Page 30 of Her Feral Beasts

Someone throws a jug of apple juice onto her head and the flames go out with a sizzle and plenty of smoke, leaving her looking like a drowned rat, mascara running down her cheeks.

She shrieks and stomps away, leaving the males around us to chuckle darkly.

But as Lyle Pardalia walks into the dining hall, everyone goes quiet and still. Scythe’s voice tickles my brain.“She’s going to try and escape.”

All three of us look at Aurelia Aquinas, who’s watching the deputy headmaster like she wants to be sick.“How do you know?”I ask.

“Her eyes having been darting around the hall entire time,”Scythe says.“But not at the beasts. At the windows.”

“Well, well,”I mutter.“That won’t do at all.”

Chapter14

Aurelia

Another thing about living isolated and alone for your entire teenage life is that I’ve never had much access to real non-TV drama. So, sitting at my little table in the dining hall of Animus Academy watching the three beasts who are supposed to be my mates sit like kings whileotherterrifying beasts literally bow to them is pretty bloody high on my ‘holy shit’ scale. If this is what it’s like to be the centre of drama, I don’t want it.

Scythe is literally sitting in a chair that he, by his mere cold presence, has transformed into a throne, while men and women shit their pants as they speak to him, baring their necks in submission. Within half an hour, he holds most of the room in his pale, beautiful tattooed hands.

Savage knocked a lion twice the size of him out in one casual blow, then proceeded to shoot daggers my way every three minutes. Xander made all the animas at my table freak out when he walked in with those eerie white glowing eyes. Then, helit a girl’s hairon firewithout twitching a muscle before or after. She had thrown herself at him, and forced her way into his lap, but still! The poor girl ran out of the hall, shrieking.

I don’t know what to do.

Because if they can dothat, what the hell are they going to do aboutme? Savage has outright told me he’ll kill me. Back when I first met them, Xander told me he wished the entire Court of Serpents had all been killed in the ‘70s purge, and Scythe said he was going to find out all my secrets.

Any plan I could use against them seems infantile. But once again, my loopy trait is kicking in, because the thought of this as a challenge brings out a tiny spark within me. It makes my adrenaline rush through my veins. If I can thwart them, what an achievement that would be for my mental resume.

So I might have a type-A personality. My mum died when I was five, so I can’t be sure, but I think I get my mad need to prove myself from my dad orbecauseof my dad. Just in my case, it may very well get me killed.

Naturally, all the animas around me notice the new men with their bright red warning lanyards right away.

“Who are they?” Minnie asks in horror.

I think it’s best if I pretend not to know them, so I stay silent. Luckily for me, Raquel snorts. “S-stay away, little k-kitten. Bad m-men right there.”

Tell me about it.

Minnie gives me wide eyes and I shake my head in dismay, as if to say, ‘Gee, I’m sorry for their mates.’

So I still have to run from the psychos, but I need to be smart. Last time, I didn’t have a real plan other than to just bolt. This time, I’m going to plan it out cleverly. Phase one is going to be to deny they’re my mates completely. They only saw my mating mark in that one moment of weakness and never again. They might just buy the fact that they were wrong. Xander seems to be of the same mind since he basically saved me back in the mating lines with Savage. Phase two is for me to figure out which way my exit lies.

It’s not until the deputy headmaster walks in—nay,prowls—in like he’s on a hunt, that I became stricken and throw all my plans out the window—I wish I could throwmyselfout the window right about now, but they’re all locked—because he walks in, staring atmelike he’s ready to tear out my throat. All six-foot-seven of male alpha lion in a perfectly pressed three-piece suit is angled towards my gaping form.

My heart stops. My vision blurs. My throat collapses.

Both times I previously met Lyle Pardalia, he was hunting me. Like the Wild Gods’ own personal warrior angel. Wild but refined. Lethal but controlled. He’s like a rabid beast with a steel grip on his own tether. It’s sexy as all hell and every anima in the room lets out a shudder and swoons. Next to me, Minnie sighs dreamily, and Stacey on my other side squeezes her thighs together. I’m surprised we don’t all go into spontaneous heat.

But luckily, everyone has some sense of decency and there are only a few girly giggles from our table. Lyle’s amber eyes thankfully shift off me and sweep around the hall. I almost sag with relief and realise that I shifted my body so I’m in a position to leap out of my seat if need be. I cough awkwardly and concentrate on looking relaxed in my chair.

The worst thing you can do in a room full of male beasts? Unexpectedly run. It sets off their prey drive instinct right away. It’s even written on the warning sheet Minnie has in the first page of her binder.

“Is it hot in here, or is he the hottest thing you’ve ever seen?” Stacey mutters.

The girls murmur in agreement, but I keep my mouth shut because I hate the guy.

I watch Lyle take in the energy of the room, including right up the back where Scythe and the others have set up court. The corner of his mouth twitches almost imperceptibly as he takes them in before he gestures to our table.

“New students, with me. Animas, at the front, if you will.” His voice has the deep arrogant drawl of a man who never doubts his authority, and every anima leaps to obey. I’m dubbing it his ‘Teacher voice’. I purse my lips and hold back though, because my ego is bigger than my ass and it’s currently licking her wounds. This man has seen me naked, taken me against my will, and I’ll be damned if I’m obeying him just because he says so.

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