Instead of sympathy, murmurs of disdain rose from the onlookers. Some turned their heads, some whispered behind their hands, and then—
"Ha! How disgusting," someone sneered, their voice sharp and filled with loathing.
Kaya's brows knit together. She turned, slowly, to see who had spoken.
It was a man. A beastman. Just like the boy who had cried out in pain.
He stood among the crowd like any other, but his eyes… they were cold. Unfeeling.
She couldn't believe it.
They were the same kind.
And yet the hatred in his voice was more venomous than even the humans she remembered from her past life.
Her eyes flicked back to the boy.
He couldn't be more than fifteen or sixteen. A teenager. Just a child.
Blood oozed from deep wounds slashed across his back—black blood, thick and heavy, almost unnaturally dark. The kind of black that told of poison, of pain, of something far more sinister than a mere whip mark.
