Page 152 of Her Rabid Beasts

“I’ve rearranged things,” Savage says proudly.

“I’m not complaining.” Sabrina shrugs, taking a seat beside a smirking Beak.

The rest of the day is worse than all the days preceding it. The first reason being because I know when I return to my bed tonight, Aurelia will not be in it. The second reason being that Aurelia’s return to the general population of the academy stirs up Titus in the worst possible way.

Chapter 61

Aurelia

Inever expected the massive welcome back party I was given, but it was the best thing ever to cheer me up after losing my perfect little nest. Minnie sticks close to my side at breakfast and everyone takes it upon themselves to try and distract her from Titus’ malevolent, glass-cracking stare from a few tables down.

“I’ve been sleeping on the spare bed in Stacey’s room,” Minnie says to me as we sit down for sex-ed class.

“We thought it was best she wasn’t alone,” Connor says seriously, carrying Eugene in his arms. “Gertie has been amazing as usual, but sometimes you need a friend to remind you not to go sneaking about in the dark.”

“I wanted to go see him,” Minnie explains apologetically. “To”—her eyes shine, glimmering under the halogen lights of the academy classroom—“get an explanation, or just to getsomethingfrom him, you know? To find out if it was just anger, or bad judgement, or?—”

Sabrina snorts in disgust. “Girlfriend, we’ve been through this before. That animus knew exactly what he was doing.”

A little dismay winds through my chest as I watch my best friend grasp at straws. She’s a girl besotted, and it’s not normal.Something more than suspicion tugs at my gut. “His dad follows the Old Laws, Min,” I say quietly. “He’s just like my dad.”

“You know his dad?” Minnie asks in shock.

I take a deep breath, glancing at Savage and Xander, who are clearly listening closely. “Yeah, Min. Titus’ uncle was one of my mother’s mates.”

Raquel chokes on the water they were drinking and everyone stares at me. Savage tightens his grip around my waist.

“At first, I thought he looked familiar, but it wasn’t until I saw his surname in his student file that I realised why.”

Minnie reaches for my hand. “But Lia,” she whispers, “Titus’ uncle is dead.”

I nod, unable to tell them any more than that. The rest of the horrible, awful truth I thought I put behind me.

Henry huddles closer into my neck, and noting this, my animas don’t question me further. Savage keeps an arm around me at all times after that, in every class we have during the day, growling at anyone who so much as looks my way. But then he, Xander and Raquel reluctantly leave us to do some business with Scythe.

I drag the rest of my animas and Eugene into the library after our final class of the day: Communicating with Humans. We sign out a couple of laptops on the pretence of doing homework, but I take the time to tell my feline friends about Ulman’s Wildlife Sanctuary. I don’t tell them about how I’ve been seeing Lyle’s memories, but once they hear about felines being abused, they’re onto the cause like a rabid tiger on a deer’s carcass.

It's difficult at first because those types of parks were closed down decades ago, but Stacey is nothing if not resourceful and finds newspaper articles from an online repository of newspapers.

“So, this is Frank Ulman,” Minnie says, peering at Stacey’s computer screen. “Looks like he owned the private wildlifesanctuary up in Darwin. There’s a ton of articles talking about all the great work he did. But there’s nothing recent.”

It fits with the red earth and dry weather I saw in Lyle’s memories.

“He’s even written scholarly articles,” Connor says, pulling up a scientific journal. “Look, this one’s all about the mating patterns of animalia felines.”

“And this one,” I say darkly, “is about lion cubs and re-training them.”

“I feel sick just looking at it,” Minnie says. “What an awful guy.”

“Does it say anything about what happened to the sanctuary?” I ask carefully. “About how it got shut down?”

But we find no articles on it. As if the whole thing was swept away.

“I’ve found a coroner’s report,” Stacey says quietly. “Looks like they were killed in an accident.”

Darkness like I’ve never known opens.

“Lia, are you alright?” Minnie asks.

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