Page 103 of Her Feral Beasts

“I think you do,” he snaps back.

“You know,” I say because now I’m riled up, and he’s scraping on my nerves like a cheese grater, “I’ve been in a sort of jail before.This?” I wave my arms around his celebrated prison-school. “Is freedom for me, in some ways. If I ignore the guards, and my abductors, I’m actually, for the first time in my rotten, fucking life, having a good actual time! So you’ll excuse me if I look like I’m doing okay, because in eight days, it’s all over for me and I might as well enjoy it while I can.”

His jaw goes slack and I think I’ve stunned him into shock.

I want to cry because this is the first time I’ve said any of this out loud to anyone and I thought he was supposed to counsel me, but really I’ve just counselled myself. I angrily wave my hand at him because no doubt he comes from a rich family with privilege and ease. “But you wouldn’t understand that.”

I turn away from him to start walking again, but he doesn’t move. Sighing, I turn back around to raise my brows at him.

“Perhaps I might understand a little, Miss Aquinas.” I blink at him. “But you shouldn’t raise your voice when you’re speaking to a staff member.”

I dramatically hang my head back in exasperation. Like he’s my superior! The nerve. Above me, the sky is a perfect periwinkle blue. Perfect, like Lyle Pardalia’s blasted face. Perfect, like the feeling of a sweet easterly current beneath my wings. “Will I get to see the sky ever again?” I say to myself.

“That worries you?” Lyle’s voice ismuchcloser to me, and I snap my head back down and find him looming over me. His eyes are fixed on my neck and I realise, like any absolute idiot, I’m baring my neck to him like a submissive goon. His scent is drool-worthy and I force myself to take a step back.

“Didn’t they teach you how close is appropriate to stand next to a lady?” I ask, a little irritated. A heat is spreading through my body and its origin is definitely between my legs.

Lyle reaches toward my cheek and I’m so shocked that my eyes goggle at him… only to have him take Henry off my shoulder into his big hands. Henry bops up and down, chattering a way too friendly greeting that Lyle has never deserved.

A traitor on many counts.

But I’m watching how gently Lyle is with Henry as he strokes the top of his head, then checks him over like a professional.

“Areyou a lady?” he asks, but it’s almost like he’s actually considering the question as he checks Henry’s eyes, then turns him over and checks his bottom.

“Sometimes they need their anal glands squeezed,” he says softly. I gulp because people would pay good money to have their anal anythings be handled like that by Lyle’s smooth, golden hands. “But he doesn’t need that.”

Shit. Focus. “Right now, in this moment, yes. I am a lady.” And then I’m babbling because I’m feeling some kind of way. Hot. Very hot. “My father would refuse to let me eat until my back was perfectly straight. Snakes need to have high standards, he’d say. We can’t give people a reason to hate us more. And I’ve had elocution classes and dancing classes and people who taught me history…” Why am I telling him this? It all ended seven years ago, and I barely remember any of it. I grumble under my breath because why do I have loose legs and a loose tongue all of a sudden?

Lyle rubs his jaw with his thumb as he considers me far too closely. I glance away from him and Henry to the passing guards as I flush under his attention.Get a grip, Lia.But I wonder what he’s like to kiss. If he’s rough or soft. I decide he’s definitely the rougher sort, and my anima squeaks in excitement.

Clearing my throat, I slide my eyes back to him and find him still staring at me.

“If you’re having that much fun here, Miss Aquinas, perhaps Iamdoing something wrong, after all.”

I freeze at the low implication in that voice.

Slowly, like he doesn’t want to startle me, Lyle puts Henry back on my shoulder. The back of his hand scrapes the bare skin of my shoulder, sending a direct shockwave through my stomach and right to my pussy. I take a sharp intake of breath and our eyes meet for a fleeting, hot second before he’s a foot away from me again and we’re walking like nothing happened.

He abruptly changes topic to similar legal cases I need to go to the library and look up, and I soberly listen so I can tomorrow with Minnie to make notes for my case. To my anima’s dismay, the deputy headmaster doesn’t touch me again.

That night, a letter slides under the door with Lyle’s signature.

Notice of Detention

Name: Aurelia Aquinas

Crime: Disrespecting a staff member

Sentence: Communal bathroom cleaning duty

Duration: 1 month

“Why!” I screech in dismay.

Henry chirps in surprise. Minnie snatches the notice from my hand and her eyes widen as she reads. “Oooh, he’s really got it in for you. You gave him lip at your session, didn’t you, Lee-Lee?”

Her new pet name for me is fucking cute and I can’t help but love it. “Yes, just a little bit, but it was justified. I shouldn’t have told him I was enjoying myself here.”

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