Page 39 of Her Feral Beasts

If an animus is stalking you.

My heart falls into my nether regions. I clutch at my stomach.

Shit. Fuck.

Raquel’s suspicious behaviour. The wolf shaking her head outside. Wolves always stick together. They don’t spill each other’s secrets.

Minnie sniffs at her things while I’m still staring at the room. She then hurries to my side and sniffs my bed, her little button nose twitching. After a moment’s hesitation, I do the same.

I freeze when I catch it.

Ancient cold forests, pine, and deep, rich earth. A feeling of dread winds itself around my lower stomach. Savagehasbeen here. The bastard has actually been in my room. Was he trying to scare me?

“Do you recognise the scent?” she asks, sniffing again with interest. Gertie and Henry levitate in circles around my pillow.

I busy myself with hastily shooing them away and straightening my bed again. Without a word, Minnie helps me, tucking in the sheets on the side I can’t reach. My movements are jerky as I try to control my panic. Savage has been by my bed before, when I was at home, that one night I let out my siren call. The flash of memory makes me heat up and sends my head spinning.

“It’s alright, Lia,” Minnie says in a too-calm voice. “We’ll just report it to Theresa and she’ll sort it right out. Says so on page two-forty-seven of the handbook. Stalking is not permitted without prior consent.”

“No!” I say quickly. My friend looks at me with her brows raised.

I clear my throat. “I just mean that I don’t want the staff involved in…my love life?”

Minnie nods slowly. “Okay. I understand.”

“You do?”

She shrugs. “Yeah, I had a similar thing with an ex. But—” She flaps her hand at me as if it was nothing. “He was trouble, so I left him. Anyway, we’re not in danger fromthisanimus, are we?”

Her question catches me off guard because suddenly I realise how this looks. I’m immediately ashamed of myself. To have her stuff messed up, maybe things stolen too? I go from scared to furious within seconds.

“I’m going to kill him,” I say, angrily, rummaging through my drawers to check if anything’s missing. “Don’t worry, Minnie. I’ll take care of this. I’ll—”

I stop dead when I see the tiny fluffy bear on top of the dresser. It’s definitely not mine; I don’t own any bears. It’s blue and white with a rainbow on its belly.

“That wasn’t there before,” Minnie says softly. “Lia, someone is courting you.”

This is Savage’s second gift.

My stomach plummets and I whirl around to look at her. But she shrugs. “I dunno, it’s kind of cute.”

Both nimpins levitate themselves towards the small teddy bear. They sniff at it and make low cooing sounds.

“They like it too.” Minnie lets out a disbelieving laugh. “What the hell, Lia? This guy is unhinged. Who is it?”

“Is it bad if I can’t say?” I ask tentatively.

Minnie bites her lip. “Did he give you that pink Opal Feather handbag too? It’s pretty.” I stare at her and she waves her hands in the air, exasperated. “I know you don’t have that much money, Lia! They’re thousands of dollars.”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I rub my temples. In the history of people trying to hide things, I am, perhaps, the worst at it.

“Shit. Yeah, I know it looks bad, doesn’t it?”

Minnie giggles. “If he’s giving you presents, he’s courting you. You need to set boundaries, Lia. This animus needs to know— Wait a minute!” She points at me. “The only person unhinged enough to do this is the wolf who jumped you this morning!”

I stiffen because my safety literally depends on me keeping my mates a secret.

The fact that they are all from different orders is the issue. Nearly all mating groups are from creatures who are in the same order. On the rare occasion, like with Scythe’s and Savage’s parents, the mating group might have one beast from a different order. So the fact that I’m a regina of a mating group with all different orders? That’s a dead giveaway that something is suspicious about me.

---