37. Aurelia

Chapter 37

Aurelia

W e leave Sabrina's meeting for Celeste's office. The guard handed me the red envelope, which states that the headmistress needs to see me immediately. To my surprise, Scythe glances at Lyle, Xander and Savage, and they all silently accompany me to the academy's central building and up the elevator to one of the top floors. There's an air of solemnity as we silently stand in the cramped space. Four males tower over me, the tension in the room so thick I could bite at it. I try to catch their gazes, but only Savage smiles lovingly down at me, brushing his pinky along the back of my hand.

When the metal doors slide open, we find Celeste waiting for us in the boardroom of her offices, sitting at the head of the ancient conference table.

The guard said that she had ‘awoken', though from what type of sleep that lasted weeks , I don't know. She doesn't look well rested at all. In fact, she looks more weary than I have ever seen her. She is a beautiful middle-aged woman in a light pink pant-suit. This time, her crimson hair is straight and long down her back. She wears very little makeup today, and the slightly bluish circles under her eyes stand out to me. Despite this, her power pulses as strongly as ever around her, that wave of energy all mythic orders seem to have, marking them for what they are.

I smile at her tentatively and am surprised when her own smile is strained. Practically forced. It's then that a feeling of great unease rears its head around me like a cobra's hood.

"Take a seat, Aurelia." She nods at the others and greets them by name.

"Are…you alright, Celeste?" I ask softly, hoping that it's not rude to ask. "We haven't seen you in ages."

She nods seriously. "I am sorry about that. But I have been caught up on the news." She nods to Lyle. "A Cliff's Notes version of it anyway."

I find that I am reluctant to sit, struck by a sudden coil of shadow around my heart. Unease turns into something else. It's dread, I realise. Dread is in me. Around me.

"Regina," Lyle says softly, pulling out a chair. "You need to sit."

Why? something in me screams. For what?

But I stiffly sit in the offered chair anyway, clasping my hands in my lap to stop their trembling as my senses heighten with brutal sensitivity. The room is suddenly too sharp, the sounds of every movement of my four mates registering in my brain like a gong as they all sit.

Every instinct in my body tells me that something very bad is about to happen.

"Would you like to begin, Scythe?" Celeste says softly.

Scythe, to my surprise, pulls his chair around to sit between me and Celeste. He leans forward and speaks in a new, gentle rasp. "I need to tell you something, Aurelia. And it's going to be very difficult for you to hear."

Savage comes forward to take my hand, squeezing it comfortingly. My heart pounds. Why does it feel like they are about to tell me someone has died? But everyone I care about is here, at the academy, all alive and well. Is it my dad? Is it Uncle Ben?

"Please, just tell me," I whisper.

And then four words from the Great White shark turn my world upside down. "Your mother is alive."

Blood roars in my ears. The entire room narrows down into the single point that is Scythe sitting before me.

My own voice sounds distant. "What?"

Lyle squeezes my hand.

Scythe inhales. "She is with your father at Naga House. Where she has always been."

I stare at him, shaking my head from side to side. "Impossible. Why the fuck— I was at the funeral, for fuck's sake. What are you…" My voice trails off as I try to understand why the hell they're telling me this. That they're wrong. That they're?—

Suddenly, I'm back at Naga House in a flash of memory. I was five at the time and only have the one impression of the event. But the casket was white, and I'd stared at it from where it sat in front of my father's throne room. The seats were packed. Every member of the court had turned up. But there was absolute silence as the priestesses of the Wild Goddess sang their funeral hymn, swinging the incense back and forth like magic wands. My father had wrapped his cold fingers around my sweaty one and taken me to the casket to see her for one last time.

"Say goodbye to your mother, my sweet," he'd said quietly.

My tears had fallen thick and fast, but I'd still seen her. Raven-haired, pale-faced, surrounded by flowers. Perfect. Serene. There were no blue eyes to see that day, only pale, pale lids.

They'd taken her away after that, carried on the shoulders of six Naga males to the crematory underneath the mansion.

Where I had not been allowed to enter.

I blink as I come back to the present, realising that perhaps Scythe and Celeste may actually not be mistaken. "I-I saw her body. But I did not see her cremated."

Celeste nods, her face filled with sympathy. "It would have been easy for a beast such as Mace to fool everyone. He has ties to the hyena witches. They likely helped make it look legitimate."

I cover my face with my hands, trying to think. To logic this out. To understand how and why . "But she would have tried to contact me. She would have tried?—"

But when I drop my hands, Scythe is shaking his head. "She is not conscious, Aurelia. I wasn't even sure what condition her mind was in. That is why I sought Lady Celeste's help."

Celeste sighs. "I have been astrally exploring the bonding planes for some time. Trying to see Athena's consciousness, her connection to life and how it stands. And…I am so sorry, Aurelia, but though her body lives, her mind does not. I believe she is being kept alive on medical life-support."

