Page 5 of Her Vicious Beasts: The Beginning (Her Vicious Beasts)

Aurelia

A chill trickles down my spine at the fiery menace in that voice, like the deep parts of a volcano.

I have no idea what to say to a barely concealed threat like that, so I simply turn around and decide ignoring these beasts is best. I check my shields, knowing full well I can withstand any attack that is thrown at me.

But if I’m correct, that heinous twang I feel in the air hovering around the cells is a magical dampener—and a very expensive one.

So, without fear but a lot of alertness, I hone back onto the male behind the steel door.

What manner of illness does he have?

I feel gross for invading his body without consent, but with an unconscious patient, I don’t have a choice. I quickly scan his insides, intending on sweeping my magic from his crown to his toes, but I stop short at his neck. My heart beats irregularly as I recognise what it is.

Why my father specifically sent me to heal this male.

A darkness clings to his spine, curling around his spinal cord as if it wants to choke the life out of him and his animus.

It’s an actual snake of shadow and malice, his jaws set around the base of the male’s skull.

Very similar to the way my father had me pinned by his snake’s jaw just an hour ago, except I’ve never seen a shadow snake coiled inside a person’s body.

It is dark magic, typical of serpents, and I have no doubt in my mind that this is a magical disease brought on by contact with dark magic.

I wonder if my father did this. He’s capable of it, and I know in my heart that if anyone could figure out this illness, it’s him.

Then why send me here to undo it? No, this has to be someone else’s work. Someone just as dark and cold.

Being so entangled with his spine, I’m going to have to remove it one bloody inch at a time, prising it away slowly to ensure his spinal cord is left intact.

No wonder the other healers left him for dead.

Any mark on his spine and he will be left with permanent paralysis that no run-of-the-mill healer could fix.

It will require meticulous and painstaking work, hours of slow focus, and I’d be lying if the thought of such a task doesn’t excite me just a little.

Maybe I’m insane, but this is why my father considers me his best healer.

This is real complex work, and it makes me feel like there’s a reason for why I was born.

I take up a seat, cross-legged on the dungeon floor, the cold tile seeping into my ass uncomfortably. I pull my cardigan off as I’m going to generate heat from all the work.

A low whistle sounds behind me, from a different cell than the last prisoners who’d spoken. I try not to let it bother me. I’m not here for them. They’re not my patient and are therefore unimportant.

I work for an hour, beginning right at the male’s tailbone, persuading the shadow snake to uncurl himself with tiny, precise manoeuvres of my power.

I’m sweating within minutes, and it almost feels like no time at all when I hear the distant slam of the dungeon door and the heavy booted steps of the guards.

Disentangling myself from my patient, I open my eyes to see the two eagle males staring down at me.

I groan, cracking my neck as they frown at me sitting on the dungeon floor.

My hormones must be raging because before I can even think about it, I raise my hand in a silent question for help.

Beak is nice enough to offer his back. I grasp it and am silently shocked by the warmth of his large male hand.

I know exactly how long it’s been since I’ve even touched a male with my skin.

Even a female. Accepting and giving people change at work is the only way I get people contact, but even so, most people make EFT purchases these days.

Even without the power usage from the hour of healing, I’m more thirsty than any regular female anima, and am wet just from the touch of this fertile male.

I might not be able to hunt down my mates and bed them, but my anima desperately wants to do something .

Beak doesn’t scent my desire, though. My shield is titanium and has been that way since the day at the oracle. I cannot let any male scent me, because within seconds they’ll know I’m no common eagle.

My fingers leave Beak’s hand oh so reluctantly and I’m ashamed that he notices, a mildly hungry look flashing across his face.

He seems to struggle with it for a moment as I put on my jacket and follow the two of them down the corridor.

Beak looks back at me once and his companion grunts something at him I don’t hear.

One downside to my seven shields is that it stifles my hearing a little.

But I do see Beak shake himself and become a professional once again.

I get a tiny bit of giddy satisfaction from this interaction just before a pang of sadness hits me.

I’m destined for a life of this . If I can’t let males scent me, I will be a single anima for the rest of my life. I’ll die with both my honour and my secret intact, but god, sometimes honour seems overrated.

I stare at both fine guards’ asses all the way to Mr. Halfeather’s office, my eyes half lidded, my fingers twitching, telling myself it’s just the healing exertion having me look for a boost and not desperation for real, skin-to-skin company.

The old eagle is sitting at his desk as I walk past the two guards towards him.

“I’ll need to return daily,” I say softly, “until it’s all out. Shouldn’t take more than a week.”

“A full week?” he asks with raised brows. I feel his eagle’s vision take in every one of my sweating pores.

I grimace, wondering when I last exfoliated. “It’s a persistent…illness that requires tedious work. I don’t think anyone else would have the patience for it, honestly.”

Thinking he’d be annoyed by the delay, I’m surprised when a slow smile spreads across his face. “Well, I can’t complain if I get to see you every day now, can I?”

I drive away from Halfeather’s mansion, trying not to think about the way Beak pulled open my car door for me. It had been a feat of willpower not to let down a shield, stand on my tiptoes and sniff him properly.

How I wished he’d slipped his number into my handbag, but he hadn’t—I’d checked twice. The desperation was probably written all over me and he’d likely been put off by it.

Pondering on what a not-desperate female looks like, I do something I usually avoid and stop to get drive-thru takeaway, wolfing down an entire burger, fries and shake meal. I feel a little better afterwards, so once I get home and shower again, I decide to get ready for work.

My eyelids droop a little from tiredness, but I don’t want to mope around thinking about what happened with my father here at home and then spending my morning literally locked in a dungeon and then again lusting over Beak, fine as he’d been.

I need to keep myself busy. Sometimes my aunt gives me a bonus if I work overtime.

My goal is to make as much money as I can before college starts, when I’ll have to purchase ridiculously expensive books and accommodation.

My meagre allowance isn’t going to cut it and there is no way my father is going to pay for any of my college things. I am financially on my own.

My mother would not have wanted this for me. She’d died when I was five, but in my head, she loved me more than anything else in the world. I held onto that thought like it was a life raft, and on my first nights living alone, that’s exactly what it had been.

When I reach work, a moderately sized grocery and convenience store, Aunt Charlotte looks up from where she’s filing her nails, fluffs up her bleached blonde curls and looks me up and down with a disapproving frown.

Some things never change.

Nothing is more important to my father than his family, and he’s looked after his sister since they were young. Always giving her money for Louboutins and Prada handbags whenever she batted her overlong eyelash extensions at him.

“What are you doing here?” she says through shiny red lips. “Mace said?—”

“I’ll be working for him during the mornings this week, so I thought I might as well help out here until close. You’ll be home to have dinner with the kids that way.”

Charlotte was a regina to two mates. Uncle Ben works in the mines, fly in fly out style, and Uncle Ron is a plumber.

They are all sworn snakes to my father’s court and hence avoid me like the plague.

Ben is the nicer of the two, probably because he isn’t here enough to see the political nightmare I am.

When I first moved out to the bungalow at the back of their house, he would bring me leftover dinners, often sneaking a piece of chocolate or two wrapped in a napkin.

I’m pretty sure my father uses this store for money laundering or worse, but I’m not allowed in the back office, so I can’t be sure.

Aunt Charlotte looks down her nose at me and nods stiffly. I thought that me leaving for college at summer’s end would cheer her up, but she’s as snub-nosed as ever. But I understand her because I’d been her once and you don’t understand your privilege until it’s taken away.