Page 133 of Her Rabid Beasts

“No,”Savage’s purely vicious snarl stops both Titus and Beak dead in their tracks.

The tiger throws his hands up in the air. “Then get it fucking done, wolf!”

But no one, not even Xander, moves. They just stare at me. I shake my head in dismay, trying to tell them with my eyes.Your court has been challenged. We all know you need to follow through with this.

“Do it,” I say quietly, taking a protesting Henry from my shoulder and handing him to Raquel.

But when I turn back around, still not one of my three mates has moved.

My voice turns into a regina’s snarl. “Fuckingdo it.”

The blast of my command is like a dark wind that hits both Savage and Xander right in the chest.

Savage stiffens, and his head ever so slightly cocks to the side.

Xander’s glowing eyes turn a sheen of gold and a volcanic energy shimmers, distorting the air around him.

The dragon inside of him is awake.

As one, they both stalk towards me with a purely beastial gait that tells me their animuses have completely taken over. Unblinking, their voices resound in my head in unison,“As you command, regina.”

Large, strong hands grip both my forearms.

I don’t even get to take a breath before they snap my arms at the same time.

A strangled scream tears from my throat and I hate myself for showing weakness in public. But the pain threatens to split me open and my knees buckle, my mind wanting to shut off, to shift, to go back into a place that is dark and black.

I’m vaguely aware that, to the side, Minnie, Stacey and Sabrina are sobbing in each other’s arms.

The combined strain of maintaining my protections and the pain makes my head swim and I know I’m about to faint. Someone—Xander, I think, from the smouldering scent—scoops me up.

“Terrible, ruthless, regina,”Xander’s dragon rasps inside my head.“In all our lives together, you have never, not once, asked me to hurt you.”

“Don’t heal it,” I mumble faintly.“That’s the rule.”

“By all rights I should take you to my den, lay you face down upon my treasure and remind you who owns you.”

I can barely make a snarky reply of“Is that a promise?” before I let the darkness swallow me whole.

Chapter 53

Scythe

Ishould have known my regina would be just as insane as the rest of us. Hovering over Lyle’s computer screen where I force myself to watch security camera footage of the event over and over again, I swear softly under my breath.

Lyle flinches. Visibly flinches at the sound of Aurelia’s bones cracking in both arms at the same time.

The way she’d looked at me, defiantly, coldly. Trying to communicate with the sheer force of her gaze that I needed to hurt her. She’d understood the politics of the situation. She’d taken it upon herself to see it done.

The way she’d taken the full force of that pain for her friends. It was a rare thing to find a beast who was capable of that level of…self-sacrifice and determination.

I know what all beasts in my position know. That there is physical power…andrealpower. And today I’d realised that Aurelia has a dangerous, rare, alluring combination of both.

“Fuck.” Lyle’s voice is unusually haggard. He leans back from the screen and tries to control his fury, but a tremble runs through his hand as he rubs his eyes. “She’s a nightmare.”

He doesn’t mean that.

“She’s too beautiful to be a nightmare,” I mutter.

---