Page 8 of Her Rabid Beasts

A familiar, dark feeling of unease winds through me.

“She’s not coping with this,” Scythe says. “She’s not stable.”

“Physically, she’s fine,” I say quickly. “That’s the most important thing.”

“I want to see her,” Savage growls.

With a veteran’s practise, I blow out a slow, measured exhale. “It’ll tip her over, Savage. She’s?—”

“Fuck that. She needs me.” And then, begrudgingly, he adds, “She needs us.”

“She doesn’t want us, Sav,” Xander snaps.

Scythe’s voice cuts through their bickering. “If she needs to be alone, we leave her alone.” Scythe is Savage’s voice of reason. And if the devilcouldbe a person’s voice of reason, you know you’re dealing with a real bottom-dweller of hell itself.

Savage goes still and something passes between the blood brothers. I wonder what it is because, by the small crease between his brows, even Xander doesn’t know.

Shark and wolf. I always thought it was a strange mix in a family. Their father was well known in the underworld. By all accounts feral, but sane. All his kills were in cold blood. Males like that should be put down as soon as they reach adulthood. But there is a humanity in Savage that is very much not like his father’s. It’s new for him, although it seems limited to his newly found regina.

The fact that we are all in the same pack, have thesameregina—I can’t even compute that.

I speak his name and the wolf’s head snaps back towards me, his hazel eyes raging with a suspicion that borders on outright violence. “You can see her on one condition.” He needs to be tested. I take another drag of my joint.

His eyes narrow. “Who do I need to kill,feline?”

I let the jab go. For now. “You’ll attend the regina course we run here. All of you will.Thenwe can see about a visit.”

Xander swears under his breath. “I don’t have a regina. I’m not fucking going.”

But Savage cocks his head contemplatively and a light enters his eyes, as if he’s inspired. “Alright.” He shoves playfully at Xander. “And you’ll do it too, Xan, or I’ll rip off your ears.”

The dragon snarls, smoke streaming from his nose as he leaps to his feet and storms out of my office. Savage rubs his hands together and licks his lips as if he’s thinking of Aurelia. “That’s a yes.”

“Don’t push him,” Scythe warns. The yellow lamplight catches his eyes, but it adds no warmth to those cold sapphires. “The last thing we need is a rabid dragon running around campus. We already have a rabid Boneweaver.”

There it is again. That little, blue-eyed word that sits heavily between us like a boulder. A boulder that might swing back at any moment and get us all killed.

But Scythe is ever the calculating Don. I can’t even tell what he feels for Aurelia beyond cursory interest. Does his animus even respond the same way to her as it does for us land animuses?

As if he knows what I’m thinking, Scythe stares right at me in open challenge as Savage bounds out the door. I meet him stare for stare. As the oldest, I ought to be rex of our group, and failing that, second-in-charge. We’re all a match for power, after all. But in a group like this… well, I expect to have my dominance challenged constantly.

But I won’t accept it. I’m not a part of this pack. Far from it.

In the silence of my darkened office and the cicadas chirping outside, I let out another measured breath. Between just the two of us, perhaps conversation could be civil.

“Why did she never tell us?”

“Because she’s Mace Naga’s daughter, Lyle.” Scythe takes another drag of his joint. “Because for thirteen years she was raised by a manipulative, cunning man and knows how this works, perhaps better than anyone.”

Aurelia certainly has never been an innocent sort of young lady. Growing up in the serpent mansion itself, she can’t be. But she also never struck me as malicious, and I considered myself a good judge of both animalia and humans. “But Mace sent her away to marry Halfeather. If he knew about her power, why would he do that? Why not keep her for his own from the start? He clearly wants her back.”

“Wants her back to breed her,” Scythe says. He allows that to sink in. And when it does, something old and lethal creaks in my ears. Something I’ve been keeping at bay for ten long years. I take a long drag of my joint and hold the sweet, acrid smoke in my lungs until it stops. Scythe continues. “That Halfeather situation was just a power play. Likely for a few million bucks. He wants to have control of the most powerful beast of our generation. Ofanyliving generation.” Scythe stands up, his face beautiful and hard like it’s cut from marble. “If she ever caught wind of exactly how powerful she is, she would know there is nothing in her way. Evenwecouldn’t go up against her.” He takes a step towards me. “She can’teverknow how powerful she is, Lyle. If she does, we’ll have an enemy on our hands—the worst we’ve ever known.”

I frown at him. I can’t deny his logic, but it’s a mobster’s logic. It’s the type of thinking that Scythe has used to gain this much power over the years and stay in that power.

He exhales and I know there are thoughts running mad in his head. For the millionth time, I wonder how he stays sane. How he remains logical and calculating despite the call to the ocean I’m sure his shark demands from him every minute of the day.

Scythe turns out to the window, looking out over the school grounds. By the light of the moon lining the sharp planes of his features, he looks like some ethereal creature from another world. I see the lure he has on the animas and every other beast who comes across him.

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