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No Generative AI was used in the creation of this book
Hollow bones and feathered skin burn like acid and I change again. Bones crunch, ligaments stretch. Then a third time. Then a fourth.
I can see my neck—where my new mating mark burns with the light of the stars and the moon. A skull with five beams of light. The sacred connection between me and my mates by destiny. The sun never really rises again for me.
She takes my hand in her red-nailed ones and frowns with delicate brows. “What is your anima, my dear?” My voice is rough from a night spent smothering my sobs. “I am forbidden to say.”
“Five devils are approaching. Five black hearts are wanting. It is five who cry a dark and lonely song, calling for their queen. Lion, shark, dragon, wolf and…shadow.” My stomach lurches into my throat. “Five mates?” I croak. “Are you sure?”
“Dear girl, I wish you luck. Two are already in prison…but somehow that is the least of your worries.”
“You are no longer princess of the Serpent Court, sweet child. You are no longer a member of the Naga household. You will live the rest of your life as an eagle, like your mother before you.” “But other families keep children of different orders in their houses!” I exclaim. “Why can’t—”
The fact that I can make shields like this at all shouldn’t be possible, but there you go. I’m a prized sow, and therefore, I can’t be found. If anyone finds out what I am, I’ll be sent to a breeding pen and be forced to make more pups just like me.
But I pull on the shirt anyway because Aurelia is nearby and I want to look nice when we finally reunite.
Aurelia needs to die. She’s a danger to me, my brothers and everything we’ve worked for. And if her dad wants to be the one to do it, then by the Old Laws, he has the right to.
“Lee-uh,” Savage calls softly. His voice is like a sweet caress down my naked spine and suddenly I’m as still as a deer, my muscles quivering in anticipation. My anima writhes under my skin, pining for the one who hunts me. The one I’ve already had inside my body.
“I’ll get you, Lia!” Savage roars from behind me, pounding his fists against my shield. “You’re fucking mine!”
“If anyone hurts my chicken, they’re fucking dead! Hear me? Fucking dead!”
What does fetid even mean? It sounds like an STD, and the thought sends me growling.
“He’s rabid,” mutters one of the retrieval mutts. “Nah,” says Ruben, before he shoves a cloth sack with a breathing mesh over my head, “just mad.” I’m still laughing as they begin strapping me, upright, to the wheeled gurney with more heavy metal chains. By the time they’re done, Xander and I are covered neck to toe in obsidian with not an inch left to wriggle. Hannibal Lecter, my personal god, has nothing on us. As they wheel me to my own vehicle, I squeal a high-pitched, “Weeeee!”
Almost against my will, my head swings up to find Savage’s perfectly handsome head, cocked and looking down at me with a very inspired dazzle in his eyes. My eyes snap into a narrow-eyed look that screams, ‘Don’t you fucking dare’. He promptly ignores it and his eyes flash at the challenge a single second before he leaps for me. I barely have time to let go of Minnie’s hand before we crash onto the turf with a thump. “My regina!” Savage bellows in a tangle of chains and limbs. “This is my regina!”
One pair is yellow with the face of a familiar character and I immediately pocket it because she’ll have no man’s face on her underwear, even if it’s a cartoon sea sponge.
He’s not happy with what I’m saying yet again, and just replies, “Why did you try to escape yesterday, Miss Aquinas? Do you have no common sense?” The nerve of this man. “Common sense is exactly what had me trying to leave.” I really shouldn’t have said that because that piques his interest and he says, “What do you mean by that?”
“You shouldn’t have bothered,” he goes on in a low voice. “There is nowhere on this wild earth you could hide from me.”
Savage is frowning in disbelief. “Did she just regina-order me?” I snarl, “Yes, and your little bitch-ass complied.”
But no, my regina wants to play, and it’s completely out of my conscious control when I cross my arms to push my tits up and purr, “But you were such a good boy.”
There is electricity between us and I think it’s going to ruin me. I clench my teeth to steel myself. “He’s a nice guy, Savage. Unlike you lot, he’s always been kind to me.” Savage roars and shoves me backwards into the bars of the door. Slamming his hands on either side of me, he leans down to snarl in my ear. “I own you, Lia. You are my regina, you are my possession. Do you understand me?”
I thought Lyle would have tried to investigate my stolen underwear, but turns out he didn’t care about it as much as I thought, so I still have to wait until tomorrow night to buy some more.
The nimpins start clucking with worry. “We need to go!” Raquel hisses. “Let them come,” Sabrina says breezily. “I like the look of one of the wolves.” I nod stiffly. “You guys are crazy,” Connor whispers. “I fucking love it.”
There’s a tiny piece of paper lodged under the snake’s severed head. Written in blood is a single line of text. You were always mine first, Aurelia “W-Well, I know it’s not Savage.” Minnie gulps. “He can’t write properly.”
But he sets the little teal bag on the chest of drawers next to me and says, “We endured pain, Regina. We endured suffering to meet you, at this time, in this place. And you think that I would let you slip away from me at the last moment? You think that I would allow you to turn me away? You have no right, Regina. None. Not when our union was determined before you were born, when the universe was still young and I breathed the light of the first stars.”
“Not when I see in you something magnificent and bright and brilliant. Just like I saw that first time. The man I am cannot see it because he will not allow himself more pain. But he did not fall in his final hour and neither will you. Command me. I am your general of war. Let me lead us into blood and fire and then we will make love on the ashes of our enemies.” Holy shit. Something inside of me rears its bestial head.
But when I say nothing, he huffs and straightens. “Because you are mine, you will wear my gifts.”
