Page 92 of Her Tortured Beasts

I let the dragon’s heart go and nose dive for Delilah, who’s shrieking in terror as she plummets, her two plaits streaming upwards. She reaches a hand out for me and my claws close around her forearm. Completely taking on her weight, I madly beat my wings, whipping out my telekinesis to keep us both aloft.

We’re so high off the ground that Drakos Estate looks tiny beneath us. I descend rapidly, letting Delilah’s weight pull us down and sweeping my wings to regulate our speed.

A heaving choked sound comes from somewhere in the distance, followed by a thump, and I know that the white dragon has fallen outside the estate somewhere. I turn around to look and see a bomb-sized dust cloud and a massive body scrambling to take flight once again. This time, away from us.

I’d been too distracted on the way up, but entering the estate from the top, I feel it when we pass through the aerial protections of Drakos Estate. It has a dome just like the one at Animus Academy. How, then, did this enemy dragon get through?

I glance behind us again, and the dragon is speeding away into the distance.

It’s not until we’re in line with the lower turrets of the castle that I sigh in relief, my heart banging against my ribs. Delilah sobs beneath me, clutching onto my legs like the lifeline they are.

Selena, along with about a dozen servants, sprint towards us. “Oh, Wild Goddess!” Selena cries. When we’re low enough that Delilah’s legs skim the grass, she tumbles out of my grip and straightens before breaking into a sprint. I land on the grass and watch the little girl safe in her mother’s arms. They both sob, clutching on to each other.

My heart pounds with adrenaline, my wings wanting to take flight again. That had been close. Way too close. Who the hell was trying to steal Drakos hatchlings? It had to be in some kind of retaliation for the events of the past weeks.

After a moment, Selena wipes her eyes and catches mine. “If it weren’t for you, Lia, he would’ve taken her! He would’ve taken her!”

I stand there in eagle form, panting, staring at them at all.

In my furore, my question comes out in a scream, directed at Selena via telepathy.“Why didn’t you shift?”

She blinks at me.

“Selena, why didn’t you shift?”

In the quietest voice, she says. “I’m not permitted to.”

I stare at her in a mixture of horror and disbelief.

A shadow appears to the side and I look up to see Xander’s towering form, standing frozen in shock, staring at me with empty eye sockets and obsidian shackles.

Chapter 51

Xander

Creep — Radiohead

Ithought I knew all the agonies a person could suffer.

But I was so incredibly wrong.

Because listening from a high window as my niece was being stolen by another dragon, while I was pathetically helpless to stop it, is a new level of pain. My power had been taken away from me, and with it, my autonomy. My authority.

For seemingly eternal moments, I listen to the aftermath. Spawn remains in eagle form, mahogany feathers rustling in the breeze as adrenaline courses through her body and she remains alert for further enemies. Her lungs inflate with air, her beak remains slightly open as her breath sucks in and out.

And somehow, I can just tell that those blue eyes are accusingly staring me down.

You did nothing, she’s thinking.It was me who saved her.

While Emmerson is secured inside, Delilah remains in my sister’s arms, where she’s being squeezed hard but doesn’t care as she sniffs and blubbers her misery.

“Get inside,” I command my sister. The pale dragon might have fled, but there was still a chance he could return.

Sissy’s head snaps up at my words like she’s suddenly remembered we’re still out in the open and she bundles Delilah up and hurries inside. I hardly know why I do it—habit, perhaps—but I flick my wrist and that old golden chain finds its place on Spawn’s collar.

Without another word, I head inside after Sissy and Delilah.

The protections around Drakos Estate are ancient, fortified monthly by my father and again by me when I arrived. There’s no way any dragon could have silently breached the area at all, let alone without me knowing. There is only one explanation.

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