Page 72 of Her Rabid Beasts

I look up, regarding her seriously, and she immediately shuts her mouth. Georgia has her pick of feline males any day of the week, but has not yet found her pack. For the protection of my students, I only hire staff who are already in mating groups. Georgia was not my choice for a secretary, but as the niece of the feline king, I was forced to take her on board when she applied last year.

She’d set about trying to get me into her bed straight away. With limited options out here in the central hinterland, I’d accepted her offer.

Until, that is, I met Aurelia. And suddenly even looking at my secretary gave me a feeling of profound revulsion. If this kept up, I was going to have to fire her.

“Have a good evening, Georgia,” I say flatly.

She stiffly nods at my clear dismissal and strides out of my office. With fire still flooding my veins, I decide I need to blow off some steam.

When Celeste started working with me at the age of seventeen, she made it clear everything in her training program was non-negotiable. I needed to keep calm. I needed to maintain control. So, it was a strict daily regimen of meditation, essay writing, talking about my feelings, hard physical exercise, mixed martial arts, and general schooling. Once I turned eighteen, I also had to make sure I had sex regularly. One of the different things about an animalia prison compared to a human prison was the need for beasts to have sex to temper their volatility. Blackwater had a huge roster of sex workers, so it was never difficult for me to sate my carnal urges. Once I started working here, however, I had to make my own roster, and Georgia was a convenient regular.

Now that my roster is non-existent, it becomes more important for me to focus on the rest of my daily disciplines.

All animus males need to exert physical energy every day to remain stable. It was why we invested so much in both the jungle gym and traditional gym equipment in the warehouse at the back of the school.

With students only just finishing up their final class of the day, the gym is empty. After changing in the locker rooms, I head straight to the boxing equipment. We have a line of animalia-strength punching bags, speed-balls, and even a boxing ring, which I’ve forbidden Savage from entering.

I head towards the same boxing bag I’ve been hitting every other day for the past four years and set to work, finding stability in a familiar rhythm.

My mind wanders back to Aurelia. Back to Beak and the males surrounding her in every. Fucking. Class. To the way Savage puts a possessive arm around her at every chance. To the way every male rakes their eyes down her face, her body, her legs.

The way she licks her lips and bites her pen. The way she looks at me with those big mythical blue eyes that make my cock harden and every cell in my body jealous of anyone who gets to touch her and laugh with her and speak with her as an equal?—

But then I’m hitting air and I stumble back, my vision clearing.

Where there was a punching bag, now stands a shredded mess of leather and padding. I don’t even have to glance to my left to know there is a line of students staring at me, still and silent, the scent of their fear and lust strong in the air.

From the side of my eye, one of them slowly approaches me, keeping his movements slow and predictable in the way of beasts not wanting to trigger a predator. I remain still, waiting for him to make himself known.

“Um, sir?”

It’s a third-year panther I accompanied to court last year on a couple of manslaughter charges. I still see him for monthly sessions to work on the anger management issues, so I know him well.

It takes conscious effort for my voice to emerge calmly. “What is it, Maddox?”

He tentatively holds out something, his hand trembling a little. “You can keep it.”

I turn to take the object from his palm and, upon recognising it, sigh through my nose. It’s an academy stress ball some of the students designed as a project. Printed on the front in bubble letters, it says: ‘Squeeze me, baby’. On the back: ‘I like it hard’.

“Thanks,” I say dryly.

“No worries, boss.”

I exit the gym, ignoring the many wary glances before shooting an email to Ruben to order a new boxing bag.

Chapter 30

Scythe

In the dark of the night, by a gibbous moon, Xander lands a discreet distance away from the city centre, at one of our regular landing spots. Two cars wait for me fifty paces away.

“See you in a few days, brother,”he says.

“Happy hunting,”I reply as I climb off his back and jump onto the field.

I watch him leave, his powerful body launching into the sky, a sheer defiance of physics that’s always a magnificent sight to see. His scales gleam blue-black under the moon until the sky swallows him whole.

It’s low tide out on the coast of the country, and though I long to see it, I don’t have the time. Rufus steps out of the first car and shakes my hand. We exchange a few words before he passes me the keys to the second car and leaves.

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