Page 11 of Her Vicious Beasts: The Beginning
My brother knows me, of course. Knows that it’s dangerous for me to pursue a woman like this. He’s probably trying to protect her—he’s always trying to save the world from me and my dirty paws. So I settle down and watch Lia start up her healing magic on the boogeyman in solitary. He’d already been here when we’d arrived and I’d known that whoever he was, he was a part of our mating group right away. Even Halfeather’s shields can’t mask the ancient bond between us—a gold thread that links our animus’ through space and eternity. But we’d not found our regina yet, our centre, and that was exactly what had gotten us into this fuck up of a situation.
I sit down on the stone, mirroring Aurelia—Lia, as she liked to be called. But I think I’m going to stick with ‘Princess’. It matches her delicate features, her haughty, sweet nose in the air, and her I’m-not-scared-of-the-big-bad-wolf personality. She walks a little like a princess too, and I can’t take my eyes off her every time she walks up to me.
Every time? Dear Mother Wolf, I’m delusional. I’ve seen her walk all oftwotimes. Who cares, though? I’d known I wanted to take a bite out of those hips the moment I’d seen her. Not anactual bite, more of a mouthful, more of a ‘let me lick you all over and see if you taste as good as you look.’
The magic dampener on my cell refrains me from feeling her out properly as she closes her eyes and broaches the bogeyman’s steel door with her magic. It’s such a shame because I’m fucking desperate to scent her and I just know it’s going to be spectacular when I do.
I glance back at Xander, opposite me. He usually has his eyes closed, listening to whatever European rock music or Mongolian throat singing he has on his device. When we’d first arrived, he’d raged for a full week straight in his cell, almost tearing the place down, driving the rest of us mad until the guards had given in and let him have his music. The fucking old beaker didn’t want to drive us rabid, which I took to mean he wanted us sane forsomething.
Xander is frowning at Aurelia through his old scars. He can’t use his damaged eyes without his power and that’s left him agitated—and creepy looking, because they’re black hollows from where they’d dug them out with their bare claws when he was a kid. I turn back to look at Lia. It’s pretty impressive that she can sit there for a full hour and fix the beast next door. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone hold power or concentration for that long.
We sit and watch her—well, Xander listens—while Scythe remains still in his cage, which is the best anyone can ask of him. I lean my forehead against the bars of my cell, my stomach grumbling. They feed us whenever they feel like it, which is not often. Fair punishment, I suppose, for what we’d done. I don’t care though, I’d do it all over again given the chance, and I know the others would say the same. Xander enjoys a good slaughter even more than Scythe and me, and that’s saying something.
Chapter 8
Aurelia
I’m quite happy about the progress I’ve made today with the shadow snake. I still can’t tell what type of animus the male has, but it doesn’t affect my ability to heal him. I report back to Mr. Halfeather when Beak and Scuff come to get me. He never asks me details about the illness or the manner of it, and I vaguely wonder if this is some weird thing my father is doing to test me. But none of that makes sense, given my father already knows what I’m capable of.
Whatever I did for the animalia behind that steel door, I was acutely aware of the three prisoners I’d seen a little more of today—and the fourth, a hyena, I think, who’d spoken so crassly to me. There were other creatures in that dungeon—I had seen them as I walked past their cells on the way back. They were all slumped on the cement floor with their backs turned towards me as if they were half alive. The only ones who seemed to be interested in what went on were the sleaze bag and the wolf,Savage.
The name given from a fighting family, if I’ve ever heard one. Wolves are notorious for underground fighting rings. It’s a good way to make money if you’re good at it. High risk, high reward,and with that expensive gem on his ear, I bet he did real well at his job.
I leave Halfeather’s manor with Beak opening the door of my Beetle for me once again. Chivalry isn’t dead, and it makes my beast of an anima preen and coo at him.
“Thanks.” I only let myself smile at him as I get into my car.
“Will I see you at the Academy in two weeks?” he asks.
I choke. “You’re going toAnimusAcademy?”
He runs a hand through his hair, smirking. “Yeah, I got the order a few weeks ago. My parents were so relieved.”
Males seem to think it’s a flex being ordered to attend the college we send our most volatile, promiscuous and errant new adults. The idea is to temper and civilise them before they hit the workforce and wider community, so they won’t be such a menace to the fearful human population we try to live alongside. Naturally, once you receive the order to attend, youhaveto go, otherwise they hunt you down and take you kicking and screaming bound in tourmaline chains. Beak seems pretty controlled, but there must be a feral hunter under that pretty face.
Why he thinksI’mgoing there is beyond me.
“Do I look like I need to go there?” I ask in horror.
He smiles sheepishly. “Well, I thought because of your power, you’d be… no? Well, good for you then.”
I leave the mansion, heading to my favourite fast-food drive-thru before I’m due at work. The entire way, Savage’s face presses in on my mind’s eye. Seeing these beasts behind bars in such conditions, slumped against the wall, dirty and one even without clothes, makes me cringe. There is no humanity in it at all. When I head into work, a discounted stack of sweatpants catches my eye and the whisper of a wild thought runs through my mind.
It’s the morning of the third day of my visits to Halfeather’s dungeon and I feel the edges of fatigue creeping in. My power is sizeable, but the strain of both maintaining my seven shields and being around these males has me feeling some kind of way.
But I find that a bubble of eagerness engulfs me. I’m likely finally going mad, but I actually look forward to it. It’s almost like going to a real job where I have regular faces grinning at me upon my entry. I’m wanted here. Beak and Scuff shoot me flirty smiles and Beak even hands me a few Hershey’s Kisses from the frosted glass bowl he keeps at his desk.
“You deserve it,” he says, grinning.
Be still my fluttering heart! I blush and keep my mouth shut in case I say something dumb like, ‘What time do you get off?’
A part of me shakes its head in dismay, but a reasonable part of me googled it last night and I know it has a name: Touch deprivation.
Even in Aunt Charlotte’s shop I’m usually relegated to stacking shelves and cleaning, my contact with clients is limited to the occasional cashier coverage when Charlotte goes to the bathroom to fix her makeup.
My father took me out of school once he moved me out of home. I’ve been homeschooled since then, using an online system one of the high school teachers in his court had set up. It was lonely, so I ended up sneaking to the local Salvation Army store, picking up as many books as I could manage after I shopped for clothes. If I couldn’t be a part of the real world, my fictional book worlds were always waiting for me along with my fictional friends.
No one except Uncle Ben has given me chocolate or anything remotely resembling a gift since I was a kid.
