Page 180 of Her Rabid Beasts

“I think that’s quite enough,” comes a deep, feminine voice.

Fire that’s more than fire surrounds us all in a semi-circle, blocking any exit to the main road. Lyle jumps backwards from the heat. His skin is already starting to heal, but it’s red and shiny. My father’s Jeep is long gone. I actually can’t believe he ran, and if the orange blur I saw was Titus’ being dragged away, he’s also gone. The rest of the members of his contingent are hauling ass back to Serpent Court close behind, but neither Lyle nor the council members can leave through the fiery semicircle.

They leave Ulman on the ground and I pointedly ignore the bloody mess that is left of him.

If I can’t see it, I can pretend it didn’t happen. I am an emu with her head in the sand.

It’s bullshit and I know it. I’ve ruined everything I’ve ever worked for.

We all turn to see Lady Celeste striding down the driveway towards us, the phoenix fire lighting up her face and hair in the most ethereal way. Like a creature of myth that she is, she glows with that heavenly power and it turns her irises molten gold.

“Forgive me for the delay,” she says breezily, “Some people deemed it fit to try and hold me in my office. Luckily, I am not easily deterred by a couple of vagrants.”

One guess who sent them. One guess who’d orchestrated this entire operation. The only thing my father hadn’t counted on was me…defying him.

The members of the Council of Beasts start talking all at once, but I can’t even register what they’re saying. My eyes are on my mate.

My power reaches out to Lyle, who doesn’t even seem to realise he’s been shot multiple times and is trying to find a way through the fire. I quickly seek out every bullet in his body and push them out, dissolving the venom that’s already starting to spread into his bloodstream. Luckily, I’ve caught them all in time. None of it has made it to his vital organs.

“Cover the Boneweaver girl,” someone says.

I go still at those condemning words. Words that mean my death. Mean my captivity.

Then I gather my shit together and turn to see that it was the raptor queen, who’d spoken, and now shaking her head at me. In wonder or dismay, who can tell? Because I sure can’t. I can’t fucking see or think straight right at this minute.

Savage, who is already on his way to me, curls around my body and obstructs my female parts from view. Savage, who threw himself in front of an oncoming bullet for me. My wolfwhines softly and I bury my hands in his midnight fur to ground myself. To reassure myself that he’s still alive. That we’re all still alive. And yet.

I fucked up.

Really badly.

My heart is pounding erratically in some sort of arrhythmia that might actually kill me if anyone else doesn’t want to give it a go right now. Are they going to lock me up now? Are they going to take me to the council labs to be studied? There’s no way they’re going to allow me to just walk free from this.

It’s out now.

There’s no taking this back. No covering it up. No… lying about it. I feel naked down to my marrow. I feel like a noose hovers over me, ready to circle around my neck.

Scythe comes to stand next to us, distracting me from my panic. He looks up at the phoenix fire wall in wonder, and I think that’s what snapped him out of his shark-mode. His eyes are no longer glazed, his teeth now definitely human.

As Lady Celeste tries to calm down the regents of the courts, Scythe does something strange. He cups my cheek, tilting my face up to look at him. Phoenix fire reflects in his sky-blue irises, turning them into glacial fire. He runs his thumb across my bottom lip. Then proceeds to put that same thumb in his mouth.

I stare at him in rapt shock.

Lady Celeste’s voice enters my head on a lick of mythic flame.“You need to bring back Lyle, Aurelia,”she says firmly.“You need to bring the man back or Goddess help us all right now because theywilltake him.”

That red-orange fire cuts through the night and the sound of people talking is abruptly cut off as Lyle, Savage, Scythe and I are suddenly in our own bubble of warm, shimmering,toweringpower. The flames are terrifying as they roar upward towardsthe night sky in a column, the stars just beginning to blink into existence.

But then a naked human Xander strolls through a blip in the wall of phoenix fire, his eyes that deep golden colour that tells me his dragon is in control.

I rise to face my mates.

“Shift, Savage,” I command. “Lyle needs us.”

Savage shifts into his human skin and straightens to standing, his eyes a little glazed as blown out hazel irises stare down at me with simmering tension and, to my surprise, arousal. His voice is deeply husky when he says, “He needsyou, regina.”

Nodding, I turn around and find Lyle still has his back to us, still looking for a way out to follow our enemy. I have a feeling that if the wall of phoenix fire wasn’t stopping him, he’d be running at full pelt down the road until he found the serpent king.

“Lyle,” I say.

---