Stray: A Shifter Academy Romance (Cats of Felidae Academy Book 1)

by River Ramsey

  There was a blonde woman seated behind the desk, wearing a plain white lab coat over her gray dress. She wasn’t wearing the uniform of the other faculty, so Ella assumed she worked solely for the clinic. When she looked up, her pleasant expression turned to one of shock.

  Ella’s humiliation only grew. So her heat was as obvious to the female shifter as it was to the toms out in the hall. Wonderful.

  “Oh,” she said, standing suddenly from her desk. She eyed them both, seeming at once confused and suspicious.

  “There is a situation that needs to be addressed. Is the doctor in?” Mr. Bryant asked calmly, locking the door behind him.

  Ella gulped. She knew it was probably just a precaution, but the fact that it was at all necessary was unnerving, to say the least. For most of her life, she had been utterly invisible among her own kind. All of a sudden, she was the center of every nearby male’s attention, and it was not at all a welcome change. She would go back to being invisible if she could, no matter what the cost.

  “He’s out for the moment, I think he’s in a meeting,” the secretary answered, glancing nervously between them.

  “Call him,” said Mr. Bryant. “I’ll take the responsibility for it.”

  She gave a hasty nod before sitting back down behind her desk and lifting the phone off its cradle. Ella heard the buzzing of the line and several torturous moments later, a gravelly male voice finally answered. “I told you, I’m in a meeting.”

  “Yes, Dr. Smith,” the secretary began apologetically. “However, there’s been a… Situation. I’m afraid it’s quite urgent, could you please come to the infirmary?”

  The man on the other end of the line let out a heavy sigh and muttered that he would be up in a moment. The secretary hung up and they waited for several torturous minutes.

  Mr. Bryant had already ushered Ella over to one of the seats, and while she could tell he was having a difficult time with such close proximity to a female in heat, he was doing a good job of not showing it. He’d taken the seat next to her, and his expression hadn’t changed since they had entered the room.

  When the door knob turned and Ella heard the sound of a key in the lock, she felt her nerves working up all over again. The doctor walked in, a look of agitation on his face as he scanned the room.

  He looked to be in his mid-forties, with dark hair that was just beginning to gray at the temples. He was a good-looking man, with frameless glasses that complemented his chiseled features. He was more imposing than any doctor Ella had ever seen, certainly more so than the elderly man who made house calls in their region of the pride. When his gaze landed on her, she saw a now familiar primal recognition settle into those chilling blue depths.

  She had once envied Marissa for the way males looked at her, lustful and intent, but now that she was on the receiving end of that kind of attention, she knew better.

  Suddenly, she was very much afraid that Mr. Bryant would leave her alone. The secretary’s company was not much comfort, considering how nervous she already seemed around the man.

  “Oh,” said the doctor, his gaze still fixed on Ella. He was older and had far more restraint than the three toms they’d encountered before, but he was still a male and Ella’s guard was up.

  Even if it was only a primal reaction, Ella found herself marveling at just how much control Mr. Bryant really had. Somehow, his brief expression of desire was the only one that had yet to make her feel like she wanted to shrug out of her own skin.

  “Oh.” That one word spoke volumes. Understanding of a topic that was scarcely broached in civilized society, and certainly never at random, passed between them all with mercifully few words.

  “Somehow, she has yet to undergo the preliminary examination,” Mr. Bryant explained, standing to once again put himself between Ella and another male. She knew better than to think the doctor’s polite demeanor was any reason to trust him.

  “When did she go into heat?” The doctor demanded.

  Ella looked away, humiliated anew by his blunt assessment of the situation.

  “Just now,” the teacher answered, an edge of irritation in his voice. “As I’m sure you can understand, I brought her here immediately.”

  The doctor frowned. “And what triggered it?”

  There was no mistaking the suspicion in his voice, or the accusation. Mr. Bryant didn’t visibly respond, but Ella felt the chill in the room between them.

  “Nothing,” she answered. “It’s never happened before, and I didn’t know what to look out for.”

  The doctor turned to her, and as unnerved as he made her, she was glad she had redirected his attention from Mr. Bryant. The last thing she wanted was his reputation being questioned because of her naïveté.

  “Didn’t your mother tell you anything?” Dr. Smith asked in disbelief.

  While Ella knew he didn’t have any hurtful intent, the words hit a mark all the same. They left her breathless, and before she could formulate a response, Mr. Bryant placed a hand on her shoulder.

  The touch at once soothed her nerves and inflamed the instincts that had only become possible to manage out of sheer necessity.

  Why was it that she could respond to him this way, when every other male only triggered the instinct to flee?

  “This is the girl who was taken in as a ward of the Hill Pride,” Mr. Bryant said pointedly. “Ella Doe?”

  Recognition dawned on the other man’s face, and this entire demeanor changed immediately.

  “Of course. I see,” he said, looking at Ella with renewed confusion. “Their Matriarch, Emily. She didn’t…?”

  “Apparently not,” said Mr. Bryant.

  There was more silence between them. Painful, awkward silence.

