Chapter 32: Don’t Look at Me

"How," Jack whispered, his gaze locking onto hers, "am I supposed to believe the words of a human who lies so poorly?"

Blair’s lungs seized. She was trapped, pinned by the intimidating heat of his proximity. She opened her mouth, desperately searching for a comeback, when a sound saved her life.

Knock. Knock.

"Am I interrupting, Jack?"

A tall, elegant avian beastwoman poked her head through the classroom door, holding a stack of grading rubrics.

Jack didn’t flinch, but his red eyes flicked toward the door for a fraction of a second.

It was all the opening Blair needed.

She ducked right under his arm. Moving with a speed fueled only by panic, she grabbed her bag and practically teleported across the room.

"Sorry, I’m late for my next class, thank you Professor Feron, goodbye!" Blair babbled in a single, breathless sentence as she bolted past the confused avian beastwoman and into the safety of the hallway.

She didn’t stop to look back. She sprinted through the corridors, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She was incredibly late for her next period.

When she finally slipped into the back of her mathematics class, the professor: a no-nonsense badger beastman, stopped his lecture to loudly reprimand her in front of the entire room. When Blair quietly tried to explain that Professor Feron had held her back, the badger accused her of insolently trying to shift the blame onto a respected faculty member.

Blair didn’t even have the energy to argue. She just lowered her head, took her seat, and moved through the rest of her morning classes like an exhausted ghost.

By the time the lunch bell rang, she was physically and mentally drained.

The human cafeteria was a large, noisy, utilitarian hall in the basement of the agricultural wing. It lacked the natural sunlight and plush seating of the beastmen pavilions, but it was usually a safe haven from the intense stares of predators.

Blair bought a tray of questionable pasta and slid into an empty table in the far corner, sitting alone as usual.

She scanned the room, her eyes desperately searching for a head of bouncy blonde hair. Nothing. Heather was still missing.

Blair’s gaze drifted a few tables over. A group of human girls Heather usually hung out with were sitting together. They were laughing loudly, trading gossip, and eating their lunch without a care in the world. They hadn’t even noticed Heather was gone. No one had come up to Blair to ask where her roommate was.

A cold knot of worry tightened in Blair’s stomach. She picked at her pasta with her plastic fork, losing her appetite.

What do I do? Blair thought miserably. Do I go back to the woods by the mansion tonight? What if those eyeless monsters attack me again?

"Hey, Bunny!"

A deep, cheery voice shattered her internal spiral.

Daemus plopped down into the seat right next to her. "Look!" he whispered loudly, shoving his phone right into her face. "We got our first customer!"

Blair didn’t even look at the phone.

The moment Daemus had walked in, the entire human cafeteria had gone dead silent.

The loud chatter, the clinking of silverware, the scraping of chairs—it all ceased instantly. Hundreds of human students turned their heads, staring in terrified shock at the apex predator.

Blair’s face instantly burned a brilliant shade of crimson. She was suddenly hyper-aware of every pair of eyes in the room drilling into the back of her head.

"Daemus!" Blair hissed, shrinking down into her seat and leaning away from him. "What are you doing here? Everyone is staring at us!"

Daemus paused, glancing around the frozen cafeteria before turning back to Blair, completely unfazed.

"I get stared at all the time. Comes with the reputation," Daemus dismissed with a casual wave of his hand. He tapped the screen of his phone. "Focus! The first favor is locked in. What do you want?"

Blair bit her bottom lip, her heart racing. She absolutely hated the spotlight. Growing up in the orphanage, she had been taught one strict rule: stay invisible. She knew she was different. And in a world ruled by apex predators and terrified humans, people destroyed things that were different. Drawing attention was the most dangerous thing she could possibly do.

And that’s all she had been doing since she got to the academy.

She looked at Daemus’s expectant silver eyes, she thought of Heather’s empty bed.

Blair took a deep breath, forcing herself to ignore the hundreds of humans watching them. She accepted the payout.

"Information," Blair whispered, leaning in close so her voice wouldn’t carry. "I want to know what happened to my roommate. Ask who saw Heather at the VIP party on Friday, who she was talking to, and where she went. Any information at all would be helpful."

"You got it," Daemus said, his thumbs flying across the cracked screen of his phone as he messaged the client. He hit send and slipped the device back into his pocket. "I’ll let you know what they say. See you later, Bunny, my break is over."

Daemus stood up, gave her a playful two-finger salute, and strolled out of the cafeteria, parting the sea of terrified human students like a god descending from Olympus.

The second the cafeteria doors swung shut behind him, Blair almost wanted to beg him to come back.

Without his massive aura shielding her, Blair was thrown directly to the human wolves. The silence shattered, replaced instantly by deafening, aggressive whispers. She didn’t have to strain her ears to hear what they were saying. Cursed human. Wolf’s slut.

The collective judgment of her peers made her skin crawl. Her appetite, which had been barely there to begin with, vanished completely.

Deciding she couldn’t take another second of the oppressive atmosphere, Blair grabbed her tray and stood up to throw her food away and escape back to her empty room.

She didn’t make it to the trash cans.

Three human girls stepped into the aisle, cutting off her exit. Blair recognized them immediately.

They hadn’t cared that Heather was missing for two days, but now that Blair was rubbing elbows with royal beastmen, they suddenly wanted to talk.