Page 170 of Her Rabid Beasts

Lyle’s face darkens. “Watch the way you speak to me, Aurelia.”

I glare at him and he glares back, the full force of his dominance on display. Amber eyes flicker with rage, anger… and a tinge of pain. I’m his regina and I’m perfectly attuned to see that. Suddenly, the very air in the room drags at my shoulders, my ribs, my legs, and I’m weary. So weary from months of fighting and fleeing and stressing.

I turn to look out the window, staring at the open sky. A great blue that once beckoned with freedom now suddenly demands my attention. I turn back to the room and let my eyes wander to each of their faces, one by one.

This is never going to work.

And I’ve fooled myself this entire time. Lulled into a false sense of… happiness. It was fuelled by lust and desire. These men can never be mine. Lyle is never going to be with me. Who am I kidding? Scythe and Xander will never yield to me as their regina. Xander said it himself. I’m an unknown. They will never relinquish power to me.

And Savage. Though he might actually feel something for me, I can never take him away from his brothers.

“I’m sorry,” I say to my wolf.

Savage straightens and uncrosses his arms. “Regina?”

I’m tired, so tired that my voice is barely a whisper as I reveal my truth. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Savage’s voice sounds hollow.

My hands are trembling, my knees are shaking as the full force of the truth wracks my very bones.

“Aurelia.” Lyle is still angry, but a thread of uncertainty weaves through that gold tinted rage.

But I’m shaking my head and coming to a decision. I’ve had enough. I’ve fucking. Had. Enough. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Silence echoes around me and darkness opens at my centre, and that primitive void calls to me like it did a month ago. My anima rises, wings thrashing in my ears, talons scraping at my insides as if they want to shred the human in me apart.

With a sob, I let her take over. And it’s like a breath of fresh air as I explode into feather and wing.

And also glass.

It’s glass that shatters around me as my wedge-tailed eagle body hurls through the windows of the hidden floor and finds her freedom.

I’m greeted by cold wind and the long rays of afternoon sun, and it’s a feeling of pure pleasure that pummels through me. Like I can breathe again. Like I havespaceto think. The academy is spread out beneath me, and though that powerful dome of magic shimmers with warning above, I let out a cry of open release.

Shouts resound behind me and I bank, shifting on the current to see the commotion while still flying away from it. Broken glass borders the window of the hidden floor, now visible to me above the animus dormitory. And within that, four faces stare at me, getting smaller and smaller.

One of them, golden and terrible, is honed into something purely predatory.

A shot rings out from below.

I bank again, missing that dart by inches, and have no choice but to flee from the guards shooting below.

And then Lyle Pardalia, with a hunter’s fixed, predatory focus, jumps out the window.

I let out a cry of horror, high-pitched and shrill. But Lyle is not falling. Borne on the wings of some insane telekinesis, he shoots towards me like a rocket?—

Something viciously injects itself into my shields, like someone has put the jaws of life through my psychic barrier and is cranking it open with brutal force.

There’s only one person with the skill and power to do that.

I yelp. Pain and panic shoot through my skull and my wings stutter in mid-air. Within a breath, I’m careening towards the ground, my wings flapping feebly. A glance towards the road past the academy reveals a convoy of black vehicles advancing towards the front gate.

Holy shit.

He’s not supposed to come for days yet.

Pain shoots through me again and the world becomes nothing but a blur as I fall and fall.

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