Page 33 of Her Vicious Beasts: The Beginning
The feeling of pure idiocy that spins through me makes me want to hurl. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid! Beasts have been hunting each other for hundreds of years and technology has just helped us be more efficient at it.
“Why are you here?”
He looks at his fingernails where blood has crusted around the edges. “Some problematic beasts are after you and you are no longer safe in the wider world.”
I frown at him. I know that already. They are a bunch of psychos. But to hear that theywereactually hunting me is a bleak confirmation that makes my stomach curl into a knot. Did I really think I could out runthem?
He sighs as if he’s explaining something to a stupid person. “You need to come to the Academy where we can keep you safe.”
Why does every male around think they own me? I bristle where I stand, meeting him gaze for gaze. I’m not going toanotherplace where a man thinks he can control me. “That place is for criminals and feral shifters. I don’t belong there.”
“I don’t care, Aurelia. We need you where we can keep an eye on you while we work to hunt the others. You will be safe there. You can still get your education, we offer a range of healing courses for shifters. That’s what you would like to pursue as a career, is it not? Healing?”
He knows a lot more about me than I like. And who’swe? The Council? Of course they’d have a hand in this now they think I’ve killed Halfeather. Fuck.
I frown in annoyance at my clenched hands. This male is planning out my life as if I don’t have a say in it. But Idohavesome say. On one hand, I’d be safe from my father at the school—students are off bounds to everyone, including court royalty. There’d also be others at the college and means of boosting my power. I also wouldn’t have to worry about paying for tuition. Everything at the Academy is Council-funded.
I raise my head and look at this lion—knowing full well they’ve sent theDeputy Headmasterof the Academy for ferals after me because I’m in big bloody trouble. I’ve never been in trouble for anything before and it’s a foreign, gnawing feeling.
But if I go there and they rope up my mates, we’ll all be stuck together in one school and I’ll be forced to interact with them.
No, there is no way I’m going. I glance at my duffel, still dishevelled in the passenger seat, thinking about how I’m going to make an exit. Lions have a strong instinct to chase, like other predators. If I simplyran, he would more than happily chase me down for days. Glancing up at the sky, I see that it’s a clear day, practically cloudless. I can do this.
I set my jaw and uncross my arms as if I’ve given in. “Fine.”
“Good.” He straightens so smoothly he might have been made from water and turns on his heel, heading to my passenger door to grab my bags, I guess.
“My car is waiting around the corner,” he says, pulling a phone out of his pocket. “I’ll let the driver know.”
I glower at him, darting back into my car through the driver’s side and snatching up my bag before he can open the door.
He frowns at me through the windscreen and I shake my head, yanking my bag up and thinking rapidly about what I can carry. Cash. That’s all I can manage. The phone is a big loss, but that can’t be helped. I shove the wad into my mouth, tearing up as I look around at my beautiful Maisy.
Goodbye for now, old girl.
Lyle is striding down the driveway towards the road, expecting me to follow like an obedient student under hiscontrol. Joke’s on him because I run in the opposite direction, my wad of cash in my mouth. Lyle lets out a shout as my sneakers pound on the gravel. I take one jump, shifting into my eagle form, my clothes and shoes falling off around me. I frantically beat my wings and Lyle gives a fairly distinct, “Fuck!” That just proves what an asshole he is for tellingmenot to cuss. I ascend into the sky, Lyle’s dress shoes rapidly crunching on the gravel after me.
I’ve guessed right, he’s not the type of beast to fully shift in public, not that it matters—I’m in line with the roof of the motel now and I’ve found a solid beat with my wings. I’ve also overestimated the size of my beak and the cash slips sideways. I scramble to catch it, trying hard not to lose my wing balance.
It’s no use. The cash tumbles out of my beak and I watch it fall straight towards the motel parking lot, where Lyle Pardalia catches it in one broad, tanned hand. He looks back up and there’s a truly terrifying expression on his handsome face as he scowls up at me.
Swearing in five different ways, I leave it all behind me and concentrate on beating my wings to get my freedom.
Chapter 23
Aurelia
My eagle form is not a cure-all to my issue. Lyle will have access to the recovery team, which tracks down feral and rabid beasts and takes them to prison, or if they are under twenty-five, to Animus Academy for rehabilitation and education. That recovery team will include winged animalia trained in hunting.
Not knowing how he’d come to find me in the first place, I’m still not safe and I don’t know how quickly Lyle is going to get a team together—or how long it’ll take him, as a lion, to hunt me down again. It will be embarrassing for him to return without me, and lions have big egos, second only to dragons. He won’t stop until he finds me, I just know it.
That just means I have to be cleverer than anyone else.
I focus on gaining as much height as I can and head north, as I’d initially intended. So I don’t have my car. This might be a blessing in disguise because travel for me now has no boundaries, and with my eagle sight, I will be able to see anyone coming from land or sky from miles away. If I can find a tall tree to roost in for the night, I can even sleep as a bird for one or two nights. Any more than that and I will likely turn feral myself, letting my anima take over in its animalistic mindset. And all myanima wants to do right now is find my mates. No, my human brain needs to be in control at all times.
I can’t believe my awful luck. In the span of a week, I’ve managed to find three of my mates and the other two know what I look like from my little siren call that one night. And now them, Lyle fucking Pardalia and the Council are hunting me. Savage likely has my scent from that one night of disaster, and if he’s following his instincts, he will scent me out in no time on foot.
The image of him standing over me, sucking on his fingers, fills my stomach with tumbling emotions. I want to cry, but I just can’t afford to lose focus.
