Footsteps thunder on the pavement behind me as I sprint down the carpark for all I’m worth, my duffel bouncing by my side. I reach the bubble of magic my car is in, open the driver’s door and throw myself inside.

  The two men hesitate at my lack of appearance, sniffing the air. I turn on the ignition. While they can’t see or hear it, they will see the way the gravel moves as my tires flee the scene. I’ve parked rear-in, so I take one deep breath, and put the pedal to the floor.

  They shout, pointing directly at me while one of them exclaims into a walkie-talkie. I swear again. Of course they’ve brought back-up. Something heavy lands on my car and in my fright my invisibility shield shatters, and I struggle to gather my wits enough to get it back up.

  I head for the road, only to find a black Mercedes screeching to a stop across the driveway, my exit blocked. Another snake gets out of the driver’s seat, grinning at his friends.

  His expression turns from joyful to horror within seconds, but he’s not looking at me. He snarls and bolts past my car.

  A high-pitched scream sounds from behind me, and I whirl around in my seat to see a blur of activity. There’s another scream followed by a bellowing, then the sound of bodies falling.

  I remain in my car, clutching my steering wheel as if it will save me, panting like I’ve run a marathon. I have no idea what to do now. There’s no way for me to drive out.

  Everything goes quiet. The hairs on the backs of my arms stand on their ends. I look around, but I can’t see anyone.

  Until a lion wearing a navy three-piece suit casually strolls around my car, wiping bloody hands on a black pocket handkerchief. His walk is the swagger of a pure apex predator and he comes to a halt directly in front of my car. His amber-eyed stare is menacing and I’m left gaping at him.

  I know he’s a lion by his tanned, angelic features and the mane to match—long, honey-gold hair tied back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He has the look of a put together aristocrat, not a hair askew and definitely out of place in this motel. A bounty hunter maybe? No, not dressed like that, and my father would die before he dealt with lions.

  When he speaks, his voice is deep and holds the command of someone used to being obeyed. “Get out of the vehicle, Aurelia.” Even with his voice muffled through the glass, my anima demands I submit to his dominance and I struggle with it for a moment.

  He knows my name. I hide my fear with a scoff. But he just pins me with his amber eyes and says, “You and I are going to have a chat.”

  Somehow, he makes me feel like I’m back at school again and I’m in trouble for doing something stupid. He’s freezing me with the most lethal glare. He can only be in his late twenties, and fuck, he’s hot. Who the hell is he?

  Chapter 22

  Aurelia

  He sighs, as if irritated by me. “I’m not here to hurt you, Aurelia. But if you don’t get out of your car, I’m going to tear it to shreds, piece by piece.”

  Shit.

  I have no choice here. I slap my palm to my forehead and swear out loud at my well-laid plans falling apart. Has he heard about the fire? Has it made the news? I haven’t yet had the chance to check if it made it into Animalia Today. Halfeather was wealthy enough that his death has every right to be on the news.

  I look back at the lion, who is glaring at me as if I’m wasting his time. Shit, Aurelia, we can do this. Predator, remember? That’s what you are. And we can’t let him hurt Maisy.

  Slowly, I unlock my car door and push it open. Trying not to tremble, and very aware a six-foot-something ridiculous tall lion is watching my every move, I step out.

  The first thing I do is look behind my car, where I find the bloodied bodies of the five serpents. One has a broken neck, but the other four have been disembowelled with long, bloody slashes. I quickly look back at the lion, who has walked two silent steps closer to me since my brief look away from him. I jump a little and take a step back, looking down at his hands where, no doubt, claws had been just a minute ago.

  He’s killed five of my father’s hunting snakes in less than a minute.

  I meet his eye and say darkly, “My father will kill you for that.”

  The corner of his lip quirks, but he does not smile. “Oh, quite a few people try regularly. I rather enjoy sending them back corpses.”

  Something about his arrogant tone angers me, and I narrow my eyes at him. “Who do you think you are? You can’t just come in my motel and⁠—”

  “Your motel?” He raises an elegant male brow.

  I cross my arms and he nods to the buildings behind me. “Incidentally, this is one of my motels.”

  I only just manage to stop my jaw from dropping. “What the fuck?”

  “Language, Miss Aquinas,” he chides.

  I stare at him. He’s talking to me like a high school teacher. Who the hell does he think he is?

  He must see the crazed look on my face because he says drolly, “My name is Lyle Pardalia. I’m Deputy Headmaster of Animus Academy.”

  Oh shit. He’s come here to retrieve me. They sent the Deputy Headmaster of the prison school himself?

  “You’re not safe here.” He looks at my car with a slight curl to the lip, as if he finds it distasteful.

  “I know that,” I say through gritted teeth, taking great offence. “That’s why I was leaving before you interrupted me.”

