Page 172 of Her Rabid Beasts

Chapter 72

Lyle

It’s happening again.

Chains that have been rattling in my head for the last three months finally snap like brittle twigs.

An old door, secured with a decade of bloody tendons, cartilage and sheer, disciplined will, slams open with the force of a lion’s screaming roar.

And the power behind it shatters forth, a raging monster. Terrible. Uncontrollable.

I choke out my regina’s name before everything turns red.

My regina has been gravely maimed so badly that she reeks of death. That she reeks of decay. Unholy black marks mar her precious, perfect skin.

She was covering it before. Weathering it, for how long?

Hiding it from me. From us all.

“Death,”I say to my brothers by fate. A command. An offer.

“Death,”they agree in unison.

A single name comes to us, sung on a black, poisoned wind.

And the beast who owns that name is onmyterritory.

Chapter 73

Aurelia

Four powers sweep around me. Around my world.

As if electricity is charging the air, malevolent and dark. Calling for death. Calling for no mercy. It’s icy and scorching hot at the same time.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. My mating mark burns like a brand.

Within seconds, I’m standing in a circle of four towering monsters, powerful shoulders heaving, lungs breathing heavily, mating marks blazing in a hue of melted gold and silver.

In their eyes, I see nothing but unadulterated rage. The group of academy guards behind them, sensing the danger, slowly back away.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

“Lyle?” I pant through my pain, covering what I can of my naked body. “Savage?”

But Lyle suddenly lets out a sound that is all lion and not at all man, and I jump back from him as he explodes out of his human skin. The fabric of his clothes flies in all directions as he turns into something that is at once magnificent and terrifying.

Lyle’s animus is easily the biggest lion I’ve ever seen.

Standing eye to eye with me, those terrible amber eyes are wide in fury. His mane is long and beautiful, fanning out from his face and trailing down his back and stomach in hues of gold and amber. And his pelt… that pelt shines in a stunning colour between bronze and gold, tight over a heavily muscled body. Lions like this haven’t been seen in the wild in over a century. The photograph from his apartment comes to mind.

Lyle roars into the air.

I want to cower from that sound, just as the guards now are. I want to cover my ears and flee from the power and rage I sense from my mate.

But I don’t. Instead, I take it all and feel the full force of his terrifying sound. The full force of his fury for me as it seeps into my very bones. This is Lyle’s long-leashed animus. He is mine, and I am not afraid of him.

But Lyle’s shifting seems to trigger Savage, because a heartbeat later, he too explodes into fur and tooth and claw. They prowl around each other, snapping and growling, the sound filling the air and making my heart pound as if they’re speaking in an ancient, primitive way that talks only of the spilling of blood and the tearing of flesh.

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