Page 4 of Her Feral Beasts

It also means that I have no clothes and no cash. So here I am, in what I hope is an inconspicuous position, eyeing this poor lady’s burger.

You don’t know real hunger until you’ve gone this long without a proper meal. My head is fuzzy, like it’s filled with cotton wool, and my body feels like it’s floating through water, moving in slow motion. Worst of all, I’mfixatingon this burger like it’s a holy relic that’ll save me.

Because I will die before I go digging through the rubbish bin. A woman has to have her standardssomewhere, right?

Dirty pond drinking water I can tolerate here and there.

A dirty burger? Pass. Soft pass, but still.

I hop forwards, keeping low and angling myself so the old ladies don’t suspect my intentions.

I’m a predator

I’m an apex predator.

A beast like no other.

If I keep repeating my positive affirmations, I’ve got to believe them eventually. That’s the way it works. It’s science.

It’s a beautiful summer’s day and there’s a cool breeze, so plenty of people are sitting outside this cafe. It’s a wealthy area with luxury shops around, so I’m wondering if I can steal someone’s wallet while I’m in the area.

I’ve really descended to a new type of low.

There’s a discarded chip on the ground and I purposefully avoid looking at it.

I was a Princess of the Serpent Court at one time. Now, I’m thinking about eating day-old cold chips from the ground. A bubble of mad laughter begins in my chest and I clamp down on it as hard as I can because it’ll likely come out as a scary caw.

Hopping right up to the table, I’m about to launch myself into the air when a group of police cars, sirens blaring, race past, followed by a fire brigade.

“Oh dear, I wonder what’s happened,” one of the ladies croaks, nervously shuffling her orthopaedic shoes under the table.

A young waitress sidles up to the table with a look of ‘I’ve got goss’. “The Opal Feather store just got broken into and set on fire,” she says conspiratorially. “I was walking past on my way to work. Glass and flames everywhere. The salesgirl was screaming about beasts barging into her store. A wolf and a dragon, she says.”

I freeze.

So does the man sitting alone on the table to my right and the two teenagers to my left.

“Oh, thosecreaturesare awful,” says Caesar-salad lady. “A danger to us all. I can’t believe they let them terrorise us humans the way they do.”

“Some of them are so pretty though,” says burger-lady, though a little quietly, as if she’s ashamed to admit it. “The way the lion men groom themselves? I saw one on the news the other day. Beautiful honey golden hair, and so long!”

“Yes, but they’re dangerous, Sybil!” says Caesar Salad. “Criminals and murderers. They can’t control their urges, and they act like the animals they are.”

The large man sitting on the right hastily gets up to leave. Maybe he’s a criminal on the run like me. Fare thee well, comrade. Good luck.

“Well,” says the waitress, lowering her voice. “The salesgirl at the Opal Feather said the wolf that came in was gorgeous…right up until they blew up the store and laughed about it!”

Shit. They’re here. I need to leave right now.

The ladies titter in fear and judgement as the waitress walks away and I know that it’s now or never. I leap up onto the table, black wings flapping, immediately knocking over a pink mocktail and its tiny umbrella.

All three ladies scream.

I launch myself at the chicken burger, grabbing it with my beak and leaping into the air, sweeping my wings to gain some height. But success is a glass bubble that shatters in my beak because the burger is too big for me to clamp around. It slips out and I falter in mid-air, digging my beak in for all its miserable worth. But it does no good.

Caesar-Salad grabs her handbag and swings it double-handed, like a cricket bat, right for my head. I cry out and swerve just in time, catching myself on the recently vacated chair behind her—where a brown paper doggy bag sits full with the man’s leftovers.

My beak shoots out, snapping around the paper handles and I launch myself into the air, triumphant, leaving the dramatic shrieking behind me.

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