77. Aurelia

Chapter 77

Aurelia

F or the first time in what feels like months, Minnie, Connor, Stacey, Raquel, Eugene and I have a sleepover in the pack dorms. Our mates are having what Savage called a ‘bonding session', which likely meant sparring in the gym or something, which left all of us animas and our rooster with a room to ourselves.

Naturally, word has gotten out about my father's visit. He'd managed to sneak in without most people noticing, but he'd made a dramatic exit, making sure everyone saw him. I don't tell my friends exactly what he said, because it's definitely my burden alone to carry, but since Sabrina's kidnap, they've understood the lengths my father will go to.

With our nimpins being confiscated, we take out any maternal energy on Eugene, who stands patiently on a footstool that we use like a dressing step while we clip diamantés in his feathers and paint his toenails.

Now that some distance is between me and the event, I finally manage to tell them about how we found Ghoul underneath my father's house.

"I'd suspected it since that one night I saw his mask," I say. "But there were always more pressing matters to worry about, you know?"

"Way too much bad shit has happened lately," Connor says, selecting another nail polish for Eugene's left foot. "And you've been off with daddy shark a lot lately."

Scythe could never know that's what we were calling him these days. But those moments alone with him are something I treasure. Something private that doesn't feel right to share. My cheeks heat up and Minnie elbows Stacey and they collapse into laughter.

"It's been h-hectic," Raquel says, cleaning their piercings in a metal bowl. "I've never known a business like the one Mr Kharkorous runs."

"Yeah, yeah, we know you can't tell us anything," Minnie says, rolling her eyes. "Secret squirrel business and whatnot. The main thing is that the big mission was a success."

"The main thing is that I've discovered more than one of my mates is a complete psychopath, and Xander thinks I'm the problem."

"Five," Stacey says, shaking her head in awe. "I honestly don't know how you do it."

I shrug. "They can be sweet…sometimes."

"And the sex!" Connor exclaims. "Oh Goddess, the sex must be amazing!"

We end up falling asleep late into the night in various positions around the room, Minnie and I whispering after everyone else falls asleep.

In the morning, we awake to a shriek.

Because Minnie opens the door to find Yeti, Marduk and Savage fast asleep on the floor directly outside, the three of them curled under fluffy blankets to ‘keep watch'.

Later on Saturday morning, I sniff out Savage's ancient pine scent and it leads me to the library. When I come upon him, he's so engrossed in the stack of papers he's reading that he doesn't notice me until I'm halfway to him. Eugene, keeping him company, sees me from a mile away, but I press a finger to my lips to keep him quiet.

"What are you reading?" I ask. It's definitely not the ‘literacy for adult wolves' exercise book we've been working on.

Savage flips the paper over with a snap and looks up at me with wide eyes, like he's been caught looking at porn. "Nothing."

I put my hands on my hips and give him a disapproving look before reaching over and tugging out the paper from where he's trying to cover it with his forearm. Flipping it over, I'm surprised to find that it's a research paper entitled: ‘Phoenix Tears and Their Contemporary Use in Psychosis: A Metanalysis'.

"You've been trying to read this, Savage? I'm impressed."

His cheeks deepen with colour and it makes me want to smile. I point to the last word in the title. "What does that say?"

"Well, I got the ‘anal' part, but I don't know what it has to do with the topic."

I pull out a chair. "The ‘y' after it makes it tricky to say." I coach him through pronouncing the rest of the word and he gets it quickly.

"Do you want some help with this?" I ask softly, gesturing at the other papers in his stack. "Maybe between the two of us, we can cover more ground."

He scratches his head. "You'd do that?"

"I…" I have to swallow the sudden lump in my throat. "I would do anything for Scythe."

"Regina," Savage whispers, pulling me into his lap. I allow it, untangling myself from my chair and retangling myself all up in him. He cups my face. "We're going to get through this together. We always do, Scythe and I, since we were kids and he planned for us to run away."

"I don't know, Savage," I whisper back. "Maybe it's the regina in me, but I feel… I feel…" The words remain stuck in my throat and I command them to stay there. I don't want to entertain even the thought of them--the bad feeling that if Scythe chooses the ocean over us, he chooses it forever. Living as a shark until the end.

