Page 111 of Her Rabid Beasts

Minnie’s face crumples. “He’s going to leak the nudes.”

Fury like I’ve never known strikes me. And half of this is my fault for giving her that phone.

Minnie tugs at her hair. “This’ll kill my parents! Literally, it will kill them! And probably destroy my dad’s reputation too. They’ll never forgive me.”

We sit in silence for a moment, processing all of this. Minnie’s honour is on the line here. She deserves so much more than this.

“We need some dirt on him,” Sabrina says. “That’s the first thing we need to do. Blackmail him right back.”

“What?” Minnie gasps. “No, that’s cruel.”

Silence descends, heavy and unforgiving.

My kind, loving, beautiful tigress lowers her head. “Oh, right.”

We all look at Connor.

“I don’t know much more than anyone else,” he admits. “He’s not talkative, you know?”

Inspiration hits me. “So we need information, right? Where is all the student info kept? Like the files with all our details.”

Minnie stares at me wide eyed. “Lia, you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

“Yes, I am B-two,” I say with a smirk. “It’s snooping time. Except Sabrina will need to teach me how to pick a certain lock.”

Sabrina removes the set of lock picks she keeps in her pocket like a talisman. “Bitches, we’ve got this.”

When we head to breakfast, it’s already packed with everyone eating. I feel Scythe, Xander and Savage’s eyes on me the entire time I’m standing in the queue for my ham and cheese croissants. I fill Minnie’s plate for her, and listless, she lets me.As we grab our coffees and head to our table, I sneak a glance at the serpent’s corner. They sit there minus five members, looking grim. Thomas Krait also sits with a coffee, pointedly ignoring me. It’s then that I notice every single one of them except him has a pair of obsidian shackles on their ankles. I glance at Savage and he winks at me, though he doesn’t smile.

Swallowing, I look to my left.

Titus sits at one of the feline’s tables, and there’s a new girl in his lap. The fact that he’s openly flaunting this in Minnie’s face just makes me hate him even more.

Minnie comes around the table to sit opposite me, so she doesn’t have to look at Titus and his cronies.

And then something happens that makes every cell in my body go still.

Someone at the hyena table makes an oinking, snorting sound. The others take up the cause, and a chorus of oinks thunder through the back of the hall.

They point at my best-friend, chortling through the oinks.

Minnie stiffens as she goes to sit, blinking rapidly as if she’s trying to contain herself. Gertie huddles up to her ear, clucking to keep her breathing even.

Sabrina, Stacey and Raquel also pause before our table.

My bloodboils, fire scorching my arteries, my anima demanding vengeance with talons and claws.

I slam my bamboo tray down hard enough to crack it.

Scanning the back of the hall for the culprits, my eagle-sharp vision narrows as I find them: oily, scummy males, all with matching curling black eyebrow tattoos. I mark my prey and stalk down the hall, my power pulsing around me in heat and ice and electricity. My anima begs me to shift and leap down to snap necks and gouge out eyes, but I leash her for the moment.

I sense Sabrina and Raquel are behind me, flanking me like guards. The hyenas see us coming and laugh even harder, doubling over and continuing to oink.

We come to a stop in front of their table.

When I point at them, my finger is steady. They’re seized by the violent force of my barely restrained telekinesis. Stuck in their positions, feeling the pressure of my power, they have no choice but to remain silent, staring at me with bug-eyed expressions.

And when I speak, my voice is a deep, vicious growl I barely recognise. “If you so much as make asinglenoise towards my friend, I willripout your motherfucking throats andeatthem.”

---