Her Feral Beasts (Her Vicious Beasts, #1)

by E.P. Bali

I’m still laughing as they begin strapping me, upright, to the wheeled gurney with more heavy metal chains. By the time they’re done, Xander and I are covered neck to toe in obsidian with not an inch left to wriggle.

Hannibal Lecter, my personal god, has nothing on us. As they wheel me to my own vehicle, I squeal a high-pitched, “Weeeee!” My regina is going the same place as us and that’s the only reason for my good mood. They’ve captured her for us and I’m thinking of sending someone flowers for it. The monster wrangler grabs the doors to my new truck and I can just make out a white-toothed grin through the mesh. Before he ...

Hours later, we arrive at Animus Academy in a style only me and my bond-brothers deserve. At the back of my mind, I wonder what Lyle Pardalia is going to do with us at his cute little school. Xander and I can’t be controlled. Scythe has his own agenda and is a menace all on his own. I hardly understand why he agreed to be taken in the first place. I could have done this myself, but my brother always has his own nefarious reasons for doing what he does. The things a shark can see and feel, no one else can.

There’s a bump as we pass through the gates and outside, I can hear the ruckus that is enrolment day. There’s a general feeling of tension, aggression, and outright violence perfuming the air. My favourite type of cologne. After Aurelia’s vanilla cake and strawberries scent, of course. A little sweet, a little tart, just like her. Thinking of her instantly makes me rage, and I feel the chains groan under the strain of suppressing my power. My animus keens for her like a lost puppy and I growl under my breath, telling it to shut up.

The urge to serve her is at war with my hatred. She says she didn’t try to kill us, and fine, alright, but she still refuses to acknowledge us as her mates. I can no longer see her mating mark—a skull with five marks on the side of her neck, matching to every member of our mating group—but I’m sure as fuck going to find out why. No one has the power to mask the celestial mating bond. Literally no one.

All six of us share a unique mating mark imprinted on the sides of our necks by the stars themselves. Only members of your group can see that mark, and beasts spend lifetimes hunting for the other members of their soul-group. Those beasts can then pool their powers. It was our Goddess-given right to be together. And she didn’t want to. That alone makes her dangerous. A regina has power over her mates, whet...

This academy is made to rehabilitate feral and rabid adult shifters under the age of twenty-five. They never even bothered sending me an invite, and I was quite offended by that. But what happens when you put a group of feral beasts-turned-human in one school? Ha! I’m sure Lyle has been fucking around with his success statistics because the entire system is rubbish. I’ve been to actual beast prison and seen first hand the dangerous shifters this school couldn’t fix.

A tiny part of me worries about Aurelia being put in here with us. Animus Academy was traditionally made for the male beast spirit we call the animus, as we are more volatile than the female beast spirit we call the anima. When they started taking in animas, they never even bothered to change the name. But importantly, the ratio is something like five males to one female in this place, and she is a beautiful, stunning, physically perfect girl. An unclaimed beautiful, perfect girl. Aurelia reminds me of Princess Jasmine only with blue eyes and a power that makes me feel like lightning around her. It’s a shame we have to kill her.

I’ve worked myself up enough thinking about this so that by the time Ruben slams open the doors again, I’m a growling, snarling mess. “Quiet, pup,” he chuckles. “You’ll be allowed out once we get inside.”

I haven’t been called a pup since I got shoved into my first fighting cage at three years old and it sends me feral. But the chains work well and I only get a groan out of the metal as they wheel me out. I get a good view of the pretty cast iron and gold gates of the prison-school. Even through my spit hood, I can see the gold glinting in the sun…until I’m wheeled around and get to see the pure carnival of fun that awaits me inside. The receiving bay at Animus Academy is part zoo, part jailhouse.

The main building itself is over a hundred and fifty years old, dating back to the mid-1800s when our kind first arrived in this country during the gold rush. While the core building is an ancient gothic monstrosity that reminds me of a cross between a dragon’s lair and a witches’ castle, they kept updating the place with the latest technology, extending it one wing at a time until it became a huge complex built to keep the budding crims inside.

A feeling of nostalgia takes me, because federal prison is similar, except the beasts are older and meaner…and there aren’t pretty animas around to really fuck us up. Once the prisoners get through the security check, they go into medical-veterinary where the medics will check them for fleas, scabies, mites and other parasites our kind tend to pick up when we go a little feral.

The rest of us criminals don’t get that. It’s lucky I have Scythe, otherwise I’d probably be locked up in the rabid cages like the ones I can see snarling and spitting in the receiving bay.

