Page 11 of Her Vicious Beasts: The Beginning (Her Vicious Beasts)

Aurelia

W hen the hour is done, I’m happy with the amount of progress I’ve made with my patient.

I had to lower one of my inner, heavier shields at the end to get a boost of energy to push through, but it was worth it.

With Savage and Scythe on either side of me, I don’t feel like I’m in danger in this dungeon right now.

I open my eyes and crack my neck with a groan.

I turn to find Savage watching me, his eyes half lidded. He seems to snap out of some reverie because his face comes alive. He gives me a slow, hot smile, and I can’t help but notice how pretty his lips are.

He turns his head to scratch the right side of his neck with a dirty, bloodied hand and I still in shock as tsunami like force hits me in the gut. Everything in my universe narrows down to that single piece of Savage’s skin.

Because sitting there is a golden, glowing symbol. A skull with five beams of light shooting out from it.

My mating symbol.

Savage pulls out a red foil lump from his pocket and I realise he’s saved half the Hershey’s Kiss from yesterday. He puts the rest of it in his mouth and savours it as I stare at him.

“What’s wrong?” he asks around the chocolate.

It takes a monumental effort to move my head from side to side to shake it. “Nothing.”

A cold, dark feeling consumes my heart, and something tells me to look at the cell behind me. Slowly, in a dazed trance, I get to my feet and turn to look at the dragon chained in his cell.

In the darkness, there is a golden glow, and it’s on Xander’s neck. My symbol is obvious through the gloom.

I don’t breathe. I don’t blink. I don’t think.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. No. How?

My feet move of their own accord, something more than me guiding me towards Scythe’s cell. He’s sitting there as he always does, only this time It’s not only his ice eyes that glow. It’s the golden mark on the right side of his neck, beckoning to the deepest parts of my being.

My anima lets out a roar of sheer, joyous release, and my knees buckle. I catch myself with my shield just in time and make myself go still.

With the pressure of containing my emotions, an involuntary tear trickles down my cheek and Scythe’s alert eyes follow its trail.

It’s a blow to the gut. My insides are going to explode.

I have to get out of here. I need to leave and never come back. How could I have been so stupid? How could I not have known?

But I know exactly why. I’ve had seven shields around me, and I’d dissipated one of my psychic shields in order to get a better grasp on my patient today.

I’d never let that shield down in front of the prisoners before and it was the one responsible for protecting me from external psychic forces—so it had also hidden their mating marks from me.

I want to be sick.

All three of these animalia are my mates. Three of the five I was promised to by fate.

I swallow through a sandpaper throat, knowing both Savage and Scythe are instinctually tracing my movements, pupils dilated. They do it because they are my mates and even if they can’t see it, their animus is making them more responsive to me. To want to care for me. To want to kill for me.

Their beastly spirits know who I am. I can see that plain as day.

But their minds don’t.

I turn on my heel and all but run for the exit, but it feels like I’m striding through water, my limbs slow and wobbly.

Savage’s rough voice chases after me in a playful bound. “See you tomorrow, princess.”

Thankfully, my time is up anyway, and Beak is smiling at me from the other side when he opens the door. The smile I give him is of genuine relief, and his face brightens with pleasure to see it. But my body does not respond to him in that desirous way it normally does.

Now that I’ve seen my mates, my body will never elicit that same response for anyone else.

I’m not prepared for the level of emotions I’m experiencing.

For animalia, the mating bond is the strongest magic in existence and it is not in our nature to ignore it.

I stumble out of Halfeather’s mansion in a dream-like haze. The world outside hits my retinas in a dazzling display of colour.

It’s as if I’m seeing everything for the first time. My world had been black and white this morning. Now, I was seeing it in 4k with surround sound. My soul has woken up and is crying out in a happy song. We’ve found our bonds, she sings, we’re finally home.

Beak says something to me as I fall into my car, but I don’t hear him.

I don’t even know how I get home, but I’m drenched in sweat when I do.

