Page 3 of In Prey We Trust

The screen goes black and I’m left alone again, hoping like hell everything will go as they said.

Because with my luck, it definitely won’t.

I Feel Like I’m Drowning

Fitz

“I fucking hate this!”

Chess gives me a soft smile as I pace back and forth in our room in the spacious townhouse Felix acquired for us just down the lane from the campus of Capital Prep. “We know, baby. But it’s not that much longer until school starts.”

Whirling, I narrow my eyes at him as he lies on the giant bed. “All of you fuckers should have let me deal with her parents. No one would have batted a lash at a secret assassin.”

A snort sounds from the doorway, and I see Felix looking at me in amusement. He’s been a hell of a lot less tense since the night of the explosion, despite our separation from my baby girl. “It wouldn’t have surprised anyone, Fitz, but it would have put an even bigger target on the princess’ head.”

“That’s probably true,” Chessie says as he holds his hand out to me. “Angel isn’t ready to take their place on the Council—if she’ll ever be—and it would have created a power vacuum. Her mother is an enemy best left to a more helpful time.”

Raking my hand through my hair, I growl in frustration. “I can’t stand her being so close and not be able to go near her.”

“We know,” my brothers chorus and I snarl again.

Felix tilts his head. “Why didn’t you go help Ren and Aubrey set up their new fortress? You could have burnt off some of that nervous energy.”

I glare at him. As if I had an interest in watching the flittering gargoyle decorate while our stodgy librarian meticulously catalogs everything they saved from the Tower. “Because I don’t want to play Martha Stewart; I want to see my baby girl!”

“Fitz,” my twin says in his ‘no nonsense,’ voice. It’s not a Raj command, but it’s laced with power just the same. “You’ve watched her every day, like you did last summer, and you survived. Stop throwing a tantrum.”

Turning my head from side to side, I crack my neck as frustration zooms through my body. I know Felix is worried, too, but between nursing Chessie back to health and being unable to get within sniffing distance of my girl for weeks, my patience is shot. My consort insists he’s a hundred percent now, but I notice how easily he tires after being active for a while. He’s still on the mend, and I can’t work out my aggravation in a fun way, either.

I’d never forgive myself if he relapsed because I’m too keyed up to hold my shit together.

“Why don’t we call Dolly? If we hop through the perimeter exit we created, we can visit Aubrey and Renard in their new home and video call her. I bet they’d stop squabbling over throw pillows long enough to chat with her,” Chess says with a grin. “I’d like to see her, too.”

Felix rubs his hand over his jaw, thinking about it for a moment. “There’s plenty of room in that fucking mausoleum. The gargoyle has a bell tower, the dragon has an underground lair again, and the third floor is completely theirs. I don’t see why it can’t be the new hangout on campus.”

Huffing an annoyed sigh, I nod and stop pacing for a moment. “Fine. But those assholes better have set shit up for everyone, or I’m calling in favors to have a fucking tunnel built to this damn house.”

They look at another, lips quirking in amusement, but I’m not fucking joking. I’ll hire a goddamn squadron of moles if that’s how get access to my baby girl twenty-four/seven.

What the hell is the use of being filthy rich if I can’t make my life easier?

By the time we get to the sneaky entrance we had created at the back edge of the school, my veins are buzzing with energy. I don’t know how Chess or the winged woe-is-me warrior are dealing with this shit. Felix and Señor Spicypants haven’t slept with my baby girl yet, so I doubt they have this drive to be as close to her as possible. It’s making me crazier than usual, and I have no outlets for my pent-up energy.

Well, except the continued torture of her ex friends and boyfriend, but that only lasts for a little while.

Since I found out the damn school might not be ready in time for the fall semester a month ago, I started diverting my fury to appropriate targets. I don’t know if they realize who’s been creeping them all out with random notes, gory gifts, and scary threats, but I’d bet my furry ass they haven’t been sleeping. I haven’t taken a trophy from the plastic blondes yet, but that’s because I’m waiting for the right thing at the right moment. I know for a fact the two ancients we’re visiting saved her jars when they packed up, so I’ll add to the collection once she’s settled in.

“No one’s asked this yet, but where in the hell is our girl going to live?” Chess says as we slink along the river bank to the back entrance of the Savananda Kavrit International Library and Diplomatic Archives.

Unlike the library at Apex, the damn thing is a multi-level compound. It has a bell tower, complex underground facility, and a full fucking staff of prey working to assist the librarian. It pissed my fire breathing friend off that a Sphinx family founded this place. Its collection is rivaled only by the National Library in the city proper. The amount of threats and beatings it took to send their exiled family member on an extended sabbatical was exhausting.

You can’t even beat the living shit out of a Sphinx without them droning on about their biology and internal medicine and whatever other fucking riddles pop into their head.

“This place doesn’t separate the dorms by years,” Felix says as we swipe the cards Renard made for us to get in after hours. “They do it by species and the princess isn’t a major species, so she’ll probably get stuck in House Reptilian. It’s the smallest population of the five. According to the shit in the staff packets, takes in the amphibians and other preds who don’t fall under Lupine, Feline, Avian, or Aquatic.”

I blink, rounding on them in disbelief. “Does that seem like a bad fucking plan to anyone else? Who the hell trusts snakes with rabbits?”

My twin grimaces as we make our way through the maze of hallways that will lead to the archivist’s quarters. “No one, but she’d be no better off than any of the others. In fact, she’d be worse off in most of them. House Aquatic might be safest, but half of that place is submerged, so we can’t try to move her there.”

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