Six of the thick metal cages on wheels hold shifted beasts. Two scarred tigers, two wolves, a python and a hyena. The tigers have been darted and lie snoring at the bottom of their cages, but the others are staring each other down. Put us ferals and rabids all together and what do you get? Bedlam. Suddenly, I can’t wait.

Scythe just walks right through and the two security bears at the doors let him. Bernie and Ernie work for us and are loyal to all ends. I call them the Forklift Twins because though they’re not all that smart, to be on the end of one of their punches is the end of the line for you. I’ve had Ernie lift the front of a semi once and he didn’t even break a sweat as I slid a full-grown lion underneath the tires.

A few metres from me is the queue of beasts in their human forms, around thirty males and five females. They’ve either been escorted here, or attended as instructed by the council, and are currently eyeing me and my brothers as if we’re made of explosives.

They’ll soon learn they’re not wrong, but I’m not interested in them. I want to know who’s already in there and if they can throw a decent nose-shattering punch. My body is coiled tight, just waiting for a chance to vent my rage. I want blood on my hands and this is as good a place as any to get it. Satisfied this prison-school might not be as bad as I initially thought, I settle back on my gurney, getting comfortable until they release us. The animalia inside are veterinarians as wel...

I know immediately there’s no point trying to escape. Scythe can probably get out, but if Aurelia is here, I can’t leave until I kidnap her to return her to where she rightfully belongs. Ruben takes my spit hood off and wheels me against the wall where there are height measurement lines for my celebrity photo. A guard holds a piece of printed paper just under my chin and I think it says my name and inmate ID. “Say cheese,” gruffs Ruben, holding up a large black camera. “Suck my cock!” I cheer, sticking my tongue out to the side and winking as the flash goes off.

“Wrangler, I want Eugene back,” I say, cracking my neck. “What is he? Your emotional support rooster?” Ruben is serious as he says it, but his grey eyes are glittering over his full beard as he towers over me and everyone else in the room. It’s why they used him to referee my matches when I was a teenager. “Something like that.” I roll my shoulders and try not to laugh at the fully covered guards. They have their faces covered with a black gaiter like they do in real prison. “Kind of like Xander’s headphones,” I lie. “If I don’t have him, I go berserk and start a killing rampage. You know what I mean?”

To my surprise, he nods and I sense him transmitting a mental message to another wolf on his team. Within seconds, I hear a questioning squawk. “I’m here, Eugene!” He appears in the arms of a she-wolf with his feathers all ruffled and I snatch him from her. “You behave for the nice doctor, pup,” Ruben warns, “and you can keep your rooster. If not, he goes on a spit for me and my boys.”

She’s a tiny female with a black bob—an eagle, by her scent—and holds a clipboard that she checks carefully. Since eagles are the order with healing powers, a lot of them become doctors and nurses. I wonder if that’s what Aurelia wants, seeing as she is an eagle, too. She’s really good at healing and it was the entire reason I’d met her. They’d sent her to heal the beast in the cell next to mine when we’d been held captive by Charles Halfeather. At first I wondered why they’d sent this young anima to do a job, but it soon became clear as I stared at her while she worked.

“Is Savage your real first name, Mr Fengari?” the birdie doc asks slowly. I decide she mustn’t care much for her life if she works in a place like this. I glance at Ruben. “Yeah, my parents were assholes.”

“What does it say?” I ask, running my finger down the black writing that loops in a repeating pattern all around the lanyard. I can tell it’s the same sentence and that it starts with a ‘D’. Birdie is not surprised because illiteracy is common amongst the feral population. “It says ‘Dangerous, do not approach’.” Ah, a warning for the other students. Cute. “And I hear you’ve been to Blackwater Prison.” “They’ve been talking about me, have they?” I say with a chuckle. “Your reputation precedes you, yes.”

I smile wistfully at the memory as I stroke Eugene. “Yes, doc, I was sent to Blackwater Penitentiary on my sixteenth birthday.” Her brows shoot up as she stares at me. “They sent you to an adult federal prison at sixteen?” Leaning forwards, I whisper to her as if it’s a great secret. “It was a life sentence. There was nowhere else to put me.” Until Scythe planned his little jailbreak, that is.

“My dad broke me in young,” I say by way of explanation. This place is going to be a piece of cake.

My hearing returns first and I immediately know that I’m in some sort of hospital, lying on a narrow bed. I groan as I blink my eyes open and realise that I must have passed out in the truck. My throat is sandpaper, every bone in my body aches like it’s on fire, and even my eyeballs burn against the harsh white light above me.

