Page 30 of Her Rabid Beasts

“Dear Goddess,” she says, hurrying towards me. “Lia!”

“I know,” I say wryly, passing a look to Minnie to ask how much Theresa is aware of. “I need a shower.”

“Lyle sent me. We’ll go to the communal bathroom,” she says, taking Minnie’s place on my right. “There’s a bath ready for you there. If you can get some of Lia’s pyjamas out, Min?”

Minnie hurries off into our room through our apparently newly reinstated door while I’m escorted to the communal bathroom on the ground floor at a sloth’s pace. Everyone is in the dining hall since Lyle ended the lockdown early to see me after my outburst, so the anima dorm is empty as I stumble through it. I’ve never had to use the communal bathroom as there is an ensuite in our room, but Theresa explains that they use the baths for parasite treatments. And apparently, four weeks of not bathing and the few bites of raw meat I’ve eaten could have given me something.

Once in the black and white tiled bathroom, I take one look at the steaming metal bathtub and groan, ripping off my clothes immediately. Hardly caring about my nudity, or the fact that it smells like flea treatment, I let Raquel and Theresa help me in. Theresa hands me a bar of soap and that gross LFS treatment for my hair and everyone leaves to give me some privacy.

I’m conditioning my hair when there’s a commotion outside the door. A jolt of fire in my belly surprises me as I hear Savage’s growling voice.

My body immediately responds to his presence, and I take a few deep breaths to control my urge to leap out and go to him.

The last time I “saw” him, we had wild, rough, life-changing sex. I don’t know where that puts us. I don’t know what it means. But Idoknow that he was nowhere to be found when I was being presented to my father like a lamb for slaughter.

There are raised voices and I have no doubt that he’s arguing with Theresa and Minnie. My time in the cavern is hazy and I can’t remember much of what happened while I was there. I remember that Savage was with me often, but not what I might have done. I don’t trust my anima to act with any decency. After all, she’s a hussy at the best of times, wanting to enact our deepest, darkest desires for our mates. So what the hell did she do when he came down there?

Henry gathers water into his beak and squirts it at me in a long stream. My laugh is cut off by an aggressive knocking on my mental shields. With my protections up, he can’t get through to talk to me telepathically.

“That wolf can fucking wait,” I grumble with irritation. The fact that he knows more than I do about our interactions is seriously annoying and potentially embarrassing.

One part of me does want to see him, and another part of me doesn’t want him to see me like this—tired and sagging under my own strain. The regina in me wants to look shiny and pretty for him, and I’m too tired to fight that instinct right now. No, it’s better if he’s kept away… for the moment.

But his deep voice wafting through the door makes heat sidle through my lower stomach.

I give Henry a little growl to tell him he needs to be elsewhere. The good little nimpin zips off to look at himself in the mirror over the sink.

Sliding deeper into the water, I hang my head back against the lip of the tub and slide my hands down my neck to the swell of my breasts. The soapy water makes everything deliciously slippery, and I shiver as my palm brushes over my erect nipples.

I’ve spent so much time alone for the past seven years that I’m very good at pleasuring myself. So when I pass my hand down my stomach and into the mound of soft curls between my legs, the anticipation sends me hissing.

But this time, instead of thinking of some imaginary beast, I think of Savage and the way his eyes heated up when he looked at me the night before my trial, when I found myself in his room. The way he threw me on his bed and we were all desperate teeth and tongue. He devoured me then, pulled me into a place I never even dreamed of being. My fingers slide in and out of my increasingly slick heat, my thumb circling my clit to the sound of Savage’s angry voice on the other side of the door.

Suddenly, it goes quiet outside and I smirk, wondering if Savage can scent me and what I’m doing. If it’s made him go quiet in realisation, or maybe a little bit of shock.

Then a single, clear growl passes through the bathroom door. “Princess?”

I come suddenly, almost caught off guard, arching into the feeling of his growl around his pet name for me and the memory of his large, tattooed hands, and wicked tongue. I wring out every last delicious bite of pleasure from myself, allowing it to consume and comfort me in its golden warmth.

A deeper voice joins the mix and I think it might be Ruben, the seven-foot-tall wolf who is head of security around here.

As the voices outside recede, I lie here in a lazy afterglow, breathing heavily and deeply, aware of the fact that I’ve received a tiny burst of power from my own ministrations.

So Savage was not there that night my father came to pick me up. He didn’t need to be, I suppose. I don’t even know how that makes me feel. He obviously cared aboutsomethingif he visited me so often in my cave. But I also can’t be sure if Scythe sent him to keep an eye on me in the way he needs to keep an eye on everything.

Anger coils within my chest. Not just anger, but fury at what they all did to help my father. The way Lyle handed me my notice of execution. The feel of Scythe’s and Xander’s hands on my upper arms as they escorted me to my waiting father. Sure,I tried to run away from them, but that was my only crime as a mate. I wouldneverhave putthemup for execution.

There is some blurry memory of Lyle coming to see me as often as Savage. There were some gentle words and a gentle hand, even.

But whatever they communicated to my anima hadn’t been communicated to me. It was all moot. It doesn’t count.

I rub my eyes as the weight of all this falls heavily on me. There are enemies at every angle both in this school and outside of it.

But if any of them think I will take this lying down, they are fucking mistaken.

Chapter 16

Aurelia

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