Page 29 of Stray
Now she was starting to understand why the school took this matter so seriously. How could Emily not have warned her?
“That wasn’t a suggestion,” Mr. Bryant said, his tone even more frigid. All it took was him taking a single step toward the others for them to scatter.
Ella watched in fascination as the males took off down the other end of the hall. Mr. Bryant was strong, certainly, but he was not the most physically imposing cat in the Academy. His energy, however…
At least now she knew she wasn’t the only one he had that effect on.
His hand wrapping around her wrist made her gasp, bringing her out of her thoughts. His grasp was gentle, but he was leading her with a sense of urgency she thought it unwise to ignore. “Come,” he said, ushering her into a room at the end of the hall.
Ella has seen the clinic from a distance, but she had yet to actually visit it. It was a neat and tidy space, smelling vaguely of antiseptic. There were cots all along one wall, separated by privacy curtains, and a small waiting room on the right side of the door. A secretary’s desk separated the two sections, and from where she was standing, Ella could see a private room in the back.
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.