Bright halogen lights are above me, the smell of hand sanitiser is in my nose, and there’s the constant beep of observation and monitoring machines. I’m in a cubicle sectioned off with blue plastic curtains and there’s an IV drip in the back of my hand. I go to sit up and immediately realise both my hands are handcuffed to the bedrails on either side of me.

Honestly, they look more like military than prison guards and I’m sure it’s all to scare us. I can happily say it’s bloody-well working. Grimacing, I put my head back down, and my anima searches the immediate vicinity for my mates. I pull my most important shield up, one grating inch at a time, and tell her to calm the hell down. They’ll be here somewhere, I’m sure of it.

“Hello Aurelia,” she says, flashing me a cheery smile. “I’m Hope, the charge nurse. How are you feeling?”

“Uh, sore, I guess.” I do a quick scan of my body and note that nothing is grievously painful to indicate severe injury. It’s then that I see they’ve put a pink cotton hospital gown on me and a plastic ID band with my name. I cringe, wondering how many people saw me naked on the way in here. “Alright. Well, I’m here to make sure you’re in good shape before you start the enrolment process—” There’s a commotion a few cubicles down and an alarm goes off just before a loud, angry roar. Heavy-booted feet charge past my cubicle towards it. “Looks like not everyone is happy to be here.” Hope waves a hand, chuckling, and I think I like her. “Once this bag of fluid is finished, we can take all this down. It looks like you’ve not been eating or drinking at all these past few days? You’re very dry and your magic is in your boots.”

“I-I was running,” I admit. “I didn’t have time to do much other than…run. Fly I mean.” She makes a disapproving sound as she consults a clipboard. “Do you have a history of doing that?”

Something inside of me is angry at being asked this question. I’m not a felon, nor some feral, rebellious teen. But my voice is soft as I answer. “No. That was the first.” And it won’t be the last. As soon as I can get out of here, I will be flying away again. I just need to scope out a way. I can do it. I know I can. She nods. “Any problematic behaviours we need to know about? Your criminal record is clean, but your family doctor’s records stop at age thirteen. You just turned twenty, that’s seven years of no records.”

So she knows whose daughter I am then. Or used to be anyway. “Yeah, I haven’t needed to see a doctor these past few years.” Because I was exiled from my court and had to deal with healing myself from minor ailments. Being out on my own at thirteen and learning to cook, I got ...

“I noticed you have rather aggressive fang marks on the left side of your neck.” My entire body goes stiff as I realise the cobra bite my dad left on me two weeks ago still hasn’t healed—not because I couldn’t heal it, but because I’d purposefully let it sit there to remind myself of why I needed to get the hell out of this state. Why I couldn’t just give in. My shields have been covering the mark until now so I’m guessing my depleting magic let it slip through. “It’s nothing.” Hope gives me a look. “Were you attacked?” “No.” Yes. Fuck, yes. I was thrown against the wall and everything. All because I told my father that as a legal adult now, I am no longer under his power. He sure rectified that misunderstanding. Hope seems to understand she’s not going to get any more from me and tries a different angle. “Do you have a mating group?”

“No,” I lie. “What did your phoenix prophesy reveal?” It’s usually considered rude to ask, but I suppose in this place, all bets are off. “Um, three other eagles.” She smiles kindly at me, as if I’m a girl with a friendly, sweet mating group of eagles waiting for me in the ether somewhere. “Some anima find their mating groups here, Lia. You could be one of the lucky ones.” I give a weak, fake laugh and pretend to look hopeful like a normal girl, who isn’t running from her mates, would. “But you aren’t sworn in to the Court of Wings, Lia?”

Heat floods my face again and I shake my head. “I… I’ve been—” I bite my lip. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say to that.” Fuck, I’m the biggest idiot on the planet. I should have come up with a story for that by now. Something better than, ‘oh right, about that. My dad kept me in a ratty bungalow for seven years and forbade me to leave it unless he had secret jobs for me to do where I would go invisible to fighting rings and illegal court fights and heal the injured and no one has ever figured out it was me running in and out and not the Serpent King’s scary, powerful magic’.

“We are a fair court and would be thrilled to have you. Especially given your marks in the healing course you completed last year.”

Hope finishes her questionnaire and finds me clothes. And when I say clothes, I mean the latest prison fashion straight off the runways of old Blackwater. The orange jumpsuit smells like it’s been at the bottom of the box for years. Most of the girls must be smart enough to come with their clothes on. The guards have to take off my handcuffs so I can get dressed, but they go back on straight after I pull the curtain back.

