Chapter 2: Top 10 Beastmen to get Knocked Up By

Blair’s survival instincts, which had been taking a brief nap, finally woke up.

And then, she did something that would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life. Unable to process the sheer magnitude of her screw-up, Blair opened her mouth and let out a high-pitched shriek. It sounded less like a terrified human and more like a startled, dying seagull.

Right in the Crown Prince’s face.

Killian actually blinked, his silver eyelashes fluttering shock. For a fraction of a second, the terrifying aura of the future Beast King was completely shattered by utter bewilderment.

Taking advantage of his stun-lock, Blair scrambled backward. "I’msosorrypleasedon’tkillme!" she garbled into one giant, panicky word.

She spun on her heel to sprint away, forgetting the graveyard of cheap t-shirts currently littering the cobblestones behind her.

Blair went airborne. She flailed like a windmill, defying gravity for one second before crashing down hard onto the stone path, skidding into a pile of her own underwear.

Someone in the crowd gasped. Someone else let out a low growl.

"Do not look at me! I am a ghost! I do not exist!" Blair chanted to herself in a manic whisper.

She didn’t bother trying to pack. She scooped her clothes into a ball, hugged them to her chest, kicked her broken suitcase out of the way, and bolted. She ran with the speed of a gazelle that had just realized it was at a lion’s dinner party.

Back in the courtyard, Prince Killian stood frozen. He slowly looked down at his blazer. Where Blair’s hands had been, the immaculate fabric was offensively wrinkled.

His jaw ticked. His forked tongue flicked out once, tasting the fading scent of cheap soap and terror she had left behind. He stared at the spot where she had fallen, his purple eyes narrowing into calculated slits.

Blair didn’t stop running until her lungs burned and the sounds of the main courtyard faded into the distance. She ended up hopelessly lost in a labyrinth of towering marble corridors, dodging beastmen staff and hiding behind giant stone pillars whenever she heard heavy footsteps approaching.

Eventually, she stumbled upon a set of wooden double doors marked Administration & Assignments.

Panting heavily, she pushed the doors open. The office was opulent, lined with mahogany desks and golden trim. Behind the front counter sat a beastwoman with sleek, rust-colored hair and lazy, golden feline eyes. She was meticulously filing her long, sharp claws with an emery board.

"Um, excuse me?" Blair croaked, clutching her ball of clothes like a shield.

The clerk didn’t look up. "Lesser’s intake was an hour ago. You’re late."

"I know, I’m sorry. I had a... suitcase malfunction. And a slight brush with death. I’m Blair Willows."

At the name, the clerk’s hand paused. The golden eyes snapped up, landing on Blair with a mixture of intense scrutiny and blatant disgust. "Ah. The human who thinks she’s a genius. Number two."

Blair shrank back, pulling her sweater tighter around her chest. "I just guessed on a lot of the math questions, honestly."

The clerk scoffed, slamming a thick file onto the counter, followed by a folded stack of gray fabric and an iron key.

"Dormitory G. All the way in the back, past the kitchens. Keep out of the gardens, humans aren’t allowed to walk on the royal grass. Here is your uniform and your schedule. Try not to get eaten before midterms; the paperwork for a deceased lesser is very tedious."

"Thank you. Have a blessed day," Blair said quickly, snatching her items and speed-walking out the door before the cat-woman could decide to use her as a scratching post.

Once she was safely in the hallway, Blair unfolded the uniform.

It was a stark, depressing shade of concrete gray. The fabric was stiff, scratchy polyester that felt like it could double as sandpaper. It was miles away from the tailored silk and gold embroidery the beastmen wore.

Blair ran her hand over the collar. A smile broke through her panic.

It was scratchy. It was ugly. But there were no holes. There were no mysterious stains. And most importantly, it was brand new. Nobody had worn it before her. For an orphan who had lived her entire life in hand-me-downs three sizes too big, this scratchy piece of gray polyester was the equivalent of a ballgown.

"Okay," Blair whispered to herself, taking a deep breath. "You survived the Snake Prince. You have your uniform. Just find your room, meet your roommate, and lay low."

Finding Dormitory G took another twenty minutes. True to the clerk’s word, it was shoved in the furthest, darkest corner of the sprawling academy grounds, nestled right next to the noisy, steaming vents of the main campus kitchens.

The building was a plain, brick structure that looked suspiciously like a converted storage shed.

Blair hauled herself up the creaky wooden stairs to the second floor, checking the rusted numbers on the doors. Room 204. She jammed the iron key into the lock, expecting a dreary, dusty cell.

She pushed the door open and immediately squinted.

