41. Aurelia

Chapter 41

Aurelia

T he feeling of being in Scythe's arms all night had changed something in me. Something old and wise and honest. I felt a primal tug, and before I knew it, a sharp pain in my neck told me I had gills and suddenly everyone's heartbeats were all I could hear. But then I couldn't manage to catch a breath, and my anima had panicked and shifted back.

Scythe had known what to do. In his cold, water-logged heart, he'd brought me here, and whether he'd intended to or not, is swimming with me.

I've seen Great Whites before. They're terrifying, beautiful creatures; but Scythe in his animus form is a thing of raw, monstrous power. My heart pitter-patters at the sight and sheer size of him. All monster. All power. All perfect.

I want to tell him that. Want to tell him that his name is written in my tired, bleeding heart and that despite everything that had happened, I forgive him. That I can see his pain and how it mirrors my own. I can sense that he keeps me at a distance. Even now under the water, a place where only I can really be with him, he circles me at a distance, only coming close enough for the current he made to brush across my gills, but no more.

He gives me the time to enjoy myself, and get used to this new, powerful body in his presence. Finding and settling into a new form is always a unique type of joy that lights up my soul in a way nothing else can. It's like the surprised delight of discovering a new aspect of yourself, or a new talent. The possibility of what I can do is exciting.

Eventually Scythe heads back toward the beginning of the canal and in silence, I follow him. He doesn't bother dressing himself and I get the feeling he doesn't want to wipe the water away. I end up shifting into an eagle once again and even though it's embarrassing to have those bald patches on my skin, the way Scythe bundles me in the blanket and picks me up without hesitation makes up for it. I rest my head on the muscle of his chest and close my eyes as he carries me up the staircase, listening to the steady thump of his heart as I let my healing magic flood my veins and heal any remaining damage.

We don't tell the others when we get back. Don't need to when we return naked, quiet, with wet hair and salt on our skin.

I don't attend class that day, and no one makes me. Lyle informs Minnie and the others at my request, so I don't have to go through the saying of what I'd learned yesterday. Instead, I watch as Marduk extracts the blueprints of my childhood home and presents them to us on the dining room table of our suite above the animus dorms.

Savage stands behind me, wrapping his arms around my middle as if he's trying to loan me his strength as I consider the blueprints and plot the ruination of my father.

It's the underground portion of the house that I'm the least familiar with. But like any good crime family, our old mansion has an extensive series of underground tunnels, passageways, and dungeons. Including a crematory.

"We've already been making plans," Scythe tells me, glancing at Marduk, who nods vigorously.

My heart swells. Scythe had been planning my mother's rescue before I'd even asked him. Before he'd even been certain about my mother's condition. In fact, the way he and Marduk murmur with each other suddenly has the look and feel of familiar habit. As if they've done this many times before. Scythe's ‘business' suddenly takes on a whole new meaning. Who better than to take down trafficking rings than a person who'd been inside the heart of one?

"It's a tricky extraction, Lady Boneweaver," Marduk says in that mild but serious way of his. "But with the right beasts involved…" His eyes search my own.

"You mean me?" I say carefully. "Well of course I'm going to be there."

Lyle shifts. "You don't have to do this, angel."

"Of course I do," I say sharply. "It's not even a question."

"You have a lot to be angry about," Lyle says gently. "We need the team to have a level head."

"This is my mother ," I hiss, my blood suddenly hot. "I will do anything . I will kill anyone, maim anyone to. Get. Her. Out. That's what you need on the team. Do you understand?"

Savage makes a choked sound, and I turn to find him smiling at me like he's seen the sun. "There she is," he beams with a hand on his heart. "My Boneweaver Queen."

I blink at him in shock. Then around the dead silent room to see Scythe laser-focused on me, breathing hard. His intensity startles me out of my anger.

But then I return his intensity tenfold—until Scythe's eyes shift to something behind me, his pupils dilating in surprise. Marduk's eyes also widen.

A heat explodes from my back. Savage, Lyle, and I whirl around to see Xander, his eyes a pure and molten gold. Heat roils off him and I know at once his dragon has taken over when he speaks with a guttural, draconic voice. "Once, the Boneweavers were kings and queens of all beasts of the jungle and sea. Tall and proud and ferocious. My lady, not since your great foremothers has this land seen a true Boneweaver. Until you." He bows.

This is so unexpected that his words hit me right in the gut. I want to cry, but I grit my teeth to make that burn go away.

Xander wrestles back control from his dragon, his glowing eyes flashing between gold and white multiple times before he mutters in a very Xander voice, "For fuck's sake."

Marduk laughs, breaking the spell on all of us. "A delight," he says, shaking his head. "A true delight."

"What are you all looking at?" Xander snaps viciously. "Get back to it."

"The aim is to get in and out without anyone knowing," Scythe says, carrying on like nothing happened. "Otherwise, we risk a long car chase."

"We need a stealth attack," Savage clarifies.

"The place will be guarded to the nines," I say carefully, looking at all the tunnels that weave like a rabbit warren around the page. "Getting past all those protections. Human, beast or otherwise, will be difficult."

"We've isolated a time when the estate will be the most quiet," Marduk says. "A week from now, Mace and his generals will be having a meeting with some stakeholders in his business on the other side of town. In the middle of their meeting, Xander will organise a surprise attack on one of their holding vaults, splitting up their forces and, hopefully, taking up a significant amount of their time."

"Leaving us to get into the mansion," I say. "But there'll be worse than serpent generals protecting my mother."

