Page 46 of Her Rabid Beasts

By the time self-defence class comes around, it’s time for my appointment with Lyle, so, reluctantly, I show my appointment card to one of the guards and they escort me to his office.

Georgia, Lyle’s perfectly stunning secretary, is sitting at her desk, brushing her long golden hair as I enter the executive floor where all the offices are. My two guards wait for me to step out of the elevator before heading back down. The lioness’s eyestighten as she stares me down, and it incites a strut out of me. She proceeds to look me up and down and so I do the same. My anima and I decided that we didn’t like her at first sight.

“Georgia,” I say curtly. I can’t forget that she was the one who’d fetched me from my dorm the day I was to meet my father.

The top of her pink lip twitches in a soft sneer. “Let’s get one thing straight, Miss Aquinas.”

My hackles raise.

“Girls like you come in here all the time,” she says, rising from her chair. She’s wearing a lovely, expensive-looking white blouse and red pencil skirt that hugs her to perfection. The picture of class. “And think they can woo the deputy headmaster with their skimpy, slutty clothes.”

This bitch?—

“Well Lyle knows better than that. He sees right through you to the nasty little crim you are.”

The sudden urge to rip her throat out makes a growl tear out of my throat.

“Don’t youdare, growl at me,” Georgia hisses, planting her hands on her desk and leaning over it.

I catch a whisper of a scent on the breeze, parchment and musk. It calms me a little. Lyle is just behind his office door.

“Well,” I say lightly, straightening from what was likely an attack-ready hunch. “You have a pretty bad memory, Miss Georgia. Don’t you remember that the last time I was here, I said you can have him? He’s an arrogant asshole.”

“You don’t fool me,” she scowls.

I shrug, but my anima is fuming,seethinginside of me. A lick of my telekinetic power coils around the lioness and a fine line forms between her perfect brows. She’s confused about where it’s coming from because as an eagle I shouldn’t be able to dothat. “I don’t give a falcon’s fuck what you think, Georgia. Pretty sureLylesees right through your fake ass too.”

But it only makes a smirk curve along her lips and she tosses her hair. “Oh, Lyle and I arewellacquainted with each other.”

Oh she did not.

Georgia’s throat suddenly looks very tasty and for a moment I wonder what it would be like to taste her blood and flesh in my mouth. Feel it tearing open?—

Oh Goddess no. I need to snap out of this pure feral madness. I take a shuddery breath and step away from her desk, tearing my eyes off her long, slender throat. She mistakes my actions for submission and her smirk widens. She says in a sugary sweet voice, striding toward Lyle’s office door. “Mr Pardalia will see you now.”

Chapter 21

Lyle

“Look at this.” I wave Scythe over to my desk and swivel my monitor towards him.

He comes to stand beside me, and together, we stare at the long list of items Aurelia has purchased from an online store calledEggplant Emporium:Pleasure for exotic tastes.

Since I’ve given Aurelia a stipend, I’ve been monitoring her spending like a lion monitoring a gazelle. The best way to get a read on a person? Watch their purchases. Before her hibernation, the amount of lingerie and tiny dresses she’d purchased from the student village had me near calling Theresa to berate her for irresponsibility. But I’ve refrained thus far, not wanting anyone to know I’m watching her as closely as I am.

But this new round of purchases is simply ridiculous.

I scroll down the page as I scan the items for a third time. I scroll again… and again. There are dildos, vibrators, clitoris stimulators and anal plugs of all types, colours and makes. While the unicorn one I could forgive, the very last vibrator? Purchased almost as if it was an afterthought?

It’s called “The King’s Pride.” The silicone is the same gold as a lion’s fur, with the base moulded into the shape of a male lion’s head, fluffy mane and all.

Heat creeps up my spine. Scythe chuckles softly under his breath.

I sit back in my chair, drumming my fingers against the armrest, staring at my screen. Chains rattle at the base of my consciousness and a low rumble—no, not a rumble, apurr—a fucking purr resounds in my head.

“She has a healthy appetite,” I remark.

Scythe nods slowly. “She’s regina to five alphas,” he says pointedly. “She was made that way.”

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