Page 9 of Her Feral Beasts

Call me an overachiever, but I thought I could do better.

Xander’s arms tighten around my bare stomach as his breath tickles my ear. “You’re weak, serpent girl. I could hear your panting from twenty paces away.”

I close my eyes with a resigned sigh. Yeah, Iampretty weak right now. Is an hour of sleep too much to ask for?

Get yourself together, Aurelia. Think.

Perhaps it’s being so close to my mates that gives me a burst of energy, because as Xander roughly hauls me up to standing, my mind is suddenly sharp.

I’m stark naked. Tits out, bits out, buns pressed against some part of Xander I can’t afford to think about right now.

My power rises, wild and ready, because this is actually the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me. That burger must be kicking in, too.

Xander roughly pulls my arms behind my back, holding both my wrists in just one of his own. And even as I hate him for doing this to me, I can’t help but feel how warm his hand is against my cold skin. How his fingers are curling around my wrists. I swallow my desire down and fix a scowl to my face as Savage and Scythe stand like rigid giants before me, glowering with hate.

Oddly, strangely—perhaps disturbingly—neither of the brothers look down past my face.

“Lia,” Savage says quietly, and my heart cries at the way he says my name. But he’s frowning and fingering the pink handbag.

He comes forwards, bends to place it at my feet, swiftly turns around and stalks off, his shoulders tight like he hates himself for it.

For the second time, I stop breathing.

I know exactly what this is. The male animus inside Savage is forcing him to give me, his regina, a gift. If we were in a normal mating group, this would be the right thing to do. The normal and expected thing. But wearen’tnormal in any way, and I can’t give into the powerful urge to reach down and cradle the bag in my arms and kiss it like a baby.

None of them trust me. Or even like me. Savage finds me attractive, I know, and he’s been the only one to touch me. He gave me the best orgasm of my life with those strong fingers, and I think that’s why his beast feels the urge to gift me things more than the others. Plus, he’s a wolf, and they prize family structures more than any other order.

As touched as I am, it’s heart-wrenching because I can’t accept it.

“You know the price of that bag?” Xander sneers in my ear. “Seven dead eagles, one human with PTSD, and a shop up in flames. Solid two million in damages.”

My heart sinks so low into my body that I’m pretty sure it’s sitting in my feet.

“And do you know what?” Savage cries, suddenly whirling around to glare at me, his eyes wild and furious. “I’ll kill one hundred fucking more beasts to get rid of this fucking rage I feel. I can’t believe you tried to kill us, Lia!”

Scythe is silent and pacing behind him as I stare at them in shock. I close my gaping mouth before crying, “I didn’t try to kill you! I would never!”

The three of them go stiff and Scythe stops his pacing to stare at me with those icy blue eyes.

Being looked at by Scythe is like having a pair of ice picks spearing into you. Beingstaredat by him? It’s like those ice picks aretwisting. It’s cold and calculating, but damn, he looks hot doing it.

To think I’d snuck in track pants to cover his naked ass in that dungeon, when he’s used to wearing expensive clothes like this? I’m embarrassed I even tried now.

Xander’s grip tightens painfully around my wrists. “Snake’s not lying,” he snaps. “But you can’t deny that you’re running away from us. And you lied about not being our regina.”

It’s a heinous crime to reject your mates. Among our kind, only the truly evil would choose to destroy something so sacred.

I remain silent…until Scythe advances towards me, looking like the devil himself with the darkness that wraps around him. It’s then that I see what he has in his hands.

A shining length of obsidian chain.

Terror that’s deeply ingrained in my being grips me in its mad fist.

“No!” I scream, bucking like a donkey under Xander’s grip. “You can’t use that!”

Scythe pauses in his advance, and that’s all I need. I slam a shield of power into Xander with every calorie of strength that burger gave me. The dragon stumbles back, releasing me, and Irun. As I do, I whip three shields over the males behind me, trapping them inside bubbles of my force. They immediately rage against them.

“I’ll get you, Lia!” Savage roars from behind me, pounding his fists against my shield. “You’re fuckingmine!”

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