Page 8 of Her Feral Beasts

Mymate. Savage is my mate.

Freezing is something prey would do, but I’m too tired to be ashamed. I can’t deny that Iwantmy mates. That I feel their presence at the corner of all things in my reality. That just the knowledge of them being nearby is sending me mad with the need to runtowardsthem.

But I can’t. I can’t fucking let them have me.

It’s my brain that’s telling me to run, and right now, I think my brain isn’t working properly. I summon the last dregs of strength to fling up my shield of invisibility just as I hear the purposeful crunch of heavy boots.

Freedom from my father and this thing that haunts me is so close I can taste it. I just need a little more time. I’m going to the new blended university. I’m going to live my life away from the clutches of my father and his court and be free of this shit.

A scent like pine and spring wafts towards me and I breathe in a full lungful. The female anima inside of me snaps up its head.

My blood pounds in my ears and every cell in my body stands to attention as I fix my eye on the spaces between the trees.

Shards of sunlight pierce the canopy above, cutting through the air in diagonal slashes, illuminating the space in an otherworldly glow.

They walk into the clearing like three kings of hell.

I suck in a sharp, shocked,primalbreath.

Because this is the first time I’m seeing all three of them in their solid, physical forms without the bars of a cell between us or in their astral forms, and the sight is a sweet and severe jab to my lower gut.

Savage is in the lead. And as my wolf saunters towards my stricken, invisible body, I can’t draw breath at all.

Somewhere in the last week, Savage has had a haircut. A dark curl flops onto his forehead, and he has a fade down both sides. He’s also shaved the scruff on his jaw, but even with smooth skin, there is a feral, brutal look to him. Savage is even more devastatingly handsome in the sunlight than he was in the dim dark of Charles Halfeather’s dungeon.

Somewhere in the last week, as well, Savage had acquired a small black rooster, which is currently quivering under the crook of the wolf’s arm, his red frills vibrating in fear.

I have literally zero time to ponder this new development because Savage’s hazel eyes are predatory as they sweep the clearing, his head lowered in the fashion of a beast hunting his prey. He knows I’m close.

They must not be using their shifted forms to hunt me because he’s in black jeans and a tight black T-shirt that stretches across his fighter’s broad chest. Clothes that hide tattoos and scars from what I’ve guessed is a lifetime of fighting in illegal underground rings.

Scythe prowls after his brother a little distance away. He’s the first shark I’ve met because none of them like to be land-dwellers, and he has that characteristic out-of-this-world, high cheekboned beauty and the long silver hair of his kind.

But that’s where his prettiness ends.

It’s his appearance that surprises me the most because he’s hunting through the forest in what I’m sure is an expensive black business shirt and slacks. With the tattoos on his neck and black ink across his hands, he looks like some dangerous hitman. Ice-blue eyes search the clearing and a chill consumes me at that purely lethal expression. Unlike the others, he’s only ever spoken two sentences to me.

Xander strolls in behind Scythe.

The dragon’s got his usual nasty sneer on, but on a face that is sheer fine-boned masculine beauty, he manages to make it look sexy. The last time I saw him, he was strung up, half naked against a dungeon wall, and that is in stark contrast to his chosen appearance now.

His long black hair is currently tied up at the nape of his neck. He’s got a black nose ring and a dangling cross on his left ear. In a black tank top and slashed jeans, he’s pretty devastating—even without the glowing silver eyes that allow him to see through his physical blindness. He’s got one headphone in, but I note that his old music device is gone—swapped for a shiny new black phone stuck into his front jeans pocket.

Put that all together and you have three six-and-a-half foot beasts who would send any normal person running in the other direction.

Instead, my body is trying to leantowardsthem. Stupid,idiotic, hornyanima.

These are three alpha males and should all be rexes of their own packs. Instead, they’re all supposed to bemine. I’m supposed to be their regina, the leader and central point of our mating group.

My eyes hone in on the fact that Savage is still wearing my black hair tie—fromone nightof weakness—where he’d slipped it off my hair and onto his own wrist. Oddly, that same hand is also holding a fluro pink handbag. It’s tiny, glossy, looks expensive, and is ridiculous hanging off his large, tattooed hand. Completely out of my control, my traitorous anima lets out a silent, sad cry.

All three heads snap towards me.

Dear Wild Mother, I’m so dead.

Xander is little more than a blur and I don’t realise that he’s circled behind me until I’m tackled to the forest floor. We fall onto the leaf-litter with a crash and my side explodes with pain. My invisibility shield goes down as a pathetic sort of wail leaves my throat.

Some primal part of me relishes the feel of Xander’s large, hard body encircling mine, but it’s quickly overtaken by a rage borne of the realisation that they’ve actually caught me despite my best efforts overfivewhole days.

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