Page 157 of Her Rabid Beasts

Xander steps up to Yeti.

“Do not touch him,” I warn. “He will be unstable.”

Yeti’s mouth moves, forming words we can’t hear. I listen to his heart. It beats in arrhythmia and I watch him carefully. I have heard a bond cutting can cause death for weaker beasts in the pack. But though Minnie succumbed, she didn’t yield. And I know Yeti well enough to guess that he won’t yield to this soul-wound either.

“Mine,” Yeti’s mouth makes the sound. A hoarse whisper, like the scrape of leaves across a tombstone. “She’s always been mine.”

“Yes,” I say slowly, using my voice to ground him. “Minnie is yours. As you are hers. It was just hidden from you for a time.”

He stares into space, his pale eyes glistening. “How?”

No one knew it to be possible. It’s Boneweaver magic cast by someone who doesn’t even know the extent of her power. I won’t name her and put in her in potential danger. Savage cuts me a sharp look.

“Bigger powers,” I say. “It wasn’t intentional. You must trust fate.”

Xander extracts his dragon-strength hand rolled weed from his pocket and holds it up as a question. I nod.

He lights it with a lick of a flame from his finger. “Come, my friend,” Xander coos in a gentle, rare voice he only uses with his sister’s children. “Smoke this and let us sit and talk.”

Yeti opens his mouth only because he doesn’t know what else to do. He takes a drag.

“Deeper,” Xander instructs.

Yeti breathes in deeply and his pupils dilate. He blinks once, then twice. “I need to kill him,” he says.

“You have your orders,” I say sharply. “You took a blood oath to me. No one will touch that swine.”

Despite my even, harsh tone, my shark thrashes in an awful, bitter realisation as we understand that all of Lyle’s suspicions have been true.

Xander leads a catatonic Yeti away, Savage on his other side and the rest of our beasts following just in case.

“I felt it that first day,”Lyle’s voice comes careening into my head.“Whenever I’m inside her, I feel her power. Going out and out. This is why she went into that state of fugue.”

I don’t reply.

“You don’t want to admit it, do you?”

Admit fucking what.

That Aurelia has been shielding more than herself? This entire time. That she has been psychically shielding the entire school?

Initially, I thought the school had awoken, and it was ancient dragon magic rising to protect the dwelling of the old dragon lords. The power is golden, vast and wild, like something old woken up. Like something beyond the rest of us.

But it washerBoneweaver power all along. Wild and strong and… protective. She was protecting us all from psychic attacks. The entire academy. Her friends.Us.

“This is why she’s always drained,”is all I say.“Why she is always unwell.”

“Fucking admit it, you cold bastard,”Lyle says.“She’s been protecting us from the Serpent Court the entire time. Protecting you.”

Chapter 65

Aurelia

Connor rushes Minnie back to our dorm.

“What the fuck?” Stacey sobs as we jog. “What the actual fuck just fucking happened?”

None of us, even Theresa, say anything because what is there left to say? Minnie is alive, but she doesn’t look it. My fingers itch to heal her. But when my magic rushes into her, there is nothing to heal. I can’t help her with this wound. That I caused. It makes bile rise in my throat in disgust at myself.

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