Functioning on auto-pilot, I somehow get ready for work, the faces of my three mates flashing in my mind like a slideshow on repeat.

My stomach is swirling, my brain is tumbling.

I feel like I’ve been lost at sea and now the port is within view on the horizon, but I cannot set anchor.

It’s relief and pain. Happiness and despair.

My mind rages for the rest of the day, so much so that Aunt Charlotte asks me what’s wrong multiple times. The third time I drop a can of tomato paste, she sends me outside for a time-out like I’m one of her naughty kids.

All I do when I go out to the loading dock is pace back and forth from the dumpster to the door.

My mates are here. Does my father know? He can’t know.

Only the central mate, me, their regina, and the other males in the mating group can see the marking.

They would’ve seen mine if I hadn’t spent my entire life with a shield of magical titanium around my entire person.

I’d had it drilled into me from the moment I’d returned from the oracle and she’d declared my mating group numbering five of the most dangerous animalia of our time. We should have known, being what I am.

With what I can do.

The anima in me wants me to get in my car and go back to them.

It’s demanding we go in there and jail-break my mates immediately.

The desperate anima wants to mate with them and complete the bonding ritual—complete our union and make them mine.

To join our power in a pool and share magic so intimately we all orgasm over it.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I can’t do any of that. I’m sweating. I’m wet and aroused and wired to the extreme.

It’s torture and I have no idea what to do.

I pour water from my drink bottle into my cupped hand and splash it on my face.

I slap my cheeks. I do star jumps to try and get rid of this insane energy I now have.

Aunt Charlotte comes out to check on me, narrowing her eyes at my state. Then her eyes widen.

“What’s happened?”

I scramble to save face. She can’t know about this. No one can. If word gets back to my father, he’ll have the three of them executed immediately.

In any other animalia, this would be cause for grand celebration.

Finding your mating mark on another was a success story, something to brag about.

Something you tell your girlfriends and the women in your family, and you all jump up and down and scream in happiness together.

Your aunts would tell you how to deal with protective alpha mates and cry, telling you how happy they are.

There were parties, engagements, drinks and dresses. A normal girl would hug and giggle with her aunt.

But I’m not a normal animalia and I can’t have them. I want to tear my hair out. I want to scream. Instead, I shake my head and grit out, “Too much coffee. Sorry.”

She doesn’t believe me, frowning and slamming the door shut behind her. She probably thinks I’m on drugs or something. In a way, I am.

I make it through the rest of the day, and eventually, I lie in bed that night.

Sweating. Thinking. It is madness the level of lust I now have, pouring through me like bubbling champagne.

There is no way I’m going to sleep this wet, this writhing for my mates.

My mind is a haze of desire and all it does is think about those muscular bodies sitting there in that prison when they should be here with me.

Savage and those lips. Dear god, it’s fodder for the biggest orgasm in the world. All this healing work has left me far more empty than any amount of burgers and thick shakes can refill, and an earth-shattering orgasm will fix me right up.

My mind is now fixed upon Savage standing behind the bars of his cell, with his low-slung jeans, covered in dirt, the sheen of his sweat highlighting the ridges of his muscled torso.

My hands find my neck and trail their way down my body, caressing the mounds of my breasts.

I imagine Savage’s large hands stroking me down the swoop of my stomach and down the sheer fabric of my nightie.

I hitch the hem up, dragging my fingers up the tops of my thighs and skimming my underwear.

I hiss, my back arching as I imagine Savage on top of me, his wolfish grin and hungry eyes waiting in anticipation.

My right hand creeps into my panties while my left hand massages my breast. I circle my wet and throbbing clit, gasping at the feel of my own slick.

I’m incredibly soaked and can’t help but plunge my fingers inside myself, exploring my wet heat.

Gods, what would it be like if he were really here?

If any of my mating group were here, touching me, telling me I looked like a princess?

I would simply die, I think; combust into a thousand flames of pleasure.

My lips whisper their names into the dark of my bedroom.

The names of my strong, dangerous mates emerge from my lips like prayer: Savage, Xander, Scythe.