Page 10 of Her Vicious Beasts: The Beginning (Her Vicious Beasts)
Aurelia
I know I’m delusional in thinking the prisoners in the dungeon are my friends.
I’m a complete idiot for playing happy families with them— sharing things, s miling and getting a fluttery heart.
Except I don’t have anyone else in my life and is it so bad if I have an alright time chatting to them briefly?
Is it so bad if Savage’s and Beak’s attention brightens my day just a little bit?
It’s pathetic, I know. They’re dangerous males. And they’re prisoners.
So the next day, even if one part of me is screaming not to do it, that the risk is too great and I’ll get into trouble, I’m going to do something stupid and I’m not even thinking about the consequences.
It’s so unlike me that I can’t even comprehend it.
I find myself walking into Halfeather’s mansion with one of my strongest shields hiding a folded pair of discounted XL black track pants tucked under my arm. I hold my breath as Beak opens my car door, his usual flirty smile on his face as he takes my bag.
Suddenly, I’m not surprised he’s been ordered to Animus Academy.
His eyes are telling me that he wants to fuck.
Promiscuity amongst our males is an issue.
STDs for one thing, inter-court politics for another.
It leads to more bloodshed than it’s worth.
Oddly, my anima isn’t rearing up and wanting to grab at him like I expect. Am I getting used to the attention?
Of course, with my entire life being a study in shielding, I get the pants into the dungeons without a hitch. Getting the pants into Scythe’s cell will be another thing entirely. It will also give away my power.
So it looks like I’m a risk taker now, but here I am faced with something I’ve never come across before. The primitive female anima within me appreciates that Scythe has killed a male for me.
I’d like to think they’d already had some sort of beef. That I’m not the only reason Scythe wanted that hyena dead. Whatever my brain thought, my anima wanted to thank the shark for such a display of blatant protection.
Perhaps the ferality of the prisoners is rubbing off on me because it seems like I’m letting my anima take control more and more by the day. Maybe Beak is right about me needing to go to Animus Academy after all.
Beak and Scuff lead me down to the dungeons once again, slamming the door shut behind me, but that ominous sound can’t make me flinch today.
“Lia?” Savage’s voice is a beacon in the gloom and a balm for any nervousness I feel.
“Hi, it’s me.” My voice sounds tiny compared to his.
I stride quickly past the cells, trying not to let my eagerness show. When I pass the hyena’s cell, the body and head have been removed, and the scent of bleach even passes through my shields. I wonder what Halfeather does with the bodies of his prisoners.
The scent of fresh blood is also coming out loud and strong from the shark’s cell. Yesterday, Savage said his brother’s name was Scythe—another fighting name. Nervously, I step before him.
Ice-cold eyes like the dark depths of the Mariana Trench shine through the gloom. Danger, my anima warns. This one is a killer.
I swallow as I reach out with my power and assess his body for the injuries I can smell.
The shark doesn’t show any response to my magic brushing against him.
He simply sits there leaning against the back of the chair, eyes on me like cold, cold pokers.
I can tell that his shoulder’s been dislocated and that he or someone else has relocated it back into the socket—the tendons are all inflamed and a little mangled.
There is also a break in his humerus, already healing due to his natural animus magic.
But because of the magical dampeners on the dungeon, the process is slower than expected.
I speed up the healing and seal the fracture shut.
He’s silent throughout the whole thing. Usually, I get a grunt or something from the repair of a broken bone, but Scythe just sits there as if it doesn’t bother him, watching me with the kind of precision I imagine only a shark can muster.
Healing is instinctual for me. It’s hard for my power to see someone in pain and not do anything about it. It goes against literally everything that I am in my core, not to heal. But I suddenly realise that I never asked for his permission.
An icky feeling crawls through me and I mutter, “I’m sorry, I should have asked.”
He says nothing.
I can’t help but feel his injuries are a consequence of what he did to the hyena. What he did out of revenge for me. I wonder what he’s thinking. What desire he had to kill the animalia and how the hell he’d done it.
The track pants at my side burn like contraband. I paid for them fair and square and now it seems even more imperative to give this male a gift.
Will he take it? There is no kindness coming off him, nothing close to human connection.
I get the urge to turn away from the cell, but something is urging me forward.
He must be cold in there. He must be feeling awful, even though he won’t let any emotion show.
The only thing I feel from him is an icy indifference bordering on menace.
He is a dangerous, dangerous creature. The anima inside of me knows that.
Perhaps he killed because he liked to?
Nerves prickling in my veins, I take the track pants out from under my arm and hold them out to show him.
“Lia?” Savage’s voice sails over to me. The rest of the dungeon is quiet.
“Just a minute,” I say, keeping my eyes on the cold shark before me.
His eyes flick down to the pants, and ever so slightly, he cocks his head.
I take this minuscule movement as a sign I’m doing the right thing, so I levitate the bubble shield with the pants inside of it just in front of me.
The shark shifts in his chair.
Of course, being more than feral, Savage has preternatural instincts and notices something is up straight away, sticking his head as far as he can out of his own cell bars. “What’s that?” he asks, and I can hear the amusement in his voice.
I levitate my little sphere through the bars of Scythe’s cell and then I realise that I’ve not thought this through.
Scythe’s eyes move from the pants to me as they levitate awkwardly in front of him. Clearing my throat, I steel myself and use a skill I don’t often have to resort to.
It takes a fair bit of concentration, but I manage to make another shield in the shape of my hand and use that to manipulate the material. Lowering them to the ground, my phantom hands hold them out by the elastic waistband by his feet.
I glance back up at him, holding my breath. But then he lifts his feet. I almost sigh in relief as I hoist the pants onto his feet and pull them up his calves and knees, noting the intricate tattoos there. I swear when I reach his thighs, though, not knowing how we’re going to do this.
But the chains around his arms must not be super tight because Scythe lifts himself off the chair, and quickly, I pull the pants up and over his lap. I let go before I touch his skin… or dick with my phantom hands.
With the track pants on, he looks back up at me with absolutely no change in his face. I suppose he likes them if he let me put them on?
Trying not to think about it, and satisfied by this small success, I turn away and go to sit down in my usual spot between Savage and Scythe’s cells.
I look at my steel door, releasing a breath as I turn towards Savage.
“What did you give my brother?” the wolf asks quietly, his handsome face serious.
Clearing my throat, I say softly, “A bit chilly in here, isn’t it? I got him track pants.”
A look I cannot interpret shoots across his face, but in a flash, it’s gone.
Savage says in a voice quite unlike his usual flirty one, “A little bit less now though, princess.”
I say nothing and close my eyes, suddenly struggling to concentrate on my patient.
Savage’s voice regains its flirty attitude, and he says, “I think princess likes us, boys.” I know he’s grinning from ear to ear, and though it takes everything in me not to open my eyes and look at him, I can’t help the smile that creeps across my own lips.
The anima in me is a wanton thing because a wild heat sweeps through my insides at the pleasure I hear in his voice.
I clamp that shit down for all I’m worth because there is no way I can let it show.