Savage nuzzles my cheek. "I love you."

I have to put my arms around him then, and hide my scrunched-up face in his neck. "I love you too."

We sit there for a moment, just holding each other, making space for each other's emotions. Savage doesn't cry or speak what he thinks, but he tells me how he feels by the tightness of his arms around me, the way he seeks comfort in the scent of my neck and hair.

After a while, our librarian, a tall feline animus, clears his throat and I hastily straighten. "Do you know anyone who knows what it's like"—I swallow—"to be changed?"

Savage searches my eyes. "You never felt it when you were a lioness in your cave?"

I search my memory, wondering if I'd repressed some of it, if not all. I'd been so upset that I'd regressed into my most basic instincts. My anima had forced my human side down and she took over, living on instinct only. How much of a stretch then was it, to exist in my changed form? Completely animal? Never to be human ever again? But I shake my head. "I shift beasts too frequently, so I don't think I'd ever be a changed beast because of that. But it's different for the marine shifters. They can't shift into human form in the middle of the ocean, so they stay in their marine form for years and just…forget to shift back."

Savage shakes his head, and for the first time, I watch him mull over something gravely serious. "Scythe could never forget us. He could have run away into the ocean at any time, but he never did. And now he knows you." He squeezes my hips. "He'll never be able to stay away from you."

I don't know if that's true. I know Scythe has the ability to go cold. To turn off the things that make him human and enable him to do his business. If he can do that, then surely he could simply turn off his draw to me. I keep these thoughts to myself, because what Scythe and I have or had is between the two of us.

Savage is staring at Eugene with a slight squint and so I stare at the rooster too. Eugene glances between the two of us, looking more and more concerned. The stick-on diamantes on his goggles glint prettily in the sunlight streaming through the window, and I even caught him staring at their reflection last night.

"Are you changed, Eugene?" I ask tentatively. "But you can't be. You understand us too well." I turn to my wolf. "Has he ever spoken to you?"

"Well, yeah," Savage admits, rubbing the back of his head. "He was in his human form when Scythe swore him in."

" What? " I hiss in shock.

"Yeah, but I think he's rabid now."

"He's not an animal though. You understand everything, don't you, Eugene?"

The rooster ducks his head.

My heart leaps with hope. "How can we talk to him? Maybe he can tell me about?—"

But Savage has already gotten an idea into his mind and his hand snaps around Eugene's throat in a tight grip.

"Shift, rooster," Savage commands, his wolf coming out in a latent threat.

Eugene's eyes bulge out of his head.

"Stop! Stop!" I whisper-yell, grabbing Savage's hand.

Savage growls in his chest, but lets the rooster go. I jump up and cradle Eugene, checking him over for any injury. I heal a few broken blood vessels in his neck, but Savage knows his anatomy enough not to have caused any real harm.

"Answer my regina, Eugene," Savage says.

"How about yes and no questions?" I ask Eugene, setting him down.

I draw out a big YES and NO on two different sheets of paper and set them on the table in front of Eugene.

"Are you rabid?"

Eugene looks between the two papers but doesn't choose either. I quickly draw up a third scrap that says, UNSURE.

He pecks at it immediately.

"Do you understand everything we say?" I ask.

He pecks at YES.

"Can you shift back?"

He pecks UNSURE.

"Is it because you've been in shifted form for too long?"

UNSURE.

Savage says, "Maybe it's because he's been away from his flock for too long."

Eugene pecks UNSURE.

I sit back in my seat with a huff, because we're getting nowhere. Savage brightens. "I know! We need those buttons with common words recorded onto them so he can press them and talk to us. They use them for clever dogs."

Eugene lets out an affirmative croon.

"Savage, that's actually a really good idea." I grin at him. Lyle had been trained with them when he was a cub from what I'd seen in his memories.

His cheeks turn pink.

It's at that point that Minnie comes jogging up to us, with excitement in her eyes and what looks like an ancient tome in her hands. "I've found something!"