Feral

Chapter 2

Adrian panted, feeling his muscles protest and quiver painfully, dirt caking his body. Still, he flopped back feeling proud of himself. He had stayed holed up inside the den, only coming out sparingly to drink while making sure he wasn't too filthy.

His observers would start to become suspicious if he appeared like he was, covered in dirt from head to toe.

And they had kept an annoyingly close eye on him, which resulted in Adrian hissing at them before he fled to the relative safety of the burrows.

When he had started digging, he had hoped to dig deeper, perhaps tunnel out of the enclosure all together. Sadly enough, that hope was brutally wiped away when he reached the reinforced concrete floor, and no amount of clawing made a dent in it.

He couldn't really tell how long it had been since he had been captured, perhaps a few days had passed or even a week. Adrian had seen several men pass by the glass wall of his enclosure and heard them converse softly, though so far none of them had dared to enter.

And neither had he approached the glass wall to make contact with the shifters, or be close enough to hear what they were saying. It irked him, but all the plants near the glass wall were short, a simple bush here and there with larger trees put further down the back, where Adrian was hiding.

With no way to sneak up on the shifters, he had stayed in the far back, where Adrian knew he was mostly hidden from view.

Adrian's stomach growled, making him shift to his feet and pry off the dried grime off of his body. Shaking himself off one last time, he crawled out the den, pausing to make sure nobody was actually in his room. When nothing seemed out of the ordinary, he hopped out, venturing to the pool to take a well-deserved dip.

His stomach was snarling with every move he made, begging for food. In the wild, he would've hunted down a critter, no matter how small, just to still the gnawing in his body.

But now, he couldn't. Adrian hoped that at some point, his captors would at least offer some food. Otherwise his plans would have to change drastically.

As he washed, he was well aware of the eyes on him but chose to ignore it until he heard the near-silent click of something snapping in place.

Adrian stilled, instincts flaring to life and warning him of the danger he was in. He ducked underneath the surface before pushing off towards the shore and bolted out of the water, eyes instantly connecting with the men standing inside his enclosure before he felt the sharp pinch of something hitting his arm.

With a sharp, pained hiss, he tumbled in one of the nearby dens and growled deeply, warning the men to stay back. The dart in his upper arm had already done its work, making him feel groggy even as he pulled it out.

Adrian flung it to the floor in disgust, pushing himself against the dirt wall away from the entrance. He was mindful to keep out of sight, so those men couldn't take another shot at him again.

"Shit, I had hoped we could've snuck up on him more to give the sedative a chance to work." The voice mumbled close to the entrance, forcing Adrian to let another deep rumble slip from his throat. He felt the growl vibrate through his entire body before he paused to take another breath.

As he did, Adrian realized that, even if he was drugged, he wasn't falling asleep. Whatever was in the dart failed to work or wasn't sufficient enough to knock him out. Just enough to make him groggy and heavy eyed.

But they don't know that.

So instead, he kept on growling, backing away until he reached the connecting tunnel, allowing his growls to become more slurred. Quietly, he shuffled through the tunnel, knowing that the men would most likely wait for a while to make sure he was actually out cold before sticking their heads down the den.