”

Eugene lets out an angry sound at that.

I mumble to Eugene for a few minutes before I see a shadow flicker under the door. My immediate thought is of Ghoul, but I scratch that as the larger shadow is accompanied by a smaller one, then another.

There’s a giggle at the door as the whoosh of the dragon-lock deactivates. It slams open and the two hatchlings charge through the door.

“We’re on a mission, Lia!” Emmerson skids to a stop in front of my cage just as his sister and Selena quickly enter. The dragoness shuts the door behind them and I sit up, suddenly on alert.

Selena is pale this morning, no doubt from an awful night in the tower she was locked in. She’s freshly showered and scrubbed clean, and nothing would look out of place except for the faint red mark around her neck that only my eagle eyes can see. There is also a dark gleam in her eye as she sets sights upon my cage.

“Lia is in a cage!” Emmerson chuckles. “Why are you in a cage, Lia?”

“Yeah, why are you in a cage?” Delilah parrots. Then she wrinkles her nose. “It’s way too small for you.”

“People don’t belong in cages,” Selena says quietly.

I regard her carefully. “Or towers.”

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