Page 28 of Her Feral Beasts

Us first year males are given a solid talking to before we enter the dining hall. The warning is clear: behave or we’ll be carted out unconscious.

I can’t believe Scythe is forcing me to play school here. We have to sleep in a giant dormitory like a group of pre-pubescent boys at summer camp and Savage and I resort to blows more than once.

This is going to be hell. It’s why, as I walk into the dining hall alongside Scythe, smoke streams out of my nose in a black plume.

“Fuck, Xander, have some control,” Savage sneers. He’s annoyed he has to leave Eugene in a cage in our room and also annoyed that I ruined his fun back on the field.

Scythe gives me a look that could crack stone, and I grimace at him.“Don’t start a fight,”he drawls into our heads.“I don’t want blood on my hands on the first fucking day.”

“Wait, what was that in the dorm, then?” Savage says, with his hand on his heart, making his eyes wide.

I smirk at the memory of the two lions lying in a bloody mess after two of them shot a shark joke at Scythe. The idiots didn’t know who he was and hadn’t listened when the others cautioned them.

As a result, they were carted off to the medical wing on gurneys.

The unmated male dorms are a cesspool of pillow-humping illiterates, but we fixed any fight for dominance last night when they put us all in a room with the other animuses and got us to naturally establish pecking order. It was brutal, but time-effective. There’d been no time for much talking though, so we just needed word to spread that we’re here now, and in no more than two days, we’ll haveeveryoneunder our thumbs and a couple of beasts six feet under.

I'm highly offended that they have this prison academy in heritage listed, century old architecture made by the Draykaris family. There’s the finest walnut panelling on the walls of the central mansion, solid oak flooring—none of that cheap modern pine shit—and I can feel the dragon-magic ingrained in the very crevices of the hallways. It brings back memories I’d prefer not to think about, but there’s trick magic here, too, which is interesting, so I’ll be inspecting every inch of the place at the first chance I get.

We pass by the security bears hauling out trash as we head into the dining hall. Both nod at us as we pass.

I make straight for the food, leading the way because I’m so hungry I could eat someone. A curvaceous redhead in the queue ahead of me turns to see who’s looming behind her. Her eyes widen when she sees my face, and she looks me slowly up and down before promptly sticking her tits out. Some beasts find my white, glowing eyes scary, but plenty of women love it. This one is clearly in the latter camp, so I smirk at her before piling my tray high with as much breakfast as the weak bamboo can take.

No woman is coming between me and my food, no matter what she looks like.

Scythe lets a grumbling Savage queue ahead of him and my wolf-brother fills his tray with rare steak and nothing else. At least Lyle knows how ferals eat and gives us what we want. I’m a little more balanced and take ten fried eggs, twenty pieces of bacon and nine pieces of toast. Scythe looks everything over and chooses not to eat. I immediately see why.

They’ve not catered to marine beasts because this ‘academy’ has likely never had one attend. They all get a unique form of psychosis if they’re left on land, so most choose to live the ocean life in their shifted forms, often staying that way for the rest of their lives. Scythe, for his part, only eats raw fish and they don’t even have a sardine at the buffet at all.

But my shark brother shows no sign of emotion, as usual, and I notice the males in the line behind him take one sniff of him and give a wide berth. Savage smirks when he sees where I’m looking, and when we’re ready to leave the buffet, Savage stalks out ahead of me, Scythe behind him as I make a detour to grab an entire urn of black coffee.

The dining hall is buzzing with conversation and shifty, darting eyes. The male beasts are doing everything they can to check out the new females and gather information them so they can capitalise on it later.

Clearly, they’re all ignoring the big red poster above the male dorm exit that says, ‘Antagonising the animas is a punishable offence.’

I spot the snake girl immediately. She’s sitting at a group of clearly unmated females, all looking outright miserable. I refuse to look at her, but she’s sitting between two puny girls. One looks like a deer and the other looks like a puppy. Why she’s hanging out with animal food is beyond me, because it’s a sure way to get caught out in a place like this. But she alwayshascome across a little stupid. Maybe she’s just insane like her father says.

Savage stalks up to a table right at the back of the hall, ignoring the snake girl as well. He’s angry at her for refusing his stolen handbag when he didn’t even want to give it to her in the first place. Now my animus? My dragon is horny at the best of times, and he lets out a whine of interest when we pass snake girl, but when I tell him to put his head down, he does. She doesn’t fucking want us, and that’s a worse insult than spitting in our faces. I won’t tolerate it. She’ll get what’s coming to her soon enough, and once she’s dead, I can go back to living my life and forget this thing ever happened.

“She’s—”I begin, but Scythe cuts me off.

“I know,”he says, though his head never moved her way.

We’re stared at as we walk through the hall, and I know we’re recognised by plenty of students right away. And if they didn’t know us before, they know us from the bloodbath that happened last night. Some idiots, however, still bearing the marks from said bloodbath, are growling outright at the memory. They see Savage’s arrogant swagger, my creepy-ass eyes, the ice cold shark, and sense something is off about us. They don’t like it. Any sane beast would feel uncomfortable at the sheer level of dominance we bring into the room, but they also feel what will happen to them if they don’t bare their necks for our approval. I mark out the growling ones for later.

This is going to be amusing.

All the tables at the back are occupied, and Savage heads for a table where a group of the worst monsters are sitting. I don’t remember them from last night, but they’re hulking, tatted up and scarred; the look of dirty fighters. One is gnawing on a raw bone, another has a long line of stitches on his forehead. Typical. I check the legs of the table for urine marking, but there is none. Surprising.

Savage lets out a growl and commands the mutts, “Off.”

Fleeting wide eyed looks tell me that they recognise him--Savage is well known in the wolf community. When he used to participate in underground fights, he was always at the top of the leader boards and no one has won a fight against him since he was a kid. A couple of years ago, we put a stop to him competing because we couldn’t find willing opponents.

Three of the six get up, step respectfully away to the side, and wait. The remaining three snarl up at their friends and then at us.

“What the fuck?” the remaining idiot, a lion with scar through his eyebrow, says.

“Just move, Greg.” His friend is nobly trying to help him.

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