  Ella still wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but she knew that when it finally made its way back to Emily, she would be the one who paid the price for it.

  “Why don’t you come with me into the exam room?” The doctor asked, his tone far more reverent than it had been. Ella was, nonetheless, not eager to be alone with him.

  She glanced at the other tom instinctively, realizing how closely he was watching her. Not at all like before. There was nothing but concern in his gaze now, and for the moment, he seemed to have gotten the other side of his nature under control. “If you like, I can accompany you.”

  Whatever lay ahead, Ella was sure it would be more embarrassing with an audience, but the offer was too comforting to refuse. She nodded and Mr. Bryant walked with her into the room.

  The exam room was surprisingly large, nearly as big as the waiting room out front. It had all the state-of-the-art equipment, metal-and-white surfaces everywhere she looked. The whole place was sterile and unnerving.

  She gulped when she saw the exam table across the room, complete with empty stirrups and a whole plethora of frightening equipment on the shelves behind it.

  What the hell was this place? An Academy clinic, or a laboratory?

  Before she could sort out the answer, the doctor motioned for her to have a seat on the far more innocuous table near the door. She climbed up with the step stool, settling down on the crinkling paper.

  It had been a long time since she had gotten a proper check-up, and the last one she could remember was the one that all students at her high school were required to take prior to admission Freshman year. It felt like a lot more than four years ago and change. It felt like another lifetime.

  “You mentioned that you weren’t sure what to look for earlier,” said the doctor, picking up a clipboard. “Have you been having any unusual symptoms?”

  Ella hesitated, wanting to be sure she answered properly. She wasn’t sure how much of last night she could safely discuss, but lying didn’t seem as if it would do her any favors either. “I felt… Hot.”

  The doctor wrote something down. “And when did you notice the temperature shift?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe last night?”

  He glanced up from the clipboard. “That’s sudden. Anything else
?”

  Ella’s face grew warm once more. As she was still trying to figure out a way to convincingly deny it, the doctor’s expression became one of knowing.

  “Increased sexual drive is a common sign of a queen about to go into heat,” he said, writing down something else. The idea that her humiliation was now going to be enshrined in some doctor’s log forever was just par for the course.

  “What do I do?” she asked, her voice hoarse with apprehension. “Is there something I can take, or can we do the implant now?”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” answered the doctor. “The implant is something that can only be done prior to a heat, or well after one. Implanting it with the current hormonal surge you’re experiencing would be incredibly dangerous, and likely ineffective.”

  “Well, she can’t stay here like this,” said Mr. Bryant. “I just had to chase off three idiots in the hall and I’m sure they’re not the only ones.”

  Ella grimaced at the mention of the others. How was she ever going to live this down? How was she ever going to be able to look at her classmates again without feeling complete disgust knowing what they were like under the worst of circumstances?

  “I suppose we will have to send her home,” said the doctor.

  “No,” Ella blurted out. They were both looking at her. “Please… I…” She trailed off when she realized she had no valid excuse for countering the suggestion. Under normal circumstances, she probably would’ve been desperate enough to want to return to the Hill estate, but she knew all that was waiting for her was Emily’s censure. The fact that she was the future Empress had changed nothing.

  If anything, she knew the Matriarch and her young would be even more resentful of her, and for once, they would have a reason.

  Mr. Bryant was watching her closely, but she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze. “I’m afraid that won’t work, either,” he finally said, even though he had clearly been on the side of sending her away moments earlier. Did he actually care what she wanted? “She’s already well behind in her coursework as it is, and the school has taken on the obligation of seeing to it that she is fit to claim her position on schedule.”

  “Be that as it may, she can’t possibly wait out the heat here,” said the doctor. “The logistical challenges of a first heat surrounded by unmated young toms aside, it could take months. As you said yourself, this is hardly a safe place for a queen in such circumstances.”

  “Logistical challenges?” Ella asked worriedly. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to know the answer, but figured knowledge wasn’t going to make her position any worse. And it wasn’t as if she had any dignity left to save.

  Mr. Bryant looked away, seeming awkward for the first time since she had met him.

  The doctor cleared his throat. “Heats in general are rather… Difficult to deal with, for male and female shifters alike. That’s why all female students entering the Academy are required to undergo the implant before attending. Having young queens and toms in such close proximity is enough to contend with. A first heat as far more intense than any other. Once begun, the symptoms will continue to grow more intense until the heat is either sated, or finally resolves itself. That could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, and the process is quite unpleasant for the one suffering through the heat.”

  His words filled Ella with a new sense of apprehension. She’d heard other women speak of heat in excited terms before, always in the context of taking a mate. She’d even heard that sometimes queens required more than one tom to get them through a particularly rough heat, but she had never heard it spoken of in such foreboding terms.

  “There is another option, I suppose,” the doctor mused.

  Mr. Bryant gave him a murderous look that utterly bewildered Ella. At least until she realized what the doctor was getting at.

