Page 1 of Her Feral Beasts

Prologue

Aurelia

7 years ago

The day my period arrives, I run out of the bathroom screaming for my nanny, Rosalina. It’s a scream of joy; shrill, ecstatic, and full of expectation. Because for a female animalia, today is the day my anima will reveal herself to the world.

Rosalina, an elderly python of my court, whoops and opens her arms where she sits in her favourite armchair. I’m thirteen, but I still throw myself into her lap, crying and laughing and babbling about my powers to come.

“A powerful beast lurks under your skin,” she whispers, touching my black braid affectionately. “Tonight, we will all be proud to see which powerful serpent form she takes.”

When dusk comes and the sky is awash with deepening purple, I giddily trot into the back garden to see a bright half-moon. My father is waiting for me, proud and strong, like he always is: the King of the Serpent Court in a designer suit and shoes that are always shiny. He reaches down and kisses me on both cheeks, his dark eyes glowing with love and I’ve never felt so cherished in my life.

The dull ache in my lower stomach grows into a roaring fire that explodes outwards with terrible, ancient force.

When my body changes, when my clothes fall to the manicured grass around me, and I’ve taken on a new body, it isn’t any breed of serpent that lies coiled in the grass. The world looks different, but not in the way I expected. Not in the way I was told a serpent could see and sense the minute vibrations of the world. Hollow bones and feathered skin burn like acid and I change again. Bones crunch, ligaments stretch. Then a third time. Then a fourth.

By the time I shift back into my human body, the sharp pains in my bones and an awful, cold shock make tears spill down my face. My father is already storming back into our mansion, tendrils of his dark magic coiling around him, not bothering to control his fury.

Alone and naked, I bolt back inside. Rosalina covers me in a dressing gown, but her head is bowed and she will not meet my eye. Alone, I go to my bathroom, where I look at myself in the mirror, turning my face so I can see my neck—where my new mating mark burns with the light of the stars and the moon. A skull with five beams of light. The sacred connection between me and my mates by destiny.

The sun never really rises again for me.

* * *

The next day, I rise puffy-eyed and look at the simple black dress and ballet flats Rosalina has laid out for me.

“This is my funeral dress,” I whisper in a voice like brittle leaves crunching under a boot.

When I look at her in question, she still won’t meet my eye. The backs of my own eyes burn again, and silently, I put on my clothes of mourning.

I meet my father in our pristine circular driveway and am surprised to find that he and our driver are already in our black SUV. For the first time in my life, I open my own door and slide onto the cold black leather seat.

As we pull out, a movement at the side of my eye makes me turn. All ten of our house staff, including Rosalina, are standing at the windows of the second floor, staring down at me with grave faces. Rosalina raises her hand to the glass, her face lined with worry.

“Father?” I ask softly, though my heart is racing with trepidation.

The returning cold silence makes all the hairs on my body rise. I know this feeling. I know that the serpents of his court my father isn’t happy with sometimes don’t return to their families.

I begin to tremble.

According to the most ancient laws of our kind, on the day you become a man or woman, your parents take you to see the oracle. It’s supposed to be a day of celebration, a day of revelation, and there was going to be a grand party in my honour. Rosalina and I had been planning it for months.

When we arrive at our city’s branch of the Council of Beasts, my father opens his door and strides out, his black trench-coat billowing on a sharp wind.

I scramble to follow before the voice of our driver stops me.

“Miss Aurelia?” His voice is barely a whisper as I turn to look at him.

He touches his hat and says quietly, “Good luck.”

It’s not his words that chill me to the bone, but the fear in his slitted eyes. Fear for me.

I press my lips together before saying, “Thank you, Mr Chandler.”

When I enter the heated formal interior of the council atrium, my father doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t speak to me directly, and I’m presented to the oracle alone. A ghost of a girl, translucent and silent.

Presenting to the oracle is supposed to be the happiest day of one’s life, second only to finding your mates. This oracle is a woman of mystery, from the great and all-seeing House of Phoenix. But at this moment, she’s a woman in a burnt orange power suit, sitting behind a grand desk in a corner office with a view of the entire city behind her. Her hair is a bundle of vibrant strawberry blonde curls and her lipstick a perfect shade of fire-engine red. When she smiles kindly upon me, I can’t find the heart to return it.

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