When I raise my brows, she nods sombrely. “We give them out for free here.” Our kind are known for our promiscuity, and naturally, with inter-court relations, things have the potential to get figuratively, messy fast. You can only get pregnant by doing the breeding ritual, so that isn’t an issue, but that doesn’t stop STDs from spreading.

They take a nice mugshot in front of the height lines on the wall outside my cubicle, and within minutes I’m given an ID card that says my name and “Eagle Anima” that’s attached to a pink lanyard that says ‘Flight Risk’ in big black letters. They have me figured out already. “Orientation begins tomorrow,” Hope says as she leads us out of my cubicle and out into an empty waiting area where another massive guard in head-to-toe black stands with a rifle. “And Aurelia?” I tightly clutch my zip-lock bag, wary of the sudden change in her tone.

“We increase the security during the first month but…this can be a dangerous place for a young woman, especially a nice one like you. Do not, and I repeat, do not ever let...

Well, shit. Not only did Hope call me a ‘nice young woman’, she’s trying to help me. A feeling of warmth spreads through my chest. Having spent seven years living in exile, it’s been so long since an adult has actually tried to help me in an altruistic way. The only other person was my kindly Uncle Ben, who was the one to tell me to run when the Halfeather fire began.

Cursing myself, I have to admit that I am a little feral after all. Spending so much time in shifted form has a jarring effect when you return to your human body and you tend to forget human social rules. Some beasts are so far gone they turn rabid and even forget how to speak completely. Even worse? Some beasts we call ‘changed’ stay in their beast form full-time. Getting a person back from that state is almost impossible. But this exact thing is what Lyle Pardalia claimed to have done in this very school. They hailed him as some sort of genius saviour.

As for me? I’ve never had a gram of ferality until now. A real sinking into the gutter moment. A sinking that has led me here, to this prison-school, bursting with the very males I’ve spent a lot of effort trying to avoid. What if the other two mates I’ve not yet met are also here? It will be game over. Mating groups are ordained by destiny and it’s destiny that brings us together through orchestrated moments of chance. But I can protect myself. I’ve been doing it for years.

As I wait, I actually have enough energy now to pull up most of my shields. My magical store is low, at embers level, but I should recover within a few days of eating normally. If I can just wait that long, I’ll have the power to use my secret invisibility shield to get the hell out of here. I flick at my new baggy prison wear. This and my fancy new zip-lock bag are all the possessions I have. Once I’m past the ...

Somewhere in here, Xander, Scythe and Savage are getting processed and being taken to dorm rooms to start the school year. It’s laughable. Those beasts sitting in class? Writing essays and learning manners? I imagine Scythe sitting at a tiny desk with a pencil and his tongue between his teeth as he concentrates, copying notes from a blackboard. Wild Goddess, what am I in for?

Birdie doc moves down her long checklist. “Any health issues or injuries I need to know about?” Xander’s quick as usual when he calls out from the cubicle next to us, “Savage has syphilis! We call him Syphy Savvy.” I snarl over my shoulder, then turn politely to the doctor. “I don’t, doc. I check my cock daily, if you know what I mean. And I always use protection.” Used. Past fucking tense.

I look down at my index finger where me and my brothers have a serpent’s blood contract marked in black ink. I won’t be fucking anyone anymore. Not since Aurelia waltzed into my life that fateful day. Her father made us swear to bring her back to him so he can execute her for us. We also aren’t allowed to mate with her according to this contract. There’s just something about an animus that finds it difficult to kill his regina. It’s not impossible, it’s just tough, and once you fuck your regina…well, your beast might not want to let go at all. Once we deliver Aurelia to him, the contract will be fulfilled, the mark will disappear and we will go back to living our lives as we did before.

“Actually,” doc says, “you can’t always tell just by looking at the penis. May I do a quick body scan?” “Can’t wait.” There’s no disease or anything stored in any of my cavities, so I’m not worried. Weapons and drugs are for weaker beasts. All I need are my claws and teeth.

My animus snarls in annoyance because it now doesn’t like any female but my regina touching me with her magic. But I refrain from physically growling because I don’t need to kill her. She checks over Eugene for good measure and though his heart beats rapidly under my fingers at the attention, he’s a good boy and remains still. “All done, Mr Fengari and Eugene,” doc says. “I hope I don’t have to see you here again, but somehow I think I will.” Smart birdie.