  “She’s the future Empress,” Mr. Bryant snapped. Ella wasn’t sure if he was angry on behalf of her honor, or merely because of the assault on common decency. Considering his profession, the latter seemed more likely. “You can’t be suggesting what I think you are.”

  “There’s really no other option, is there?” The doctor asked. “The way I see it, she can either return home until the heat is over, or turn to more traditional methods of easing it. The choice is hers.”

  Humiliation settled down on Ella’s shoulders once more. She had imagined that standing before the entire colony buck naked was the most vulnerable she would ever feel, but having two strange men discuss the nature of losing her virginity was on another level entirely.

  She thought back to the woods, wondering if her late-night tryst with Bishop was to blame for all of this.

  No… If anything, she knew that she had gone further than her common sense would have allowed because of the feelings that had already been stirred up within her.

  “When you say traditional options,” she said warily. “What exactly do you mean?”

  “Mating, to put it succinctly,” the doctor answered. “Of course, this being a first heat complicates things. It’s very unlikely that being with one male would be enough. There are medical interventions we can do, but that is certainly not what would be the first choice of most young women in your circumstances.”

  Ella shivered at the thought. As much as she wanted this to all be over, the idea of resolving her first heat under such clinical circumstances made her nauseous. She hated herself for thinking of Bishop immediately, and even more for thinking of Axel and the man beside her.

  At least now she understood why her mind had been drifting in all these new directions lately. It was rare for her to have interest in any male, let alone three of them.

  There was one she knew was completely off the table. There was absolutely no way in hell she was going anywhere near Axel. In fact, if she could get through this without him being any the wiser, she figured she should consider it a victory.

  Although she had once dreamed of him being her first, she knew he would find a way to twist it and use it against her. He already had enough ammunition as it was.

  “I didn’t think that kind of thing was allowed,” she admitted. “Aren’t we least expected to be promised first?”

  “That is proper decorum,” Mr. Bryant answered. If Ella didn’t find a way to transfer out of his class after this, she was sure she would just spontaneously combust. There was no way she could possibly look him in the eye again. It had already been difficult enough, knowing he existed in another stratosphere. “However, under such circumstances, exceptions are made. After all, you will be the Empress.”

  She gulped. Yes… That coveted title that had turned her world completely upside down.

  And to think, there were queens who actually dreamed of this!

  “This is a lot,” she said, feeling more disoriented with every moment that passed.

  “It’s all right,” Mr. Bryant said, settling his hand on her shoulder once more. This time, his touch was far more calming than anything else. A warmth spread through her at the contact, and when she met his eyes, for the first time, she found his gaze more soothing than intimidating. “You don’t have to decide this very moment.”

  “No, but I highly suggest she doesn’t wait too long,” the doctor said, earning a glare from the teacher. “This is certainly a matter the headmaster should be consulted on.”

  “You do that,” Mr. Bryant said dangerously. “I’ll stay with her.”

  Dr. Smith cast a suspicious glance over his shoulder, but even he didn’t seem willing to challenge the other male. He left the room and Ella felt herself immediately relax.

  “I’m so sorry I got you involved in all this,” she said, hugging herself.

  Mr. Bryant slipped out of his blazer and draped it around her shoulders. His scent blossomed around her, and while the fire within had quelled somewhat, it came roaring back with a vengeance.

  There was no mistaking it, his scent and his mere presence had a bizarrely powerful effect on her. It was more than just being an unma
ted female around an unmated male. It ran so much deeper, and with him, there was none of the fear that accompanied the interest she took in other males.

  “You have nothing to apologize for,” he said, his tone surprisingly gentle. He took a seat in the chair across from her, and she found herself wondering if he needed the distance to clear his head as much as she did. It was a bizarre thing to think that someone so composed could be affected by such prurient things, but even the most refined shifter was still a slave to his instinct. And male, for that matter.

  “May I ask you something?” he ventured, pulling her out of her thoughts.

  “Of course.”

  “The Hill family… Did they treat you well?”

  It was such a simple question, and yet there was no simple answer. No right answer, even. Either she lied and risked that those keen gray eyes would see right through it, as they did everything else, or she told the truth and had to live with the consequences.

  Before she could come to a decision, he nodded knowingly, as if she had already answered. “I thought as much.”

  As gentle as his tone was, there was an edge of danger to it, as there had been with the doctor. She would’ve been unnerved, if not for the instinctive sense that his anger was not directed at her.

  “I’m just a stray,” she repeated. She had to remind herself, because the world around her seemed to have forgotten that fact.

  But it would never change. A stray would never be accepted, Empress or not. The moon might’ve chosen her, but that didn’t mean her fellow pride mates ever would. She knew better than to get her hopes up like that. Better than to see this as a blessing rather than the curse it was. Rather than a target on her head.

  Mr. Bryant watched her closely, and she found herself wishing she could see what was going on inside that mind of his. He was so hard to read, so self-possessed, yet so kind in unexpected ways.

  He seemed about to say something, but before he had the chance, the door opened again. To Ella’s relief, it was the secretary, but she still couldn’t help but feel a pang of resentment.