Chapter 52
Xander
Only Time – Enya
Aurelia’s midnight stalking turned out to be an utter joke. We return to the academy right behind her, at which point Savage meets her in the bedroom and I get to watch him spread her legs and devour her.
I lie a little way from them, on the single bed under the window, one hand in my pocket, gripping her red thong. She has many like it, I’ve learned, the lacy, frilly type, and in many different colours. There’s just something about the red that sends my organs racing. My cock twitches, but I don’t give in to the urge, rolling over to give them space. Aurelia lets out a breathy moan, and I close my eyes. She and Ghoul were…getting to know each other in the worst possible way. From afar. Where the yearning grows more strongly. I would know, after all, having kept her at arm’s length myself for so long. Before I knew it, the obsession grew, and I became addicted to watching her.
We know little about the giant worm except that he came into contact with Mace a very long time ago. Whatever memory-dreams Lia is having is only drawing her closer to him. I don’tlike this. Not with our real enemy. Not when Ghoul is as close to her father as he is. Adailyconsultant. Adailyweapon. Sworn to him, body and soul as all his generals are.
And she’s thinking about him almost as much as I think about her.
During the day, Aurelia is pensive.
There has been something ineffable about her since we were all reunited. There has always been something otherworldly about Aurelia Boneweaver, but now, in her full power and short only one mate, she is more alluring, and more mysterious than ever. I’m sure it draws in the basilisk too. How much he is resisting her I can’t even be sure, but it’s not as if they’re sneaking off on a tryst. They’re both holding back.
Any time I think I’m ready to ask her directly about her dreams, she seems more closed off than ever. There’s a strain to her shoulders, and a pain in her eyes I cannot unravel. And that assaults me the most. All I can do is ply her with electrolytes and make sure her physical needs are met. I catch her taking paracetamol that afternoon, and she smiles bashfully. “It’s just my neck.”
It’s not her neck, and we both know it. I wander close to her, enjoying her scent as I brush my fingers across the bare skin of her thigh, sending my healing through to her tired muscles and bones. She sighs, eyelids fluttering shut like the wings of a butterfly. I’m drawn in and I catch myself leaning down as she melts backwards into me. My lips find her shoulders, and one of her arms reaches around, burying her fingers in my hair.
It’s the small sound she makes at the back of her throat that does it. I grab her face and invade her mouth with my tongue.She moans into me and then we’re tearing at each other’s clothes. My shirt comes off, and I wrench at her blouse. My pants pool at my ankles, and she hikes her own skirt up. Before I know it, her hand is around my rock-hard cock, and she’s guiding me into her dripping pussy.
She slides back onto me, arching her back, crying out and clutching onto the dining room table. “Xander!” she cries.
I seize her around the waist and fuck her. “My treasure,” I growl over her mouth. “Tell me how much you need me. Tell me how much you love my cock in you.” She moans loudly in bliss, and I don’t realise how much I needed to, but I’ve been fantasising about this for days. I bury my nose in her hair as her sounds and scent invade my mind and demand that my body comes deep into her.
“Yes!” she cries with approval, and I empty my balls into her heat in stuttering thrusts of my hips. She takes me wholeheartedly, her gripping hands and dripping pussy telling me how much she wanted me too. When we’re done, I take her to the bath and clean her up like I did one time so long ago when I’d been half out of my mind. But this time, I’m completely focused on her and what she has come to mean to me. She accepts my care with a soft, knowing smile,thistime allowed to enjoy my wandering hands. I dry her off and apply moisturiser on her face and body. Lyle won’t let anyone else dry her hair, so I let him take over for that.
This time, when Aurelia goes out as per her new stalking habit, Savage and I find her following a convoy of electric serpent trucks in the far outskirts of suburbia. They are silent and purposeful in the way of a seasoned military operation. Ghoul is definitely in one of them because I see an oversized boot sticking out one of the windows, followed by clouds of white smoke. I keep my distance because I just know Lia will sense me if I get too close.
Our destination makes itself known. Like a diadem in the dark trove of some old, cranky beast, the warehouse appears, illuminated by high, blaring white floodlights. It’s brand new, and the convoy of vehicles heads up to the gate where they are stopped and checked before proceeding onto the property beyond.
“There’s something important in there,”Savage says unnecessarily.“Do you think that’s the new venom factory?”
“It doesn’t feel the same,”I say, making a wide berth around the place.
Power crackles over it, much in the same manner as Animus Academy’s protective dome, except I don’t think it’ll ignore me in the same way. My heart pounds as Aurelia’s eagle body swoops perilously close to the dome. But she’s smart enough to stay in the shadows, away from the sizzle and the powerful lights. Mace Naga has learnt a thing or two about protecting his goods. No doubt my father had lent a hand in that.
“We need to find out what’s in there,”Savage says.
“Even the hyena matriarch didn’t know,”I say.“But there’s got to be another way.”
Aurelia circles around the facility a few times, and I remain high above, monitoring her movements. When it becomes clear Ghoul isn’t leaving anytime soon, she decides to leave, heading southward towards the academy. But something strange happens not five minutes into our trip back.
She disappears.
Savage gasps. Both of our eyes are keen in the dark, mine even more than Savage’s, and we don’t take our eyes off her when we’re following. One moment, her mahogany wings are sweeping powerfully along the currents, and the next second, the night swallows her into nothingness. On high alert, I search the night, but there is no sign of wings nor feathers. It’s not likeher invisibility shield; my magical eyes don’t see her heat signal either.
“Where is she?”I snap at Savage.
“She’s here,”he replies more calmly than I.“I can feel her.”
Those words gnaw at me like teeth on bone because I don’t feel our regina in the same way the others can. I feel her power, but that inherent, ever-present soul tug Savage has is only a ghost to me. I know it’s there, but it slips beyond my grasp. And that’s entirely my fault. But Savage’s words slow my heart all the same, to know she hasn’t just blinked out of existence.
“There!”Savage shouts into my mind. Far ahead, moonlight glints silver on eagle wings, and I speed up to see her better. At the tips of my regina’s feathers, a black smoke lingers before evaporating. Savage mutters under his breath.
Well, well, well,”I say.“I wonder what Ghoul is going to have to say about that.”
