Page 73 of Her Rabid Beasts

I put myself into the driver’s seat of the second, my favourite black Maserati, and take off to find the road. After dragon flight, driving a car should be child’s play, except the ghost that forever haunts me now has a reason to be close.

He appears in the passenger seat, glistening wet blue-grey skin, with stringy black hair and a mouth full of razor-like teeth.

Find them, stalk them, tear them to pieces,it whispers into my head.Drive the car off the road, crash it, steal it, choke it.

I exhale a long-suffering breath. Land-psychosis is something I can usually work around. It’s always with me, but being away from my brothers always lengthens its leash. Xander asked to come with me, but I persuaded him not to this time. I have to be gone for a few days for my inquiries and we cannot push Lyle so far as forbothof us to disappear completely. So I push the whisperings aside with something else.

Reaching out to the academy, I locate that familiar golden energy that will distract my roaring brain.

Irritation floods my arteries as I come up against a barrier. There is that new bubble around the academy that protects all within from external forces and will not permit me entry. It’s old magic, no doubt awoken when the latent dragon power within it came into full force. But the timing of it is extremely interesting. For some reason, the school has recognised Aurelia as a kindred spirit.

But then, there is my dragon-brother. I know he feels newly untethered. Like the mythical creature at the base of him is retaliating against these new powers.

He doesn’t know what to make of it and neither do I. Dragons have a slightly different way of forming mating bonds. It’s a process that’s even more primitive than for the rest of us. So primitive that dragons typically only mate one to one.

It’s one of the many reasons Xander was cast out of his family. Not the main one, but it was one more thing to add to the situation.

I arrive in the main city two hours later, at the peak of the nighttime rush, and it almost helps distract from the ghost. There are too many things to see and smell and taste. Too much blood coursing around me in a cocktail of drugs, alcohol, lust, and adrenaline.

The humans are stumbling and noisy, dressed in their best, or worst, as they make the most of their Saturday night. There are some animalia-only clubs, but even the human clubs have done away with human bouncers and opted for bears and lions. Then there are those strip clubs who hire unmated reginas to lure in beasts and rake in the cash. A couple of these are mine. Each of us who play the big game has a territory in the main city. A couple of streets that we have under our sole jurisdiction, with scouts and guards to monitor for illegal activity. This city is way too big for just one beast to rule and might have led to great bloodshed if not for this arrangement. This way, we’re about as happy as we can be.

I weave my way into my territory and the hotel I’ve agreed to meet Marduk in. As an unmated, virile tiger, he’s restless, never staying in one place for long in the hopes that he’ll find his mating group.

This hotel is one of my bigger ones, and I hand my keys to the valet, a scrawny young wolf who almost trips at the sight of me.

I pretend not to notice and he stammers a greeting, promising to look after my car.

“You’d better,” I tell him. “It’s my favourite one.”

He almost shits his pants, so I give him a smile. He almost shits his pants yet again, so I hand him a fifty to make up for it. I make my way inside, cutting left at the atrium to head into the club.

Savage changed its name toBouncing Bazookaswhen I took it over, and I shake my head every time I see the neon yellow sign emblazoned above the entrance. We keep things classy for the richer clientele who like to come here.

“A pleasure to see you, sir.” Ragnar, the burly lion at the front, unclips the red corded band and lets me in. I nod in acknowledgement as I stride past.

In the front, some new RnB plays and the dance floor is full of bouncing younger millennials in their Saturday night best. The bartenders nod at me as I pass, heading to the VIP area at the rear. Adonis, a handsome, flirtatious lion in the club uniform—a black suit and tie—grins at me, gesturing aside a pair of brave she-wolves, trying to get through.

More than tipsy, they gaze open-mouthed at me as I pass.

The club music becomes muffled as the door closes behind me and the ghost begins its incessant mutterings once again. There are many rooms branching from a wide, red-patterned corridor. Some of these rooms and alcoves are curtained, others have glass doors, so you can see exactly what debauchery goes on inside.

Some of that debauchery brings back unpleasant memories and makes the ghost’s whispers grow even darker, so I don’t bother with these doors.

But I do go through a door right at the end of the corridor.

The first thing I see is Blair and Blade, a pair of cheetah twins Eiffel Tower-ing a willowy brunette in red lingerie, on her hands and knees on the red leather couch. Both males are completely naked, their powerful bodies thrusting in unison. The jaguar female moans around Blair’s cock while Blade fucks her asshole from behind. He slaps her ass and then waves at me with the same hand, hips never missing a beat. His tongue was severed many years back, so he can’t talk.

“Sir,” Blair says, nodding formally at me. “Always a pleasure.”

The fine sheen of sweat glistening on both their toned chests under the dim, mood light, and the strong smell of arousal saturating the air tells me they’ve been at it an hour or more already.

I happily pay for this high-end sex worker and her discretion because these cheetahs are the best assassins I’ve had thepleasure of hiring. They’re efficient, effective, and best of all, quiet. The only tell that they get any stress from their work is that they like to fuck their women to exhaustion, hence why I get them the best sex workers in the city.

Virile, unmated animuses like these need to fuck regularly to keep calm and focused on their jobs. Frustrated males are far too happy to take uncalculated risks and wild decisions are usually bad decisions. I won’t have that on my team.

Marduk sits on a red armchair adjacent to them, watching the threesome with a clinical, narrow-eyed assessment, his long, tattooed fingers steepled. He rises as I approach him, sweeping a bow. The Caspian tiger looks fine in a black suit with his shoulder length black hair gleaming. Those dark piercing eyes assess me with their typical cut-throat precision, before gesturing for me to follow him into an adjacent room.

I enter and he shuts the door, cutting off every sound. Before us is a one-way glass, showing the dance floor of the club and two stylish armchairs, a small round table between them.

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