Page 104 of Her Rabid Beasts

“Do I need to get the fucking chains out, Scythe?” Xander snarls. “Do I need to get you away from her?”

“No,” I reply with a pulse of bloodthirsty power.

Xander shuts his mouth, sensing that I mean it.

I can’t be away from her. Not anymore.

Chapter 44

Aurelia

When I get back to the anima dorm, I get the scent of steam and Minnie’s shower gel. Eagerly, I rush into our room, only to find it dark and Minnie only a small, round figure curled up like a kitten in bed, facing the wall on her side. Setting Eugene down to roost in the purple armchair at the end of Minnie’s bed, I creep up to my friend and find her breathing is deep and even. Gertie is asleep against Minnie’s forehead, which means that Minnie needed her comfort tonight. My heart pangs with sadness and guilt. My best friend is under her covers, so I can’t see her body and need to make do with sniffing the air around her.

I scent no blood or anything that might indicate she’s been physically harmed.

Relieved, I head to the bathroom. I consider taking a shower, but the fact is, Lyle’s scent is still over me. I want it to last as long as possible, so I end up just washing the dirt off my bare feet and washing my haggard face before brushing out the tangles in my long hair and hopping into bed for the night. I turn to check Henry’s little bed out of habit and, finding it empty, my heart sinks. I’m sure he’s being looked after, but I really miss him. Atleast I have Eugene’s occasional sleepy clucking from where he settles himself down to sleep in the armchair.

My phone goes off and I snatch it up. There’s a goodnight message with a whole bunch of kissy emojis from Savage and a second from that unknown number.

Lock up, snakelet. You wouldn’t want any stalkers getting to you in the middle of the night.

I get up and double check the lock on the balcony doors, then check the automatic lock of our main door has been activated for the curfew. Heart pounding, I crawl back into bed and watch as three dots flash on the screen before disappearing. I watch, captivated by the dots, but they appear only to disappear again. Cursing this unknown guy, I toss my phone under my bed where I won’t be tempted to check it at odd hours and settle in to sleep.

In the middle of the night, I wake up with a start, my instincts screaming. My heart feels like it never stopped pounding and my neck burns from the wound I haven’t had the energy to heal. Gasping for air, I stare at the dark ceiling and work to centre myself, but my senses are on high alert.

A whisper of something more than me demands my attention.

With careful, slow movement, I turn my head towards Minnie’s side of the room.

My heart turns to ice.

I’m in a living nightmare.

Because sitting in Minnie’s purple armchair is a monster that could only haunt a person’s most terrifying dreams.

Veiled in pulsing, roiling shadows, sitting in a casual position, is a large man. Glowing red pinpricks of light where his eyes should be burn through the dark,fixedon me like the laser beams of military firearms.

I scramble off my back, scoot into my headboard, managing to choke out, “Who are you?”

He doesn’t answer, merely sits there, staring at me with awful, hair-raising focus.

Those shadows move around him, coiling up his legs, torso, large forearms, biceps, flowing up his shoulders and neck to surround his head. My heart pounds in an unsteady rhythm. It’s like looking into the void. It’s like looking into true death.

There is something familiar about the dark rhythm of them. And they call to me in a terrifying hymn.

Then it hits me.

I’ve seen shadows like this before.

“Oh dear Gods.” My voice breaks as cold realisation pummels through me with the force of a steel door in a dark dungeon banging open. A shadow in the shape of a snake coiled around a spinal cord calls to my memory.

In the dark of a cold dungeon, owned by Charles Halfeather.

As shocked as I am, in my heart, I know what this means. Only one person can walk through my protections around the school and not be detected by me. Only five men can elicit this heart-wrenching, soul-screaming response from my anima.

Holding my breath, my skin tingling incessantly, I let down my mating mark shield.

The air around me grows a little colder.

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