Page 15 of Her Feral Beasts

“My dad broke me in young,” I say by way of explanation.

This place is going to be a piece of cake.

Chapter6

Aurelia

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.

I suppose that’s what happens when obsidian chains force your bones to shift when they don’t want to. It’s even worse because I’m so depleted.

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.

A quick look outside reveals two armed guards, dressed in all black complete with a helmet, balaclava, and plastic goggles. 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.

There’s a patient call bell looped around my right hand, and I squint at the green button before pressing it. Some distance away, a new low beep adds itself to the cacophony of sound.

I wait about five minutes before a tiny lady with brown wisps coming loose from her bun hurries into my cubicle, enthusiastically rubbing her hands with sanitiser.

“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.”

Heat floods my face. I wonder if I should lie, but I haven’t had much human-to-human interaction in days and I feel like I might as well tell her the truth. “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. IknowI 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 food poisoning a couple of times, and colds, but nothing worse than that.

She asks me more questions about my health, of which there’s nothing much to note other than my periods being painful and irregular and that I am not currently sexually active (to which my anima grunts dramatically). She tells me they took bloods, hair samples and mouth swabs from me while I was out. I feel a little uneasy at that, but apparently people who are charged with major crimes don’t get choices. The list of questions is pretty extensive, and it’s jarring just to even be speaking openly with another person.

“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 rectifiedthatmisunderstanding.

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?”

A claiming bite from a mate might have explained it. Alas, no one owns me and they never will.

“No,” I lie.

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