Page 166 of Her Rabid Beasts

Theresa isn’t allowed in the animus dorms, only the male teachers are, so she can’t come in here to accost me either. I don’t hear from Lyle, and I suspect he’s avoiding me. I get to addhim to the list of people I need in my life and who don’t want to be near me.

In a nutshell, it’s all sunshine and roses. Well, not roses, because some days I don’t even shower. I can’t summon the energy.

My father is supposed to come here in one week and he expects me to present myself on a platter to him. And if I don’t…my friends will certainly be put on a platter themselves.

I ask Savage if there’s a way for me to bundle them up and whisk them away to somewhere safe that’s beyond the reach of the Serpent Court. But the answer always comes back asimpossible. Plus, none of my friends would agree to it. They’re all at the academy under legal order.

Well, it was worth a try.

So I double down on my protections, burrowing into them like a wombat and constantly monitoring them so I never slip up. Lyle’s words the day Minnie kicked me out were completely stupid. I’m not dangerous at all. I’m practically harmless. If I’m so dangerous, I would have come up with a way to deal with my father by now. If I’mactuallya princess of the Serpent Court, I would have put some genius, malevolent plan in place to kill my father and overthrow him. It’s probably what my dad himself would have done if he were in my place.

One day, after a few days of radio silence, Ghoul sends me a message.

I can’t stop thinking about that beautiful mouth, snakelet

I frown down at it before tossing my phone aside and returning to my second run ofThe Twilight Saga: New Moon. It suits my mood perfectly.

Reading the words over and over again in a sort of daze sends my memories back to the night three of my mates worshipped me, and I worshipped them right back. I tilt my head back on the couch’s headrest, remembering the taste of Ghoul, power and poison all wrapped up in tattooed steel.

I hear it then. A shift in the air. Like a tiny pulse surging outward. Frowning, I sit up straight. Eugene lets out a low croon from where he’s perched on the armchair adjacent to me.

Henry zips into the air, shifting this way and that like a dragonfly, as if sensing the air too.

“You guys feel that?” I whisper.

Both let out clucks of assent.

Shit.

I check my protections around the school, but they’re all sound, and there’s no movement outside them. Pushing my fleece blanket off my knees, I get off the couch, straining my ears, and step out of the TV room. Henry and Eugene make to follow me but I hold a hand up in a silent instruction to stay put. That primitive sense in my depths urges me to turn right. Within a few steps, I find myself standing outside a wide, black door. I’ve never taken too much notice of it before, but there is a pressure resonating from it, red and fiery.

There’s also a lock.

And if there is a door locked with Xander’s power, I would like to know exactly what’s behind it. Especially since that pulse from before seems to be coming from within. Quickly fetching the set of lock picks Sabrina gifted me, I return and set to my task on the old-fashioned antique gold lock, almost exactly the same type on Lyle’s office door. A style the academy seems to favour.

Perhaps for that exact reason, I can’t pick the lock. Squinting at it, I tap the handle.

“Open!” I command.

When the door clicks open this time, I’m not stupid enough to traipse through it. I push it open, and immediately note the shimmery heat of a dragon-lock spanning the entire doorway.

I also immediately note the lone person chained to a metal rack on the wall, covered in blood, her hair caked and stringy with it.

“Natalia?” I breathe in horror.

The cobra winces, before raising her head to glare at me. She looks haggard, with deep circles around her eyes and fresh wounds cutting into her cheek.

“Whore,” Natalia rasps.

Xander did this. Scythe did this. Savage probably also did this. I’m stricken by the sight of her.

There’s a toilet on one side of the room and a small table with a tray of leftovers and a water bottle, so I know they let her off sometimes. But… she’s been here weeks now.Weeks.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

“Yeah, right,” Natalia spits. “We did the same thing to you. Why the fuck do you care?”

Because I’m not the same as you. I don’t say it out loud, but I know it to be true. I might have grown up in my father’s court, where such things are normal. Where such things are encouraged. But the part of me that accepted this as normal died the day Theo Krait died.

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