Page 98 of Her Rabid Beasts

But she shakes her head. “Just very difficult. If you want to do this, it will take everything you have. It might even break you. Are you willing?”

“Already broken,” I say softly. I have nothing left. “Let’s do this.”

She smiles at me. “I will see you in Blackwater Penitentiary, Mr. Pardalia. And we will begin.”

She calls me by my new name. The one given to lions who do not know their family. Even so, ‘mister’ sounds human.

It sounds like someone I could be one day.

Chapter 41

Aurelia

That bastard lion actually handcuffed me to his bed.

As soon as his apartment door slams closed, I tug at the fluffy cuff. Although last year, Sabrina taught me to pick locks for my grand escape after my trial, I have no bobby pins or lock picks to use.

After that crazy, intense, mind-blowing sex, the wounds on my stomach burn all the more. I need painkillers and… I need to pee.

Lyle is clearly losing it if he smashed whatever it was in his living room and then planned to keep me here for an unknown amount of time. I consider my options, but the thing is, I’m incredibly tired. Post sex with one of my mates is leaving my insides overwhelmed. I can still feel him inside of me, that ghost of a burn that reminds me that Lyle has been inside my body.

I sigh contentedly, and even with my arm up in the air, I begin to doze.

Minnie. Hours later, I wake up with a rough start, gasping for air as panic chokes me once more.

Keep them safe. Keep them safe. Keep them safe.

It’s an infinite hymn my power has been singing since the day I went into hiding under the academy. I need to make sure Minnie or any of my friends have not been attacked by my father like he promised to if I didn’t comply with his order.

Natalia said he’d be here in two Saturdays’ time. Typical serpent dramatics. Everything has to be threes or sevens, doesn’t it? But knowing my father, he’ll make his point with more than just idle threats. He’ll want to show me he means business.

Lyle would have surely said something if someone wasn’t okay, but then again, I don’t think he left his room at all while I was here.

I need to get out of this fucking cuff.

Tugging at it does nothing.

With an angry scream, I blast the cuff with every last dreg of power afforded to me by Lyle’s tortured fucking.

We can never do that again.

Like hell.

The metal trembles, shudders, then explodes into pieces.

Angrily, I leap out of bed, and run straight for the fireplace door. But halfway, I halt in my tracks.

Lyle’s dining room table lies broken. As if a giant took it in both hands and snapped it in half. One of the dining chairs lies destroyed, too.

So that was the terrible sound I heard. I swallow as I survey the evidence of Lyle’s anger at having had me. I know he hadn’t intended to fuck me, but this reaction is a bit extreme. My anima keens at the sight. He hadthismuch distress at being with me?

But then my anima caws at me. She smells no regret here. It’s something else. Something more painful and sinister than that.A memory that’s not mine flashes in my internal eye. A memory of self-hate.

Anger burns anew along the lines of my veins.

Slowly, carefully, I walk to the fireplace.

I stand there, staring furiously at it. I’m furious at a cruel world that hurts young children so badly they become monsters. “Open,” I growl.

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