Page 23 of Her Rabid Beasts

“Which one?” I say.

“Red bird.”

That is the code name for one of the newer warehouses in the newly occupied Halfeather territory.

I do the quick calculation. That was at least twenty million dollars’ worth of product. Gone. Xander glances at me, calculation in those glowing white eyes.

“Mace isn’t happy about losing that land,” Xander gruffs into my mind.“So unhappy that he’d prefer to hand the goods over in a tip-off than to try and take it himself. So unhappy that he’d form an alliance with a feline.”

By our laws, Xander killed Halfeather, therefore making that land ours. That same night, when we spoke to the serpent king, we made that clear.

But we both know it wasn’t just the loss of Halfeather’s land that set Mace off, but rather, the loss of something more valuable than any land.

A Boneweaver.

He hoped to keep her quiet and isolated. Hoped to remove Halfeather from the chessboard and collect a neat package of funds. But things have gotten out of hand. He’s going to do everything in his power to get her back. And serpents have weapons the other orders cannot even fathom. Weapons that work secretly, silently, in the dark.

He is no doubt using those already.

Savage must be listening and thinking the same thing, because his voice funnels into me, faint due to the distance but still very much audible.

“Yeah, well, we still have our princess, so…”

“We can’t let this slide,”Xander snarls.“Those human customers won’t be happy the deal fell through because we lost product.”

But I don’t care about that human biker gang who wanted those arms. Couldn’t care less. Idocare about Mace forming an alliance with my neighbour.

I think about what I know about Mace and Cain Clawson.

An alliance in our line of work is a near-impossible thing. Dominant males do not like to share or indebt themselves to other dominant beasts. To do so is submissive behaviour. But I suspect something about Mace Naga and Cain Clawson.Something that links them so profoundly that it superseded their natural urge to dominate one another.

Something so dark that even I, standing under the moonlight covered in blood, shiver to think about it.

I look at my dragon-brother and clench my teeth.

Aurelia inherited her Boneweaver power from her mother, meaning that Mace Naga was mate to a Boneweaver regina.

Mace has other treasures too, more valuable than dollar figures. We will have to be careful.

One thing that males like Mace and I understand is the long game. Something my father never quite mastered, to his detriment.

“We lie low,”I instruct firmly.

“You can’t be serious. We need to retaliate?—”

“Not yet, Xan.”

He stares at me, his fiery power pulsing around him, all black and red. There’s so much rage in him, fuelled by my little demonstration, and he needs to fight. Needs it like I need brine.

“Soon, brother,” I reassure him.“Soon.”

I head back down to the beach to wash off, while Xander takes the keys to the second Jeep from Rufus and sends him on his way with Jason in a plastic tub in the back seat.

My dragon brother needs to blow off some steam and there are only one or two other orders that can match a dragon in a fight. Since I’m neither a phoenix nor our fifth brother, it will have to be in human form.

“Come on,” I say, once we’re in our car, driving us away from the beach to one of our usual sparring locations in a regional block of land—a place where we won’t be able to cause too much damage to buildings or humans. “I think lazing around all day smoking red in that school has made you soft.”

“The fuck I am,” he snarls back.

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