"There will be serpent magic guarding her?" Lyle says.

"Without a doubt. It's my father's favourite weapon."

"There is also the matter of the monster who guards the entrance of the innermost segment," Marduk says. "It is best to time our entry so that he will not be there."

"But we will still take Eugene," Savage says hurriedly, patting the rooster standing on the dining table. "Just in case."

Xander snorts rudely, and I give him a frown. Eugene's five second flash-forward visions into the future would help us avoid any surprises. On the other hand, his flashes of warning were not predictable by any means so I'm not entirely sure how much Savage expects him to help.

Scythe says, "Did you ever wonder why your father chose to marry you to Charles Halfeather?"

Both Savage and Lyle let out involuntary growls at the memory of it.

"Well, he never planned on me staying there." I say slowly. "I figured his intention was to kill Healfeather and take his money."

Scythe nods. "It's a Halfeather fertility specialist that's been helping him experiment with the treatments for your mother. That was the debt he spoke about the first time you entered the dungeon. Do you remember that?"

"How could I forget," I murmur. Consider your father's debt repaid . "I thought he'd meant me healing the secret patient was the payment. But he meant the marriage, didn't he?"

"We think Mace was no longer happy with the Halfeather treatments failing. He wanted to take him off the table. The less people who know about him keeping Athena the better."

"But the Clawsons know, don't they?" I say, remembering the snide conversations at the poker table. "And the Lady Hyena."

They'd all known at that table. My fists clench as I realise that I had been the last person to find out.

Marduk nods. "Mace had no choice but to involve a few choice people. He had Cain Clawson organise the death of his own brother. They wanted all of your mother's mates off the table."

I'd had the same realisation. "They were powerful enough to go up against him. Cassius had came to the house once. I hadn't known who he was, but my mother had been furious to see him there. But …" I consider the memory of ramming my tricycle into the big, half-naked man. "Looking back on it, she was scared for him. Her mate."

"But why?" Savage says, glancing at Xander and Lyle. "They were bond-brothers. Mace and Cassius. Equal in power."

"Mace wanted to be a rex," Xander says darkly. "It shamed him to have to answer to a female and other males."

As it had been with Titus and Minnie. And—I glance at Xander, who is determinedly staring ahead—as it is with Xander. It shouldn't surprise me that my father would have it in him to destroy a pack-brother, but it does now add salt to an already brutally sore wound.

The image of the man I had known as a father is corrupted forever. I didn't know I could hate this strongly. I didn't know hate could turn my body into a pressure cooker of poison that wanted to spill out and destroy.

My own feelings frighten me.

I inhale a slow breath to try and help my concentration. "So, do we know her exact location?"

"Celeste was able to find her during her examination through the astral plane," Lyle says, stepping forward and indicating a red circle on the deepest level.

"How the hell are we going to get her out of there?" I whisper.

"And now," Savage says, looping his arm through mine, "we come to the part where we tell you why I went to Blackwater."

"Mace has enemies aplenty," Marduk says. "Many of them were just in the wrong place."

"You freed the Dabu pack on purpose ?" I ask, horrified.

Savage flashes his dimples at me. "Clever regina. They're really nice animas once you get to know them. They were there for a psychology course. The same one Lyle took."

"Incidentally, I know their regina, Hyacinth, quite well," Lyle says wryly.

"My nanny told me scary stories about the Dabu pack to scare me into not wandering into the underground part of our house. Said that Dad had one chained up there."

"An old feud," Scythe says, "which we'll now take advantage of. They're going to cast a counter-spell to help us breach the initial protections Mace has set up against us. They'll…just need a bit of your hair to do it."

My skin crawls at the thought of a bunch of hyena witches chanting around a cauldron with a lock of my hair in hand. "Do I have to? I'm sure I could?—"

But Marduk is raising his brows at me. "Are you prejudiced against witches, Lady Boneweaver?"

"What? No! I just?—"

"There are plenty of bad hyenas," Savage says. "I met lots in Blackwater. But there are plenty of good ones too."

"They've detected protections around Naga House, specifically set up against one person," Scythe says frankly. His eyes bore into mine.

My mouth drops open. "Against me? "

"He knew you'd try and get in there at some point." Scythe says gently.

Dad also knew I could undo any serpent magic. Hyena witchcraft I was less familiar with.

"Shit."

"Indeed," Scythe says.

"Well, they can have as much hair as they want then," I grumble. "What next?"

"Once we're in," Scythe says, "we get underground with your invisibility protection around us. Despite that, we may have to kill people in the process. Are you prepared for the consequences of that?"

Something inside of me freezes at that. Like a rabbit sniffing the air. These people had once been my family. Had been people who'd once come to my birthday parties, bowed to me as the child heir to Naga seat, gifted me toys.

And now, they are keeping my mother from me.

So I level Scythe a cold look that could rival his own. "I'm more than ready."

Something like pride glimmers in his eyes, and just when I think I'm imagining it, Marduk clarifies, "We will definitely have to kill people. Perhaps maim them as well. And they'll definitely try to kill us."

I nod. We're going after my father's most prized possession. Anyone guarding her would be doing so with their own lives on the line.

"So, when do we do this?" I ask quietly. Every day that passes from now will make it more and more impossible for me to cope. We need to do it soon.

Scythe's eyes move about the room with irritation, and I wonder what he sees there; what part of his land psychosis is active right this very minute. His gaze finally settles on me. "Three days," he says.

Savage nuzzles my cheek with his nose. "Easy-peasy."