The air was cold, every scrape of claws and low growl from the cages making their nerves tighter.
Yet, chaining him looked too much since they had no idea what was going on, it was even shameful, he wasn't a beast
Also the way Aurora and Benson did it, with steady hands, as if this wasn't their first time, kept anyone from asking questions.
The beasts, half-drugged yet still fighting their ropes, made the scene stranger. It didn't look like practice; it looked like some kind of ritual.
Infact it was a ritual, even the staffs could agree.
The smell of blood lingered. A fresh staffs shared uneasy looks, their hands tightening on their weapons, as though they might need them, not for the beasts, but for Dorian.
They remembered his first fight, and the second, but this… this was different. Seeing him kneel in chains while wild creatures snapped in cages made him seem less like one of them and more like something dangerous waiting to break free.
