Page 11 of Her Rabid Beasts

“I don’t even know what that means,” I snarl. “And I don’t fucking care.”

“I’ll get you in, you crazy fucker,” Xander pants, shoving at me.

I go stumbling back, but now there’s a massive grin on my face. “Really?”

“Yes, you illiterate backwater hick.”

“Well, now I’m just going to blow it up out of spite, aren’t I?”

Xander growls and stalks into the dorm as panicked animas stream out of it in their skimpy, lacey pyjamas, some with pillows under their arms. The males hiding a distance away look on with interest and jog back out to meet the ladies. Pickle sprints past me to collect his bombs, but manages to snag a group of curious feline animas on the way back. I smirk as I follow Xander.

The animus dorm is going to be a giant party tonight.

Don’t let anyone say I’m not a benevolent pack leader.

Chapter 5

Xander

We trudge up three flights of stairs, passing two animas who give each other an almost comical look of fear before dashing past us.

With Handel’sPassacagliablaring in my ears, we get to the serpent girl’s corridor, and quite suddenly, I’m hyper aware ofthat scent.

It’s like nothing I’ve smelled before and giving it a name is like trying to remember the words of a song when you only know the melody. It’s like starlight and the primordial place between the stars. It’s heavy and sweet like a summer storm. It makes my whole body tingle.

No doubt the scent of a Boneweaver.

I fucking hate it.

Suppressing a gag, I survey the serpent girl’s dorm. The balcony doors have been forced open from the broken brass handles on the floor. The rest of the room is in disarray and the smell of the other animas and nimpins litter the air.

Savage pushes past me to sniff the room, and suddenly he goes stock still.

His voice is dangerously soft when he says, “What is that doing here?”

I lean around him to see what he’s staring at. On the snake girl’s bed is a pile of items. Three specific items. A pair of cheap charcoal track pants, a two-dollar USB (who even uses those anymore?) and a red foil chocolate wrapper carefully folded into a perfect square.

Helpfully I say, “Ah. That.”

“You returned my chocolate foil?!”Savage screams. He’s on me in an instant, claws out, dragging the sharp points down my face. It burns like acid, but I let him have at it as I think dully. All this over a snake girl. I don’t understand his anger. Really, I don’t.

“You scumbag cunts!” Savage roars. “That wasmine! They wereours!”

I let him drop us to the ground, and he slams a furry fist into my jaw. Left, then right. Then left again. I hear a crack and see stars. The feeling of broken bone must satisfy him because he rears back on his heels and jumps up.

“Fuck you, Xander!” Savage strides over to the pile and possessively snatches them up and hugs them to his bare tattooed chest. “If you don’t want them, you should have given them to me.”

“They’re shitty gifts, anyway,” I grumble through gritted teeth. Savage shoots me a dark, unhinged look that tells me he’s at the end of his tether. I turn away from him as I press the broken parts of my jaw back together so they can heal properly.

We both stride out of the dorm room and track the Boneweaver scent down the corridor.

Savage rushes up to press his nose against the painting on the wall at the end of the corridor.

It’s a stunning oil painting. An original, I’m sure, of a dragon flying high over a craggy mountain range somewhere in Europe. A small sigh escapes me as I admire a piece of history. We had paintings like this all over my parent’s mansion.

As soon as I get back to my room, I’m going to get a drink.

Without even looking, I can sense the dragon-trick door. Looking at it through my magical eyes, I can see right through it and the fresh sparkle that tells me it has been recently unlocked.

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