Page 164 of House of Lilith

And at the very same time, I breathe a sigh of relief and feel myself start simmering. So I focus on steadying my breathing and trying to decide whether I should just leave the rest of the food or maybe try to quickly pack it up to go somehow, my stomach grumbling.

But before my stupid mind manages to make a decision, I hear a low wolf whistle, the sound of which has been burned into my very brain, and my eyes snap up and I see him standing right behind that beautiful shifter girl, eyeing her up and down as she keeps moving in the queue, glancing over her shoulder at him as if she’s not exactly minding the attention.

And I’m gripping my fork so tight, my knuckles must be white as bone, but I can’t make myself look away. And I can't stop myself from using my hearing to eavesdrop.

Because now, the rest of his pack starting to chat amongst themselves, he seems to be rushing to grab everything she reaches for before she can get it for herself, making her start shaking her head at him with a flush and an incredulous smile.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demands, playfully, when he does it for the fourth time.

He throws her a look of feigned surprise, pushing his chest out a little. “Getting your attention,” he replies matter-of-factly. “What else?” And he throws her one of those disarming grins of his, followed by a lazy, sexy little wink.

And she gives in, like, completely. She leans in to whisper, a flirty smile on her lips, “Well, then I guess you owe me lunch, don’t you?”

His mouth cracks into a grin and he looks over his shoulder and at his pack, saying, “Guess you’re on your own, boys and girls.”

And he grabs both of their trays, throws the girl another smile and starts leading her to one of the empty tables, making me quickly lower my eyes, feeling as if I’m about to jump out of my fucking skin.

But then there’s that guy, the one the girl blew off, coming into my line of sight and making me look back up because he seems to be headed straight towards them.

And it makes me fail to resist the urge to use my hearing when I see him come to block Howe’s way. The girl stops as well, throwing him a pissed-off look.

“You know,” the guy says in a threatening, but relatively low voice, “you should stick to your own.”

Here we go again, I think with an internal sigh. Now, right after he’s won over the girl, that fucking Howe will win over her little boy toy as well, making me doubly pissed-off.

But then, instead of that mouth cracking into a friendly grin, I see his lips tug into a nasty little smile as he holds the trays out to his right, one of his pack immediately appearing to take them.

I frown as I watch him slide his hands into his pockets and take a step closer, making the guy double back.

“What did you just say to me?” he asks in a steady voice that booms over the cafeteria, making the chatter die down and heads snap in their direction.

The guy glances around nervously, now forced to raise his voice as well. “I said, you have plenty of your own,” he drawls. “So leave Grimm girls alone.”

Howe lets out a snicker. “And if I don’t?Please…”And he leans a little closer to give the guy another nasty smile.“Tell me.”

Taking a deep, angry breath, the guy retreats a step, taps his Runes and then flicks two fingers of his right hand upwards. I see a stone piece the size of a football get loose from the floor and fly up.

As I watch it hover, I struggle to understand why Howe’s just standing there. But it only does so for a second before it slams straight into his chest, making him stumble back and producing this sound that makes me wince.

The stone falls to the ground and for a second, there’s only silence, and I’m holding my breath, watching Howe grimacing, with his eyes shut, in what must be excruciating pain.

Then he opens his eyes, puts that nasty smile back on his face and picks the stone up off the ground, as if nothing happened. And he starts turning it in his hands, as if he’s having fun with it, until he stops, abruptly, looks the guy straight in the eye, lets go of the stone and then slams the palms of his hands into its sides, his tattoos emitting this faint glow and the stone producing this sound like a mini explosion as it crumbles to the ground.

He just crushes the goddamn stone.

And then he walks up to the guy, who’s obviously in shock, and leans to tell him, making sure everyone can hear him, “Here’s a shocking revelation.”

He takes the guy by the collar of his shirt, lifts him off the ground and slams him into the column to his right.

“Who should leave Grimm girls alone,” he hums, but the sound is menacing, “that’s entirely up to, well,Grimm girls, now isn’t it?”

And then he lets the guy drop to the ground, turning back to his pack.

“Why didn’t you fucking do anything?” I hear the guy ask, and I turn to see him getting up, shooting this blond fae guy in the audience a nasty look.

“You started it, man,” the fae answers, referring to our policy of letting people who start fightsfinishtheir fights as well.

“That doesn’t apply to foreign trash,” the guy snaps back.

---