During the dark of night, we reach the new world, and it feels so different from my old one. The air is dry and cold. There are so many automobiles, so many new sounds and wondrous scents. But I pick up on these things, and I pick them up quickly. I want to learn. I want to be free. My king promised me a warm place to stay with a real bed and a television and he delivers it with a smile in his voice.
The small house is at the back of a big property, with big trees standing like protectors beside it, their leaves like friends.It seems new, the smell of new paint and fresh lemons inside. “You’ll live here,” the serpent king says. “You’ll be safe and cared for while you learn your skills.”
By the time I leave this house and am unleashed on the world, it becomes corrupted by my power. The beams begin to splinter under my shadows, the windows cracking under the strain. And during one errant shift, my tail lashes a hole in the ceiling. My clumsy attempt to patch it up means that every time it rains, it leaks.
It’s years before I return to this place, and when I do, someone else is dwelling in it.
Chapter 46
Aurelia
Iwake up with a start, tangled within four sets of naked limbs, the last image of the dream burned into my mind’s eye making my heart pound at a thousand miles an hour.
That dream. My bungalow.
Sharp awareness roils through my veins at the realisation that this changes everything. And yet somehow it changes nothing at all.
My bungalow had originally been Ghoul’s house.
My father had brought him there from a land so far away I don’t know how much more of it he remembers. When his powers had come in, he’d likely not known how to control them and had done great damage, forcing his family to isolate him.
Ghoul had been alone from the beginning. Had been the only basilisk anyone knew from the start. He had been just like me. When Ghoul arrived in town, I would have still been living at Naga House. Still going to school, living a normal life. My mind flashes back to the night of the fake engagement party and the basilisk lord’s possessive arm around me as we walked into Naga mansion together. The strange feeling I’d had in the depths of my being. That feeling of another life, another time. Anotherpossibility. The unexpected ache in my heart makes guilt slide through me.
Scythe sits bolt upright, Savage not a moment after. “Your breathing,” Scythe says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Regina, was it a bad dream?”
Savage’s hands find my skin too as I look at my shark. He searches my gaze and seems to understand, like he always does, that this dream wasn’t a dream. I reach for him, banding an arm around his neck, and he pulls me into himself, that perfect tattooed naked skin like a soothing haven on mine. He brushes my hair aside and grazes his lips against my mating mark. I shiver in his hold. Savage shuffles closer to warm at my back. Between the two of them, I feel more at home than I ever have anywhere else. It settles my racing heart and the sting of the knowledge I’d just received.
Ghoul’s memories are different from the others. Sharing of memories is a serpent order power, and while my dream-memories from my other mates have been clear enough, this dream bore a stark brightness to it that I can’t ignore. Doeshesee his world like that? So bright that it’s painful?
For the rest of the day, I’m quiet with my own thoughts, coming to terms with what I’d been shown. I get to see Minnie and my other animas in Raquel’s hospital room. It’s our meeting place these days, and it turns out we’re all upset. Eugene hops into Stacey’s lap, her eyes as red-rimmed as mine are. Henry returns to my shoulder, cooing his own reassurances in my ear. “Stay with me,” I whisper to him.
My little nimpin buries himself in the thick strands by my shoulder as the vision of my dream runs itself through my mind on a loop.
Alone. We’d both been alone at the start. Both vulnerable to the powers looming over us. The difference is that while mylife has changed dramatically, Ghoul is still alone. Still on the outskirts of things.
Stacey tearily tells us about her rex, Etienne. How Marduk has him tied up under the school for questioning. She brought him food under Yeti’s supervision last night, but the bastard refused to eat from her hand. Refused to even look her in the eye. She touches her healing shoulder, grimacing under the pain of it.
“He’s just ashamed, I think,” Stacey sniffs. “That he hurt me and didn’t mean to.” She swallows as we listen in earnest. “I…I don’t think I’m going to go back there tonight.”
“He said,” Sabrina says angrily, “that he wanted to go back to The Collector’s property. That the pay was good, and now he has no income. Thatweruined that for him.”
Stacey trembles, clutching onto Eugene, who looks at her with worry. “He’s just confused. It’s not the meeting either of us dreamed of.”
A single tear slips from my eye as I stare at the blank wall behind Stacey. Another follows it. A sob escapes my mouth, making Minnie’s head snap towards me. Stacey and I leap for each other, Eugene darting away just in time. I squash Stacey to my chest, and she clutches onto me so tightly my ribs creak. Minnie and Sabrina rub both our backs and we cry, loud and broken.
Half of me can’t comprehend it. Stacey’s heart had been pining for mates she’d never met, and the moment she’d met her rex, also alone, he’dshot herlike a pussy.
My little house had been my home for seven years, and I thought I had been alone. I thought it had been Charlotte’s abandoned guest house, but it had been there before Charlotte’s house had even been built. My mate had been there before anyone else. The final piece of my soul had lived there, slept in that bed, showered in that bathroom, and sat on that very same couch. I clutch onto my friends with all my might because I don’tknow what to do with any of this. How to process it. I can’t even say it out loud. How old had he been when he’d arrived there? Thirteen? Fourteen?
“Dear Wild Mother.” Except it’s not me saying it. It’s Minnie. Someone hands me tissues, and I wipe my face.
“I know why I’m crying,” Stacey asks. “But why are you crying, Lia?”
“I think it’s just everything,” Minnie says soothingly. “Isn’t it, Lia? This world is just too fucking much sometimes.”
I hear their own burdens in their voices, and it pulls me out of my misery for a moment. Standing back, I huff a breath. Maybe I should have known. Some part of me should have felt that my mate had been there. Shame creeps through me like old poison. “It’s just dumb regina things,” I say thickly. “Feeling shame about things I had no control over.”
Minnie sighs into the ceiling. “Tell me about it.”