The room smelled overwhelmingly of vanilla body mist and hairspray. Half of the tiny space was completely transformed. There was a fluffy pink throw blanket on one of the lumpy twin beds, a string of battery-powered fairy lights taped to the peeling wallpaper, and a massive makeup organizer sitting on the scratched wooden desk.

Standing in the center of it all, aggressively applying a coat of cherry-red lip gloss in a handheld mirror, was a human girl.

She had bouncy, shoulder-length blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and curves that the standard-issue gray uniform could not even begin to contain.

"Oh, thank god," the girl gasped, dropping her mirror and rushing forward. "I was terrified I was going to be paired with someone weird. You look totally normal. Plain, even! That is so perfect, it means less competition."

Blair blinked. "Uh. Hi?"

"I’m Heather!" The girl grabbed Blair’s free hand and shook it vigorously. "Heather Greene. You must be the infamous Blair Willows. I saw the broadcast. Beating the nobles? Girl, you have a death wish, but I respect the hustle."

"It wasn’t a hustle, it was an accident," Blair groaned, walking over to the bare bed on the left side of the room and dumping her things onto the thin mattress. "I just wanted to get in. I didn’t want anyone to look at me."

"Well, they’re looking now," Heather chirped, leaning against her own bed. She didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by the academy or the beasts outside. In fact, she looked downright thrilled. "But don’t worry, you can totally use this to your advantage. High rank means high visibility. High visibility means premium placement."

Blair furrowed her brows. "Premium placement for what?"

Heather rolled her eyes, as if the answer were obvious. "For a breeding contract, obviously."

Blair choked on her own saliva, coughing violently. "A what?!"

"A breeding contract," Heather repeated, unfazed. She walked over to her desk and picked up a leather-bound planner. "Look, Blair. We’re humans. We have zero rights. If we step out of line, a beastman can literally snap our necks and the police won’t even write a report."

"I know the laws, Heather."

"Right. So, how do we survive? We become indispensable." Heather tapped her manicured nail against her planner. "Beastwomen have notoriously low fertility rates. We don’t. Noble beastmen want strong heirs, and they are willing to pay a premium for a human womb to carry them."

Blair stared at her, horrified. "You want to be a pet?"

"I want a forty-year contract with excellent dental, a penthouse in the upper city, and three hot meals a day that don’t come out of a dumpster," Heather corrected sharply. "It’s a job, Blair. Think of it like climbing the corporate ladder. I give a Duke a baby, and in exchange, nobody hunts me for sport on the weekends. It’s the ultimate promotion."

Blair rubbed her temples. A dull headache was beginning to pulse right behind her eyes. "I... I guess when you put it like that..."

"Exactly!" Heather beamed. She skipped over to her desk and pulled out a rolled-up piece of parchment. "Which is why I have already done the market research. Come look!"

Reluctantly, Blair shuffled over.

Heather unrolled the parchment. It was a color-coded list. The title, written in sparkly pink gel pen, read: Top 10 Beastmen to Get Knocked Up By at Apex.

"Okay, so Prince Killian is obviously number one," Heather pointed to the top of the list, tapping a little sketched crown. "But he hates humans, so the ROI on him is terrible. Huge risk, low reward. Now, Prince Daemus, the Wolf? Number three. He’s an athlete, probably kind of dumb, easy to manipulate, and the wolf packs are super family-oriented."

Blair couldn’t help it; she let out a bark of laughter. "You analyzed them like stocks?"

"A girl has to diversify her portfolio!" Heather insisted, pointing further down the list. "And over here, we have Lord Jasper Silver. Fish beastman. Insanely rich. Very pretty. A bit of a wildcard, but—"

Suddenly, a deafening bell tolled from the center of the campus, rattling the thin glass of their small window. BONG. BONG. BONG.

Heather froze, her pink gel pen slipping from her fingers. She looked down at a silver watch on her wrist, her eyes widening in horror.

"Oh, sweet mother of mercy," Heather whispered, the color draining from her face.

"What?" Blair asked, her heart rate spiking again. "What is it?"

"We got so caught up in my portfolio," Heather gasped, grabbing her gray canvas bag and throwing it over her shoulder. "That’s the final warning bell. Freshman orientation starts in exactly five minutes."

"Five minutes?" Blair repeated. "But the main hall is all the way across the campus!"

"I know!" Heather screamed, grabbing Blair by the sleeve of her sweater and yanking her toward the door. "And Professor Jack Feron is leading the opening speech. He’s a Crow! He hates humans more than the Snake Prince does! If we walk in late, he’ll probably eat our eyes!"

Blair didn’t need to hear another word. Her terrible, horrible, no-good first day was apparently just getting started.

"Run!" Blair yelled.