She has a sharp mind... and even sharper teeth.
Insatiable
by Erica Ridley
Genre: YA Historical Horror, Thriller
A chilling Gothic
horror novel set at a coed boarding school in Scotland, where a teen girl must
not only fight against her monstrous male classmates but the monster growing
within her after being cursed.
Every wish granted comes with strings attached. That’s how Catriona Cameron
gets a scholarship to Floodbane Academy—an elite boarding school in the
Scottish Lowlands she never applied to—where she’ll be one of only six girls to
enter the castle’s unwelcoming halls.
She’s not looking for trouble, but after a violent attack, mischievous dark
fairies grant cruel wishes made against her. Catriona is blessed with
devastatingly good looks and unpredictable new powers, but cursed with an
insatiable hunger to devour anyone who preys upon women.
As the carnage mounts, Catriona faces the possibility that she is becoming as
monstrous as those she hunts. Ultimately, is vengeance worth the loss of her
humanity?
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When class ends,
two boys stalk past me, one on each side, knocking into my slender shoulders
with their broader ones hard enough to send me stumbling. My belongings tumble
to the floor, where they’re trod upon by my gleeful classmates. In seconds, my
pencil is in shards and splinters. The pages of my book, ripped from its spine
by the careless weight of countless pairs of boys’ booted feet, all muddy from
the out-of-doors.
When I finally gather
it all, the professor is glaring down at me. His arms are crossed, his face a
formidable scowl.
“A demerit for
you if a single scrap is left behind,” he warns, as if this were my doing.
I nod and claw up
even the most microscopic hints of detritus from my ruined school supplies.
By the time I’ve
found a bin for the rubbish and make my way outside at last, the schoolyard is
empty. No groundskeeper, no angry boys , no sign of my housemates.
I stop walking
halfway across the wide expanse of grass and glance over my shoulder at the
school doors. What if my housemates were held up in their classes, too? Should
I wait for them?
Or did they wait
for me, only for me not to appear? Are they waiting for me back at our housing,
getting more and more concerned by my continued absence?
Come to think of
it, did they even come back to school after going home for lunch? By eating
mine in my classroom, I belatedly realize they’ve no idea what became of me. Perhaps
they thought I gave up and went home to my mum, as Fraser had suggested we all
do. Or perhaps they’re the ones who
packed up and left, and I’m the bunny rabbit twitching my nose all alone in a big
clearing. Not sure which way to hop, because I detect a predator in every
direction.
The school door
bangs open, and I jump out of my skin.
It’s the
headmaster’s assistant Fraser, looking bored and sanctimonious as always. He
leans against the open door. “Ugh, what are you doing here? Did no one explain
to you that the gong means ‘Go home’?”
He’s not exactly the
president of the academy welcoming committee, but I’d rather run into the
headmaster’s lackey than most of the other boys from my classes.
“Thanks,” I
mutter. “I’m going.”
I turn my feet
toward the woods.
“There isn’t a
bear,” Fraser adds, apropos of nothing.
Damn it. I pause
and swivel back around to glare at him. “What bear?”
“There isn’t
one,” he repeats. “What did I just say?”
I know good and
well that there’s no bear in these woods. Scotland doesn’t have bears. Fairies,
yes, and far scarier magical beasties, but no bears. Why, then, would Fraser bring it up? Has one escaped from a
traveling circus on the other side of the island? Is he hoping the rabid
creature will tear me limb from limb?
“If you’re
scared,” Fraser drawls with a smile, “Take the left at the fork in the trail,
instead of the right. It’s not marked, or well-trod, but it’s a shortcut to the
female housing.”
I narrow my eyes
at him, my jaw moving in thought.
From somewhere
behind him, deeper within the school, comes the grating echo of boys’ laughter.
The raucous sound is hauntingly familiar.
Fraser glances
behind him, down the corridor. “Ah. Here come Roderick and Angus.”
My tormentors! That
settles it. I’ll take my chances with the bear.
Skirts flying, I
tear off over the grass to the sound of male laughter. My lungs burn and my
legs tremble, but in no time, I’m out past the great iron gates and into the
dark thicket of the woods.
I jog as fast as
I dare, without making too much noise or risking a sprained ankle.
Deep within the
forest, I’m an arm’s length away from the protective rowan tree at the halfway
point when I’m swept off the ground and hauled into the nettles, screaming.
The bear.
It got me.
Erica Ridley is a New York Times bestselling
author of witty, historical novels, including the critically acclaimed Wild
Wynchesters series, and her debut young adult novel, The
Protégée. When not reading or writing, Erica can be found eating
künefe in Turkiye, zip-lining through rainforests in Costa Rica, or getting
hopelessly lost in the middle of Budapest.
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