  He levels me with a very unimpressed look that has me instantly raging. “You cannot be running around as you are.”

  Running around?!

  “Aurelia.” He says my name as if he’s reading from a very long, particularly boring shopping list. “Let me help you.”

  I take a deep breath to calm myself. “How did you find me?”

  He leans against Maisy, regarding me like a particularly uninteresting specimen. “Your phone is trackable.”

  The feeling of pure idiocy that spins through me makes me want to hurl. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid! Beasts have been hunting each other for hundreds of years and technology has just helped us be more efficient at it.

  “Why are you here?”

  He looks at his fingernails where blood has crusted around the edges. “Some problematic beasts are after you and you are no longer safe in the wider world.”

  I frown at him. I know that already. They are a bunch of psychos. But to hear that they were actually hunting me is a bleak confirmation that makes my stomach curl into a knot. Did I really think I could out run them?

  He sighs as if he’s explaining something to a stupid person. “You need to come to the Academy where we can keep you safe.”

  Why does every male around think they own me? I bristle where I stand, meeting him gaze for gaze. I’m not going to another place where a man thinks he can control me. “That place is for criminals and feral shifters. I don’t belong there.”

  “I don’t care, Aurelia. We need you where we can keep an eye on you while we work to hunt the others. You will be safe there. You can still get your education, we offer a range of healing courses for shifters. That’s what you would like to pursue as a career, is it not? Healing?”

  He knows a lot more about me than I like. And who’s we? The Council? Of course they’d have a hand in this now they think I’ve killed Halfeather. Fuck.

  I frown in annoyance at my clenched hands. This male is planning out my life as if I don’t have a say in it. But I do have some say. On one hand, I’d be safe from my father at the school—students are off bounds to everyone, including court royalty. There’d also be others at the college and means of boosting my power. I also wouldn’t have to worry about paying for tuition. Everything at the Academy is Council-funded.

  I raise my head and look at this lion—knowing full well they’ve sent the Deputy Headmaster of the Academy for ferals after me because I’m in big bloody trouble. I’ve never been in trouble for anything before and it’s a foreign, gnawing feeling.

  But if I go there and they rope up my mates, we’ll all be stuck together in one school and I’ll be forced to interact with them.

  No, there is no way I’m going. I glance at my duffel, still dishevelled in the passenger seat, thinking about how I’m going to make an exit. Lions have a strong instinct to chase, like other predators. If I simply ran, he would more than happily chase me down for days. Glancing up at the sky, I see that it’s a clear day, practically cloudless. I can do this.

  I set my jaw and uncross my arms as if I’ve given in. “Fine.”

  “Good.” He straightens so smoothly he might have been made from water and turns on his heel, heading to my passenger door to grab my bags, I guess.

  “My car is waiting around the corner,” he says, pulling a phone out of his pocket. “I’ll let the driver know.”

  I glower at him, darting back into my car through the driver’s side and snatching up my bag before he can open the door.

  He frowns at me through the windscreen and I shake my head, yanking my bag up and thinking rapidly about what I can carry. Cash. That’s all I can manage. The phone is a big loss, but that can’t be helped. I shove the wad into my mouth, tearing up as I look around at my beautiful Maisy.

  Goodbye for now, old girl.

  Lyle is striding down the driveway towards the road, expecting me to follow like an obedient student under his control. Joke’s on him because I run in the opposite direction, my wad of cash in my mouth. Lyle lets out a shout as my sneakers pound on the gravel. I take one jump, shifting into my eagle form, my clothes and shoes falling off around me. I frantically beat my wings and Lyle gives a fairly distinct, “Fuck!” That just proves what an asshole he is for telling me not to cuss. I ascend into the sky, Lyle’s dress shoes rapidly crunching on the gravel after me.

  I’ve guessed right, he’s not the type of beast to fully shift in public, not that it matters—I’m in line with the roof of the motel now and I’ve found a solid beat with my wings. I’ve also overestimated the size of my beak and the cash slips sideways. I scramble to catch it, trying hard not to lose my wing balance.

  It’s no use. The cash tumbles out of my beak and I watch it fall straight towards the motel parking lot, where Lyle Pardalia catches it in one broad, tanned hand. He looks back up and there’s a truly terrifying expression on his handsome face as he scowls up at me.

  Swearing in five different ways, I leave it all behind me and concentrate on beating my wings to get my freedom.

  Chapter 23

  Aurelia

  My eagle form is not a cure-all to my issue. Lyle will have access to the recovery team, which tracks down feral and rabid beasts and takes them to prison, or if they are under twenty-five, to Animus Academy for rehabilitation and education. That recovery team will include winged animalia trained in hunting.

  Not knowing how he’d come to find me in the first place, I’m still not safe and I don’t know how quickly Lyle is going to get a team together—or how long it’ll take him, as a lion, to hunt me down again. It will be embarrassing for him to return without me, and lions have big egos, second only to dragons. He won’t stop until he finds me, I just know it.

