Page 54 of Her Feral Beasts

He pounces. Hoisting me up, I wrap my legs around his waist on instinct and he slams me against the brick wall. He invades my mouth with his own warm, wet, masculine one. My chest expands in a tornado of desire so powerful that I lose sense of everything that isn’t Savage. My nose fills with his scent, my head fills with the feel of him, and Icravefor him to be inside me. My own hands are demanding on his body, tearing at his shirt, his skin, like a desperate woman.

It drives Savage off the rails.

Growling like he’s given in completely to his wolf, Savage kisses me down my face, his tongue hot against my neck.

My anima tells me that this is right. That is what it should feel like for a regina to kiss her mate properly for the first time.

I moan, and he opens his mouth, his teeth scraping my neck. Not very gently, he bites.

It’s the faint pain that makes me realise what the fuck I’m actually doing. Shoving at his chest, I push him away. Savage rears back, his face taut with conflict as he allows me to set my feet back on the floor.

I’m gasping, and Savage’s breath is ragged as I glare at him.

“Fuck,” he says gruffly. He covers his eyes with one hand as if he’s trying to control his wolf. Or perhaps it’s in shame because he can’t bear what he’s just done.

I’m so annoyed with myself, and I’m about to tell him to go fuck himself, but I stop dead.

Because what I see on the index finger of his hand turns every particle in my being still. My eighth shield falls and I don’t even care.

There are very few in this country who can write in the text of the old Naga.

And I recognise my father’s script immediately. The black, sinister, curling tattoo trips my mind into a storm of terror. My hand snaps out like a viper. I grab his finger and, with laser sharp focus, interpret the lines and whorls.

A blood covenant. It wasn’t there when I first met Savage in Halfeather’s dungeon, which means it was made between their escape and them finding me in the national park.

This marking is tied to three others, including my father.

They made a binding contract with my father.

For the first time in months, I use my serpentine power and send it into the marking, searching through the ink to read the nature of the contract.

Blood magic was taught to me from infancy. I know it like I know the English language, and it takes me seconds to read it.

They have to retrieve me and return me to my father. They also vowed not to mate with me; it’s written here as plain as day.

I drop Savage’s hand and step away from him in horror. His eyes focus with sudden awareness and he straightens, extendingthat handout towards me.

“Lia.”

My voice is a hoarse whisper. “Don’t you fuckingdarespeak to me.”

Henry is suddenly levitating next to me, making sounds of alarm, but all I can hear is the roaring in my ears, the sickening terror of the betrayal of a whole new kind. My father has commissioned my mates to hunt me. To bring me back to him. To never mate with me.

It’s a violation the likes of which I never thought I’d live to experience.

It also means my father knows these three beasts are my mates.

He.Knows.

All I can do is grab my dropped duffle bag, lurch out of the alley, slap my eighth shield back up, and run. For some reason, Savage lets me.

The wind is on my face and the pounding of my heart resounds in my head like a death gong. I rapidly pass the four guards standing sentinel by the anima dorm, and I don’t even realise that Henry is not on my shoulder until I’m passing the central academy building.

But then Scythe is stepping out of the dining hall, followed by Xander, both their faces transformed into something frightening.

I screech to a halt, leaving two feet between us, my chest heaving as I look between them, wiping the tears from my cheeks.

These are the lengths my father will go to. He turned my own mates against me.

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