Shock whips through me like one of Xander's fire lassos. Perhaps my father did love my mother after all—loved her so much that he couldn't bear to see her die and kept her body alive as best he could. Loved her so much that…

"Aurelia, I believe your father is trying to—" Scythe stops himself. And it's the first time I've seen him hesitate with his words. His jaw clenches once, then twice. To my great surprise and dread, he reaches out and takes my other hand.

A dark, dark feeling solidifies at my core. A shadow like no other winds itself around my throat and brutally squeezes.

But it's Lyle who says with a voice soft as a feather, "We believe he is trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to do what he wishes to do with you."

A beat of silence stretches out through time. Through space. Through every moment in my entire life since I last saw my mother.

Breed her.

My vision blurs as a human scream and a ferocious animal roar wracks my very foundation. I shoot to my feet, shaking off my mates, calling the elevator with my telekinesis. I stride into the lift, slamming the doors shut with my mind harder than even I thought was possible.

A fury like I've never known builds in my bones through that infernal scream. My anima's roar deafens me until the elevator doors open and I begin sprinting.

A violent rage is shaking me, demanding I move. Demanding I destroy. My thighs pump, my feet pound first against the academy tiles, then against the earth. I want to hurt someone. I want to tear into someone. I want to clamp my fucking jaws around someone's throat and destroy everything they are. Breath burns in my lungs and a fire moves through my veins. I don't even know where I'm going, I just know that I need to get to my mother. I need to get to Naga House.

I'd seen Scythe's memories of how his father had tried to breed his mother. I'd never seen my father harm my mother in any way?—

But this.

This is a level of evil that I can't even fathom.

I want pain. Physical pain. I want to deal it. I want to feel it. I need a way to get this pain I feel out out out.

But there is no one for me to maim here. No one except?—

I explode into wing and feather, into hollow bones and soft flesh.

And I fly directly upward.

Up and up and up I go. Crying out, screaming my rage into the wide-open air. Up and up and further up.

"No, Aurelia. No!"

But I need this. I want this.

With explosive force, I slam directly into the magical defences of the academy. The white-hot burning barrier sizzles and cracks, showering the ground with sparks. Fire engulfs my body, my head. Searing pain. Brilliant pain.

A lion roars, a wolf howls.

It's thrown me back, but my wings are still working, so I charge back into the shield. I need to get to my mother. I need to free her. Right now. I can't stand that she is there, and I am here.

Someone's power is tugging at my wings, but I won't let it stop me. Again, I fly up into the protective dome, my wing beats more feeble now, but I manage it.

I scream against the fire searing my raw, bleeding flesh, against the burning of my feathers. A shadow crosses over me, and I can't even look up because I can only concentrate on closing my eyes and flying upwards again. Something hot blows against my tender skin, and I let out an avian sob, until a giant claw engulfs my body whole, caging me in.

I thrash madly.

"Crazy woman," the dragon snarls, before throwing me down towards the ground.

Telekinesis catches me just before human arms do and I land with a sick thump. I try to shout out in protest, but it comes out as a pathetic croak.

I want my body to move, but it cannot. My body is broken and useless. Pain stuns my mind, turning it into mush so that all I can do is exist.

Lyle says from above me, "If I'd known she'd react like that?—"

"It was a perfectly reasonable reaction," Savage sniffs, his voice thick. "She's right to be upset."

Lyle tries to adjust me in his lap, but my skin sticks to his, tearing it. "Fuck!" he cries.

I scream through what's left of my throat.

"Xander," S cythe's voice is sharper than normal. " Don't shift, Aurelia."

"I'm here, I'm here," the dragon says as if this is a big nuisance.

Warmth wraps my body in a cloak, taking all my pain away and transforming it into bliss. It's powerful and glowing like soft embers. It's the first time I'm feeling dragon magic, and it oddly feels like home.

I still haven't opened my eyes, but I feel them all around me. Their mingling powers. Their roiling emotions. My head turns of its own accord, tracing the scent of the one I need. The one like the void of deep ocean waters, perilous dark and everlasting cold. The one who intimately knows this awful, sick feeling that I'll never be able to shake off as long as I live.

When my beak finds him, that primal thing within me whines and I reach out for him with both wings, the backs of my eyes burning.

"What is she doing?" Lyle asks, a bit put out. But it is not his golden warmth that I need right now.

"She wants…" Savage trails off.

"She wants me." That rasp is quiet. Perhaps disbelieving.

I whine again until cool hands slip around my aching body and carefully accept my weight. I bury my beak where that powerful scent is thickest. His broad hands bring me in close.

"Scythe," I sigh into the ether.

My eagle body moves with his slow inhale. Like he's wanting to scent me too. After a few minutes of his scent, my head clears. I'm not scared about what Scythe has to say now. I'm terrified. It's as if my entire reality hangs in the balance within the next few seconds.

I speak the words to all my mates. "We have to get her out of there."

Scythe never misses a beat. "Yes, Aurelia, we do."