Page 7 of Her Vicious Beasts: The Beginning (Her Vicious Beasts)

Savage

T he moment this woman stumbled into my dungeon like some angel floating through the gates of heaven, I’d thought I was hallucinating. Or dying.

Lightning had buzzed all around me, waking me up, and all at once I’d felt a hurricane of desire flood my veins. I had wanted to run my fingers through all that long silky raven hair, touch her cheek and see how soft it was. I had wanted to pull her into my cage and bury my nose between her legs.

I had also wanted to rip out Halfeather’s throat for standing so close to her. And today, she’d come in with Beaky and Scuffy, all flirty and smiley, and I vowed to tear out their feathers and wear them as a coat.

I forget all of that right now as she glances at me again with those long, dark lashes fluttering over impossibly blue eyes and I feel something stir deep inside my cock.

Understandable, since I’ve not been in contact with a woman for a gods damned long time.

“Lia,” she says quietly, as though she’s wondering why she’s telling me at all.

Ah, me and my charms loosened her tongue sure enough. It was only a matter of time.

“Lia.” I taste her name, sounding out the letters and wondering how they would sound in a moan as I came inside of her. “What’s it short for?”

She hesitates, but gives it to me because she can’t resist. “Aurelia.”

Perfect. Pretty. Angelic. A name I could get tattooed where everyone could see it.

It’s also a unique name. I’d have no trouble finding her once I get out of here.

She turns away from me once again and I lick my lips at her stunning side profile, wanting her to show me her blue ocean eyes again.

I can’t see him, but Scythe growls at me softly from the cell on Lia’s other side—a warning.

My brother knows me, of course. Knows that it’s dangerous for me to pursue a woman like this.

He’s probably trying to protect her—he’s always trying to save the world from me and my dirty paws.

So I settle down and watch Lia start up her healing magic on the boogeyman in solitary.

He’d already been here when we’d arrived and I’d known that whoever he was, he was a part of our mating group right away.

Even Halfeather’s shields can’t mask the ancient bond between us—a gold thread that links our animus’ through space and eternity.

But we’d not found our regina yet, our centre, and that was exactly what had gotten us into this fuck up of a situation.

I sit down on the stone, mirroring Aurelia—Lia, as she liked to be called.

But I think I’m going to stick with ‘Princess’.

It matches her delicate features, her haughty, sweet nose in the air, and her I’m-not-scared-of-the-big-bad-wolf personality.

She walks a little like a princess too, and I can’t take my eyes off her every time she walks up to me.

Every time? Dear Mother Wolf, I’m delusional. I’ve seen her walk all of two times. Who cares, though? I’d known I wanted to take a bite out of those hips the moment I’d seen her. Not an actual bite, more of a mouthful, more of a ‘let me lick you all over and see if you taste as good as you look.’

The magic dampener on my cell refrains me from feeling her out properly as she closes her eyes and broaches the bogeyman’s steel door with her magic. It’s such a shame because I’m fucking desperate to scent her and I just know it’s going to be spectacular when I do.

I glance back at Xander, opposite me. He usually has his eyes closed, listening to whatever European rock music or Mongolian throat singing he has on his device.

When we’d first arrived, he’d raged for a full week straight in his cell, almost tearing the place down, driving the rest of us mad until the guards had given in and let him have his music.

The fucking old beaker didn’t want to drive us rabid, which I took to mean he wanted us sane for something .

Xander is frowning at Aurelia through his old scars.

He can’t use his damaged eyes without his power and that’s left him agitated—and creepy looking, because they’re black hollows from where they’d dug them out with their bare claws when he was a kid.

I turn back to look at Lia. It’s pretty impressive that she can sit there for a full hour and fix the beast next door.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone hold power or concentration for that long.

We sit and watch her—well, Xander listens—while Scythe remains still in his cage, which is the best anyone can ask of him.

I lean my forehead against the bars of my cell, my stomach grumbling.

They feed us whenever they feel like it, which is not often.

Fair punishment, I suppose, for what we’d done.

I don’t care though, I’d do it all over again given the chance, and I know the others would say the same.

Xander enjoys a good slaughter even more than Scythe and me, and that’s saying something.