  That just means I have to be cleverer than anyone else.

  I focus on gaining as much height as I can and head north, as I’d initially intended. So I don’t have my car. This might be a blessing in disguise because travel for me now has no boundaries, and with my eagle sight, I will be able to see anyone coming from land or sky from miles away. If I can find a tall tree to roost in for the night, I can even sleep as a bird for one or two nights. Any more than that and I will likely turn feral myself, letting my anima take over in its animalistic mindset. And all my anima wants to do right now is find my mates. No, my human brain needs to be in control at all times.

  I can’t believe my awful luck. In the span of a week, I’ve managed to find three of my mates and the other two know what I look like from my little siren call that one night. And now them, Lyle fucking Pardalia and the Council are hunting me. Savage likely has my scent from that one night of disaster, and if he’s following his instincts, he will scent me out in no time on foot.

  The image of him standing over me, sucking on his fingers, fills my stomach with tumbling emotions. I want to cry, but I just can’t afford to lose focus.

  Flying is one of my greatest joys; as an eagle—or hawk or raven, it’s all brilliant. I felt closest to my mother when I was an eagle because, apparently, it was her preferred form. The feeling of the currents shifting below my wings is at once comforting and exhilarating. It feels like true freedom to be up here as an actual bird of prey, capable of simply seeing the world in the highest definition. Mice scurried in the fields below me, tiny sparrows flitted through the trees and I even saw to rabbits going at it under a bush. At least someone was living their dream and getting some action.

  If I’m not careful, it’s easy to get lost in the sensation of flying. When I think of this, understanding why animalia become feral or even rabid is not surprising.

  But alas, my anima knows that I am not an eagle by nature. I’m getting a little tired because my wing stamina isn’t the best as I don’t fly very often, so I push myself to get as much distance as possible between myself and what feels like the entire world pursuing me.

  Before long, I’m weakening in the dark of night, and though my eagle eyes are brilliant in the dark, I need food and a place to rest while I recover for the next long stretch of travel. I make a slow, controlled descent, following the twinkling lights of a shopping district and heading to the outskirts of that, spotting a small group of half constructed houses.

  There has to be a warm, vacant spot there for me to sleep in, undisturbed and hidden. I wheel down, choosing a house that looks like it has only just gotten its bricks set today. Heading in straight to the open entrance, I sigh happily through my beak. I dare not shift back to human form tonight, though. I have no clothes after all, and I imagine a tableau where human builders arrive early in the morning for work and find a naked girl in their construction site.

  Huffing, I settle down in a corner, pulling my wings about me to snuggle in for a nap. But even as tiredness pulls me down like a heavy blanket, my heart pounds like I’m still in danger.

  Adrenaline spikes through me like a wild wind and I’m on high alert immediately, blinking through the dark. Crickets chirp outside. The wind whistles through the empty house, stirring my feathers just slightly. I smell drying cement and the fresh scent of the wood used the build the frame of this house.

  It should be peaceful. But instead, the world around me is buzzing with raw, dangerous energy. Something is nearby. Something powerful.

  And then a voice like shadows and dark places effortlessly pierces my seven shields. “I’ve been inside you, princess. You can’t hide from us.”

  Savage is here.

  This is the beginning of Her Vicious Beasts, a spicy MFMMMM fated mates contemporary fantasy series.

  The story really gets going in Book 1, Her Feral Beasts.

  About the Author

  Ektaa P. Bali was born in Fiji and spent most of her life in Melbourne, Australia.

  She studied nursing and midwifery at Deakin University, going on to spend eight years as a midwife in various hospitals.

  Now, she writes stories about powerful dark goddesses, epic battles in faraway realms and sweeping romances between villains and the clever women they obsess over.

  Her Vicious Beasts is her fourth series set in the Chrysalis-verse and the first in her first New Adult WhyChoose series.

  She currently lives in Brisbane, Australia.

  Also by E.P. Bali

  New Adult Fantasy Romance

  A Song of Lotus and Lightning Saga:

  #1 The Warrior Midwife

  #2 The Warrior Priestess

  #3 The Warrior Queen

  #1 The Archer Princess

  #2 The Archer Witch

  #3 The Archer Queen

  Her Vicious Beasts

  #0.5 The Beginning

  #1 Her Feral Beasts

  #2 Her Rabid Beasts

  #3 Her Psycho Beasts

  #4 Her Tortured Beasts

  #5 Her Monstrous Beasts

  Upper YA Dark Fantasy

  The Travellers:

  #1 The Chrysalis Key

  #2 The Allure of Power

  #3 The Wings of Darkness

 

 

  E. P. Bali, Her Vicious Beasts: The Beginning

 

 

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