76. Lyle

Chapter 76

Lyle

M ace Naga's unprecedented entry and exit from Animus Academy sends everyone into a spiral. Savage and I bolt across the academy grounds when Xander tells us what happened.

Damien had shielded Mace from us. From even Scythe. And it had meant that he'd had unrestricted access to Aurelia for ten whole minutes. We find her floating on her back in the watery canal, her eyes closed and serene, as if meditating.

I know she is anything but serene. She may have blocked us from feeling her emotions for the moment, but I know her well enough now. Know that my angel is shaken. That trauma from the past few weeks would have risen up, fresh and bleeding.

Savage immediately shifts and belly flops noisily into the water, doggy paddling until he reaches her floating form, nuzzling at her cheek, then licking it.

I crouch down at the water's edge, monitoring them.

"Did he hurt you, regina?" Savage asks. "Did he touch you?"

"No," Aurelia replies flatly, without opening her eyes. "I wish to be left alone."

Savage growls, paddling around her in a circle, nudging her when she gets too close to the canal wall.

A sharp pain pierces my heart. "Angel, I don't think you should be alone right now."

"Then be silent, Mr Pardalia."

I almost smile at the command in her voice and the way it makes me want to bow down at her feet. Savage glances worriedly at me and I shake my head at him before stretching my legs out on the cold stone floor as Savage and I take up our vigil.

That evening, once Aurelia is safely clothed and with her friends in the pack dorms, I seek out my mentor. Aurelia was understandably pensive, and even after holding her for some hours, she was reluctant to share her thoughts. Scythe had been on the phone all afternoon, icy and purely murderous. I don't know what he and Marduk discussed, but I hoped it was a plan.

"Come in."

I frown as I enter Celeste's office. Her voice sounds distant and tight.

She sits at her desk as she normally does during my evening debriefs with her. But instead of being occupied by something at her desk, her chair is angled to the side and she looks out the window with the view of the school grounds.

Her eyes are glassy, that fiery power only a faint buzz in the air. The blank look on her face scares me. I have never seen her so carefully reined in. So carefully poised on her chair as if a faint breeze might make her shatter.

"What's happened?" I demand quietly.

She glances at me, her hand coming to her mouth. "I can look after myself, Lyle. You know that."

"I do know that," I confirm, noting the bluish bags under her makeup. "But—" I smell it then. On her. Under the faint scent of anti-bacterial soap is…him. "No," I say in disbelief.

She gives me a rueful smile.

"You cannot be serious?"

She tilts her chin up but does not look me in the eye. "It is council-mandated. Mace brought the official order with him this morning. It's a part of the phoenix repopulation effort. There's no one left to do prophesies in the other states."

I stare at her in silence. In shock. I'd known this was always Damien's motive, but to actually see the result of it…

"They voted," she continues in a calm, measured voice, "and it didn't work out in my favour. ‘Preservation of the species is paramount'." She nudges the official document on council letterhead still on her desk. It looks like she's been reading it over and over again.

My animus roars in my consciousness. Celeste is my kin. Cared for us as an aunt would care for a nephew. Blood. We want blood.

And I agree.

I turn around and stride out of her office.

"Lyle." It's a warning.

I stop in my tracks, but do not turn around so she cannot see the look of pure rage on my face.

"Do not do anything you will regret."

I will regret not doing anything. Saying nothing further, I leave.

Loosening my tie and tossing it to the ground, I let my animus take over and we go to those we trust. Those unhinged, like us.

Back on our secret floor above the animus dorms, Savage takes one look at me and his brows fly up in excitement. He leaps out of bed like an acrobat. Eugene scuttles away to hide under the pack bed.

"Brother." Triggered by me, Savage has descended into his wolf, making his voice low and rough.

Scythe comes out of the bathroom where he'd been soaking.

"We need to kill him," I say, ripping off the suit jacket and shirt that's caging me in.

"Who?" Savage bounces up and down on his heels.

"Damien Agnis. He is mating with Celeste by force. He has his eye on our regina. He has taken over my school. I want to rip his throat out."

"Yes!" Savage says. "I've been saying this for ages. I don't like the way he looks at Aurelia."

"We cannot kill him," Scythe says slowly.

I round on the shark, getting in his face. Nose to nose, we stare each other down. "He needs to die. I will not let him touch my regina."

Scythe's eyes darken. "We can do something better than death."

Xander stalks into the room, exhaling smoke. "Did I hear someone say torture?"

Marduk and Yeti join us at Savage's behest at Damien's lodgings in his small cavern room under the school. The thick, rocky door mercifully swings open for us as we approach, and we find Damien coming out of the shower with only a towel wrapped around his slender hips. His little dragon pendant lies uselessly on his bedside table.

He shrieks like a bird to find us six males inspecting his room. We all frown in disgust before I throw an obsidian net over him.

"You cannot touch me!" he screams, leaping for his protective token. "You cannot touch me!"

Savage tackles Damien to the ground before he can reach for the necklace, cackling madly as the phoenix thrashes with all his might.

Marduk tosses me a length of obsidian chain while Xander helps tug Damien to his feet. Together, we wind the chains around him, his towel and the net, binding his skinny arms flat to his sides. Savage shoves a dirty sock into his mouth for good measure.

We march the good lord phoenix under the academy and into a cavern with a familiar pool of water, newly reconstructed. It feels like a lifetime ago that I'd locked up my three bond-brothers into the cages here after they attempted to kidnap Aurelia.

How the tables turn.

Savage sings a happy tune as I hang Damien upside down with my telekinesis and hover him over the pool.

"Fire birdy, fire birdy, come play with me.

Fire birdy, fire birdy, try not to pee!"

I crouch down to look him in his golden eyes. "You will not touch Celeste. You will not touch my regina. You will not touch another woman without her free, enthusiastic, and ongoing consent."

"You do not control me," he hisses.

I drop his head into the water.

Savage counts loudly on his nine fingers. "One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi." All the way until twenty before I hover him back up.

Damien coughs and splutters. "I am a protected species."

"You will not allow Mace Naga or his supporters into my school," I say. "You will not speak to my regina ever again."

Dropping him back into the water, I wait until Savage's count of thirty.

The phoenix chokes, water streaming from his mouth. "Fuck you! Fuck you and your pack!"

"Can phoenixes re-grow organs?" Xander asks mildly from where he smokes, leaning against the wall with Yeti. "Even dragons can't do that."

"You'll regret this!" Damien screams. "I'll make sure you'll fucking regret this!"

"Savage?" I ask softly. "How do you spell ‘castrate'?"

Damien's eyes widen with terror.

"Ooh, that's a new one," Savage says, before snapping to attention like a child at a spelling bee, hands straight down by his sides. In only the black rugby shorts he likes to wear when he's feeling feral, he looks ridiculous. "Castrate. C-A-S-T-R-A-T-E. Did I get it?"

"Good boy," I say, before accepting a long, silver blade from Scythe.

"Wait!" Savage exclaims, before getting out his phone and pressing the record button. "Okay, ready."

"Some people," Marduk says conversationally as I slice open Damien's towel, "would call this a group bonding exercise."