Page 20 of Her Vicious Beasts: The Beginning
Time stops.
Horror winds its cruel way up my chest into my throat.
I breathe, “No.”
Male arrogance drips off him like oil. “I had a fun time last night, princess. We all did.”
My hand flies to my chest as abject terror spins through me. “Oh gods, I can’t breathe.”
Xander scoffs behind me as Savage gives a deranged cackle. “Yeah, I know, I know.”
I glare at him. “W-What the hell is going on?”
“I believe,” Savage says with vicious mirth, “I astrally finger fucked your sweet pussy and you came all over my hand.”
My knees go weak and I have to crouch down to make sure the floor is under me. This is a bad dream. This has to be a nightmare. None of this can be real. This can’t be happening to me. No one could be this unlucky.
I can’t look at him and his arrogant, beautiful face, so I cradle my head in my hands and squeeze my eyes shut. I can still feel his fingers in me as I think about my own body. My pussy does feel like it’s been stretched by fingers bigger than my own.
Ithadbeen real. I’d actually called them all in with a mating siren song. Do they know I’m their mate, then?
I take a deep breath and look up to see Savage watching me obsessively as he normally does, just with an arrogant, very-happy-with-himself smirk.
“I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Weak stomach, hatchling?” drawls Xander. “Might want to check you didn’t catch a canine virus or something.”
My stomach is churning now, but not in disgust, in sheer, unadulterated embarrassment. They’d all been there—even glowering Scythe—and had seen me naked and lusty, spreading my legs for?—
Dear Wild Mother, get a grip, Lia. You’re a woman, they’re your mates. You have nothing to be ashamed about. Nothing at all because it’s normal and natural. They’re the ones who should be embarrassed.
I collect my blabbering mind together with this thought and promptly stand up, crossing my arms and level both Savage and Xander a glare. “I hope you enjoyed the show”—I raise my voice to make sure Scythe can hear— “even if the others were too cowardly to come forward.”
They’d all been there. Five shadows. Shit. Now they all knew what I looked like.
Xander is still hidden in the dark of his cell, still, as if he’s imagining me from last night. I stand there and let him look at me in my dress, bare legs and all.
He flexes his wrists, and the chains around them rattle. “You’re an arrogant little thing, aren’t you? What’s your anima and why can’t we scent it?”
Panic makes my mind work at a thousand miles an hour.
“I don’t answer to you, dragon,” I shoot back, aggressively.
But then Scythe speaks from his cell behind me—a rasping voice that sounds like someone has sliced open his throat from the inside and let it scar over. “Why can’t we see your mating mark today? What are you hiding?”
His voice, and the dark meaning behind his words is terrifying enough to give me goosebumps. But shit. They must’ve seen my mark last night.
I scoff to hide my rising terror and call back, “You’re the ones in a dungeon, and you’re askingmewhat I’m hiding? A bit rich, isn’t it?”
This is bad. The three of them know. If they ever get out of here, they’ll come for me. They won’t be able to deny their own primitive instinct. My anima is calling out to their three animus’ in a shrill mating call and I stomp on that immediately.
“I don’t like you,” says Xander.
Well, that is a good thing. I snap, “Yeah? Well, you’re an asshole Xander, because I…”
I snap my mouth shut.
Savage remained quietly attentive while I snapped at the other two, but he presses me now. “Because what?”
