Page 43 of Her Feral Beasts

But as I turn to leave, something unusual catches my eye. There’s a cage on one of the carved ornate bedside tables and Savage’s black rooster from the national park is sitting inside it on shredded newspaper. He’s staring at me as if I’m a ghost, his beak a little open in shock.

Henry makes a surprised noise and immediately zooms over to look at him.

Twoprisoners will be released today if I have something to say about it.

I rush over to them both and unlatch the cage. “Get out, chicky!” I hiss. “And don’t attack me while you’re at it!”

The bed it sits next to has to be Savage’s, so I yank off the fancy red velvet coverlet and black sheets and strew them about messily. The rooster hops out of his cage, looking between me and Henry but not leaving. There’s a strange light in his beady black eyes, but I don’t have time to ponder it. “If you’ve seen a key for that serpent out there, I’d be super grateful,” I say, yanking open each drawer under his cage. Bronze glints in the bottom of the last one and I grab at it, holding it up. It’s key alright, long and slender, a match to the lock. Brilliant! Spinning around, I hurtle towards the door.

The rooster caws sharply, but I ignore him and run out of the room—

Only for Henry and I to be thrown back by a blast of ferocious red magic. A scream tears from my throat and I land on my ass on the wooden floorboards. Henry falls with a thud onto the floorboards. Thankfully, he bounces right back up, shaking himself and hurtling back towards me, where I catch him to my chest with relief.

We both gape up at the curtain of red glittering magic that now covers the doorway.

A dragon lock. I’ve never actually seen one in real life.

The rooster gives a mournful caw, and it sounds like a balloon deflating.

“Well, well, well.” Xander’s drawl is cold fire down my spine. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

Chapter19

Aurelia

Acold-faced Scythe steps through the dragon lock first and now stands barely a foot from me, flanked by Savage and Xander. Their energy crackles and snaps around them like a living flame that takes up the entire damned room.

I gulp.

How the fuck I didn’t think they’d have their stuff protected is beyond me. I’m a complete fool, and in the wake of utter embarrassment, my face gets hotter by the second.

I clench my teeth to staunch my rising panic as I scramble to my feet and glare at them likethey’rethe ones in the wrong. Were they always this intimidating up close? Did they always take up this much space? Shit, that day in the forest seems like a lifetime ago.

Scythe’s cold blue eyes fix me to the spot. This is the closest I’ve stood to him without the bars of a cell between us, and his presence is sending me tumbling like I’m in an ocean rip. Savage is the only one wearing his red ‘Dangerous: do not approach’ lanyard, and he wears it like a trophy.

Xander is leaning against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets like he’s bored by this whole thing, staring into space as he listens to whatever music he’s playing. His black and red T-shirt reveals his swirling dragon tribal tattoo down his impressively muscular left arm.

Henry bops in greeting on my shoulder but doesn’t do his psychic squeaking thing yet. Clearly he hit his head on that fall.

“What are you doing?” I snap angrily to try and dispel some of the adrenaline coursing through me. It annoys me that I have to look so farupat them.

Savage raises a dark eyebrow at the mess of his bed, but Scythe’s stare turns vicious. The apparent king of sharks takes a single, meaningful step forwards, and I havenochoice but to take a step back if I don’t want to be chest to chest with him.

It irks me to no end that I have to do that. That movement alone is me waving a giant red flag that says ‘submissive’. Worse? The corner of Savage’s mouth twitches the second I do it.

Instinctively, I double my scent shield because I’m frazzled and in bloody danger. Scythe looks furious as he notes the messed-up bed, but says nothing, prompting me to lose my mind in the silence.

“Who is that you have chained up?” I snap. “Angry you couldn’t catch me? So you went for someone else?”

“You know,” Savage says, casually. His eyes are not trained on me, but Henry, sitting on my shoulder. The pure predatory wolf I see in his eyes makes me grab my little nimpin straight away. “He looks tasty.”

“Don’t you dare!” I say, cradling Henry to my chest as if I can protect him with my tits. Savage clearly has no paternal instinct for Henry’s pheromones to work on.

“I’m sure his bones are nice and crunchy.” Xander cocks his head as if he’s actually imagining Henry’s bones in his mouth, and I swear those white eyes glow with interest.

I gape at them and take another step back. But then they all take a step forwards and I know I’m in deep shit.

“You look different when you’re not behind bars,” I say slowly, trying something to delay whatever it is that’s coming—anything to catch them off guard and give me some leg to stand on.

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