Page 25 of Her Rabid Beasts

But I do. My wolf and I, we can see all of her. I’ve seen her now as an eagle, a wolf, and a lioness. But behind all those beautiful forms is the woman underneath. The one who planned her escape from the clutches of execution. There were a dozen lethal beasts outside the medical wing and she managed to thwart all of them with just a few nimpins. Brilliant. Genius. I would have given anything to see it in real life and not just the security camera footage I watch on my phone every other day. That’s what we talk about when I go down there every day. Well, that’s whatItalk about and she just listens.

I’m hoping that the more I talk to her and feed her, the more she’ll fall in love with me too. Her anima likes me. It lets me feed her little bits of chicken now. At first, I chewed the food myself and tried to give it to her in the way that birds do, thinking maybe her mother did that for her.

But she just looked at me with an adorable “are you kidding?” look. When I tried to do it again, Stacey and Sabrina gagged and retched in the corner of the cavern and I had no choice but totry different methods. I tried to give it raw, then boiled, then roasted, but she took none of it until Connor brought down the boneless kind. He said that we didn’t want to know who he had to blow to get it, but he was grinning so he definitely didn’t mind.

“She doesn’t like bones?”I say in disbelief to Raquel.“All rabids like bones.”

“I don’t think she’s a regular rabid, Mr Fengari,”comes the telepathic reply.

It makes me beam with pride, because I know my regina isnotnormal. Or regular. Or ordinary. She’s special. A Boneweaver. And every time she takes food from me, my heart grows a little bigger.

It excites me that I’m the first one in our pack to have tasted her. To have savoured her.

Whenever the others come around to loving her like I do, I will still have that claim. That ownership. Lyle hates me for it. I knew it from the start. His animus thinks he’s oldest and therefore second in charge and should have had the first claiming. But fuck them all, because I was the one who saw her first.

And I’m the one who fell in love with her first.

I skip second period because I can’t fight the urge to be with Aurelia. I spent the night there, like I always do, but leaving her, even with Eugene there, to eat or go to class is like an old wound being cut open again. Lyle won’t be happy, but I’m attending his regina classes, so he’s got to give me marks for that. Humming my way to the anima dorm, I blow Christine a kiss. She shoots swear words in my direction, not having forgiven me for the bomb episode, but lets me into the dorm regardless. Once Ireach the canal, I see that the boat isn’t docked. Narrowing my eyes, I shift and leap into the water, paddling my way down the passage. The water mutes scents and there are so many of us down here these days that it can be hard to tell which is from today and which is from yesterday.

But my sense of the mates from our pack goes beyond my nose and I detect Lyle’s presence before I round the corner and see his long blond ponytail hanging down his broad, suited back.

He’s sitting on the stone floor and Aurelia is…

Jealousy flares as I see the two of them together. Aurelia is cuddled up to Lyle, her body lying alongside his leg as if she finds comfort there. Lyle knows I’m coming up, but he doesn’t turn around. Eugene is sitting in Aurelia’s nest, watching them through his goggles like the good boy he is.

As I get out of the water, I shake my fur, spraying both of them with cold water.

To my dismay, when I finish, I see a screen of water droplets hovering in mid-air. On the other side, Lyle has lifted only a single finger off his knee. He drops the finger, and the water comes shooting for me.

Annoyed, I ignore him and stalk over to Aurelia’s other side and lie down to sandwich her between us.

She huffs as if she enjoys this and Lyle sighs as if he doesn’t.

“Why aren’t you in class, Savage?” When he talks, it’s in a surprisingly soft voice. Like he doesn’t dare use his normal authoritative tone near our regina in case it scares her.

I let out a huff to say I don’t care for his question.

“Savage, you really must be in human form when with her. She needs to come out of this rabidity.”

My animus protests at being told what to do by this beast, but Aurelia is more important. And Ruben told me that love is when you care about the other person so much that you put less important things to the side.

So I shift into human form but remain where I am, lying on my belly. The stone rubs against my dick and I grimace, rolling over so that I’m on my back instead. Lyle doesn’t look as intimidating now that he’s upside down.

If I close my eyes, I can even pretend he’s not there. Aurelia’s fur is glorious against my side, like a warm silken gown. But I can feel her ribs under that skin and I sit up as I realise it. I fed her this morning, but she only took two chicken tenders.

Shit. Maybe it’s not enough. It certainly wouldn’t be enough for me. I glance up at Lyle, uncertain about what this means. He’s already studying me, eyes narrowed in some sort of suspicion. Like he thinks I’m going to try to blow up the anima dorm again.

I’d sooner blow up his office. It’s still in the “to consider” part of my brain.

But my irritation for Lyle is overcome by the worry in the pit of my stomach. Lyle is probably an expert on lions and I’m not. He probably knows about this stuff.

“She’s not eating much,” I say tightly.

We both look down at her beautiful body. Her breathing looks sort of fast to me, but I don’t know if that’s normal for a lioness. Or a Boneweaver.

Lyle glances at the empty plastic bottles of water the girls are collecting to the side. I never knew girls could be so messy. Without asking, I get up and rush towards the bowl she’s been drinking from and fill it with a fresh bottle of water.

I bring the full bowl back and bop her nose with it.

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