Page 43 of In Prey We Trust

I muffle my chuckle with a cough and squeeze her hand lightly. She was okay at lunch, despite the weird Theater professor, so all of this tension is about her stupid fucking History class and the guidance cunt. My mind races with ideas on how to fuck up her ridiculous cheer squad and make her pay in tiny ways that will cause the avian to molt with anxiety. Even if I can’t come at her directly, I guarantee the winged wankers will help me figure out less obvious ways to torture the bitch. It’s Ren’s specialty and I know he’ll play along.

“You’re coming over for dinner, right?” It occurs to me I need to keep up the pretense she’s not coming home to the library every night, especially since we haven’t checked out her dorm recently. “Felix and Chess are coming, too.”

Her eyes light up as she gets why I’m saying it so loudly. The rules say only the Flaming Hot Cheeto and Grumpy Goliath can live in that space—there has to be an explanation as to why we’re all there at night. Felix, Chess, and I are supposed to be living at our off-campus townhouse. Since our girl arrived, we’ve barely set foot in the damn place, and I doubt it will get any better as the semester goes on. I should probably get that crew of prey minions to move most of our stuff in over a couple of nights, so we don’t have to make trips back and forth.

“Of course I’m coming to dinner. I want to talk about everyone’s first day and how your classes went, too.”

The tiny wink she gives me makes me roll my eyes and I chuckle softly. Dolly is smart as a whip, but stealthily, she is not. We’ll have to work on creeping and crawling so she doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Even if she spent the past year cultivating a look that definitely begs for attention, she needs to know how to blend into the background if we’re going to solve the mystery of the dead kids and the hooded freaks. I’m sure we’ll have to sneak around a bit to find clues.

When we reach the other end of the quiet passage, I wave my badge at the scanner and the lock opens to let us out. Breathing in a deep lungful of fresh air, I let it out slowly. I don’t know why these assholes at Cappie didn’t just build a goddamn bridge instead of that underwater birth canal, but I really fucking hate it. It’s too contained, and the access is out of my control—I don’t fucking trust it a bit.

“We need to figure out a way to bypass that nightmare,” I grumble as I take her hand. “It feels like we’re asking to be ambushed or gassed or some bullshit by being in the damn thing.”

“Are you claustrophobic, Fitzy?” Dolly grins mischievously. “I would never have known.”

“Hell no. That thing feels like a giant trap a Bond villain would devise. The airlocks? The glass? I mean, I’m just waiting for someone to declare ‘the sharks got smarter’ and a fucking megalodon to bust through it.”

Her eyes widen, and she clamps her hand over her mouth for a moment. I know she’s trying not to laugh, but I’m serious with this shit. I have a bad fucking feeling about that tube and my tiger refuses to let it go. I’m about to growl at her when something drops out of the trees, making us both scream like bitches. When my vision clears, I see Renard double over, laughing so hard he can barely stand.

That mother fucker, I’ll…

I bum rush the chortling gargoyle, knocking him to the ground and rolling around as we take swipes at one another. He’s still cracking up as we tumble around, but I’ll show his ass. Scaring the absolute fuck out of our girl is not funny. My ears prick up at a tinkling sound and suddenly, I realize I’m punching him, but Dolly is actually giggling. In fact, she’s flat on her ass, clutching her sides as we wrestle, and she might even be crying.

“Baby Girl, I’m defending your honor. The least you could do is… ow, damn it!” I snarl at Ren when his tail yanks mine. “You’re a fucking cheater, Laveaux.”

She sobers a little, wiping her eyes and trying to catch her breath before she replies. “I’m sorry, Fitzy. It’s just… he got us. We’re so big and bad, but he literally scared our pants off dropping from a tree. I mean… he’s not invisible. How bad do we suck?”

Put that way, it is pretty humorous.

I stop wailing on Renard as I chuckle softly. I’m more embarrassed than mad, anyway, so she’s right. “Okay, okay. Pouty Prankster wins this round.”

“Merci, Fitzgerald. Your concession is much appreciated.” The shifter in question leaps to his feet and holds his hand out to me, then to our girl. “I was watching for your arrival, but you needed to lighten up.”

Snorting, I grumble, “I don’t know if making me jump out of my fucking skin is the right way to tone down the mood.”

Dolly brushes off her butt, picking up her bag and grinning widely. “It worked pretty well, honestly. I needed that laugh, and so did you.”

Renard winks, then bows. “At your service, as always, ma petite lapin. Felix wanted someone to watch for another aerial attack as we entered. That flash looked like a flash grenade on the feeds and it makes all of us nervous to think someone is using human weapons to distract or disarm us.”

A flash bang? Since when the fuck do any shifters need human shit? Have we made yet another enemy?

“That seems like overkill,” our girl says thoughtfully. “We weren’t prepared for air, so they could have dropped a damn coconut from above to knock us out and it would have worked. Could it be about testing our defenses?”

I blink, then burst out laughing again. “A coconut? Would it have been migrating?”

They snort and roll their eyes, but Renard is the first to reply. “Fitz, you’ve been watching entirely too many human movies with them.”

“I strongly disagree,” Dolly says as she links one arm in each of ours. “Now take me home and feed me, boys. I could eat a water buffalo.”

Yes, ma’am.

“Chess, this is delicious.” Dolly slurps up another noodle, making my cock kick in my pants as she groans happily.

I could kiss my darling cheetah for making this Italian dish, and the smirk on his face says he knows it. He wipes his mouth, smiling broadly before he says, “I knew you’d like it. I made sure it was spicy enough for the big guy, but not so much it would burn everyone else’s tongues.”

She grabs another piece of the cheesy bread and takes a bite, chewing it with more indecent noises. Every eye at the table is watching her and when she realizes it, she turns bright pink. “Stop it, you guys. I had to live on fucking salads most of the summer because of Lucille’s watchdog and his pack of dickheads. Having actual food for the past few days has been glorious.”

“But… you’re… a bunny?” Felix says with an amused look. “Are you complaining about lettuce and shit?”

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