Page 27 of Her Feral Beasts

No two-minute noodles and Pop-Tarts here, no siree. Golden toast with knobs of butter on the side, crispy bacon, hash browns and sausages piled so high I can do nothing but stare. And pancakes.Stacksof them. Plus, muffins, cereal and waffles further down.

Minnie giggles. “Lia, you act like you’ve never seen a buffet before.”

I close my mouth and don’t dare admit that I haven’t, not since my twelfth birthday party at my father’s mansion. Every girl my age from Serpent Court came to my princess-themed party. I wore anactualboa constrictor with pink feathers (one of my uncles, from memory) and the cake was in the shape of two cobras rearing up. They would have been scary if they weren’t coloured in pink and gold fondant.

It felt like a completely different lifetime and I’m in no way, shape or form, the same girl of privilege I was then. Now, I’m a discarded scumbag, only considered good for breeding.

My father sees me like that. He married me to Halfeather for money. Given meto him like an exotic pigeon for making hatchlings and nothing else. There is no way I would ever let that happen to me again. I will never let myself be a slave. The twin wounds on my neck will remind me of that promise to myself every morning now.

“Whoa, girl. You alright?” a girl behind me asks.

Falling out of my fervour, I’m immediately horrified to see everyone in the immediate vicinity staring at me.

“What?” I ask.

Minnie makes wide eyes at me. “Lia, your power is rolling off you like a heatwave. Calm down before someone takes it the wrong way.”

I swear and stop thinking of my past, reeling my power back in and checking my shields. This won’t do at all. I’m already slipping up.

“Sorry, Minnie,” I mutter. “I’m not used to being around so many animalia.”

“Yeah, it’s unnerving,” she whispers, grabbing a suspiciously flimsy wooden tray from the shrinking stack and piling it high with bacon. A woman after my own heart. “But we’re supposed to be here to learn control, right?” she continues, side-eyeing the males taking the opportunity to check her ass out. “This feels like a zoo. I’m pretty sure the guide says we learn good manners in courtship in our first year.”

Indeed, it’s lucky for the couple of guards standing by the walls. If not for them, I’m sure blood would have been spilled by now.

I take a thin wooden tray for myself and, in a sort of wonder, fill it with a bit of everything. Just when I think I could get used to this buffet, I remember that I still have to escape this place and I groan internally. Just days ago, I was drinking dirty puddle water, and I’ll have to go back to that if I don’t plan this escape properly.

Us first year animas form a gaggle and find that the only table left is one smack bang in the centre, that seems, to my dismay, to have been purposely left clear for us. The unmated girls from second and third year sit at tables with other animus groups, probably bundling themselves up with their own orders.

We all shovel our food in quietly, but the six of us never look at our food. Our eyes are darting around at the passersby, trying to detect a threat before it catches us off guard. This is the proverbial watering hole, and it feels like more than a few lions and wolves are lurking at the edges, just waiting to pounce.

“Gosh, don’t look now, but I think those two are eating each other for breakfast,” Minnie says with breathy wonder.

I’m nosy, so Idolook and see two girls sucking each other’s faces. Tongues flash and a guy suddenly joins in, sliding his hand up the leg of one of the girls.

“Obviously mating groups eat together,” Stacey, next to me, says. “But the unmated animas also eat with the guys they choose. It’s just us losers who need to be careful until we figure out who’s who.”

“We’ll protect each other, though, right?” I say in a friendly voice, looking around and seeing no sign of my three man-shaped problems. “If we watch each other’s backs, we stand a chance of getting through our first day unscathed.”

“Yeah,” she says to me with a smile. “We can do that.”

Sabrina, sitting at the end of the table with Raquel, rolls her eyes again, but they still came to sit with us at our table, which means they’re more unnerved than they’re showing.

Just as I think we’ve done well at our first breakfast, I understand why our trays are made of the flimsy cardboard. A fight breaks out on the other side of the hall and trays go flying. One huge guy slams his tray down on the head of another and chaos ensues.

Two massive bear shifters appear from the wings and blow a whistle. Everyone around them surges away from the fight. The two beasts are hauled off each other kicking and screaming, and it’s not until literal cattle prods are stabbed into both of them that they go limp.

They’re slung over the shoulders of the guards and gone within seconds.

I blow out a bated breath. “They don’t have cattle prods at the zoo,” I mutter darkly to Minnie.

“First year animas!” a guy with a mohawk caws from across the room, his arms spread wide. “Welcome to the fucking jungle!”

Everyone, except our table, laughs.

Chapter13

Xander

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