Page 27 of Dragon Unleashed

I ball my hands into fists, ready for their protests.

“None of you even hinted you had an idea,” Chano says. “Being stuck with a crummy topic selected by a bored professor would have been the worst. I think Lorelei submitted that for me.”

I offer him a tight smile.

“Formi mami.”

“The great matriarch?” Farrell can’t contain his sarcasm. “Are we going to work for a gang?”

“Shut up,puta. Do not ever let me hear you disrespectmi mamiagain.” Chano cracks his knuckles, breathing heavily through his nose. “Mi mamiis many things. Matriarch was one of them. She’s also an environmentalist. She investigated some bizarre environmental disasters and ended up disabled for her efforts.”

There’s an audible intake of breath around the room. Even Farrell The Unshakable looks thrown. Disabled supes? Not a thing. Not really.

“She’s not the only one. Look, I’m not sorry Lorelei took the decision out of our hands.Mi mamideserves answers. You all have your own causes, but Lorelei wasn’t being selfish. This was for me.”

I got this so wrong. Zephyr’s languid posture is ramrod straight and he’s refusing to look at me. Naeve? Naeve might burst out crying any second. For half a second, I considerdoubling down, holding my ground, but I’m not Farrell. I can own my mistakes.

Before I can get a word out, though, he’s looming over me.

“Father was right, you can’t be trusted.” He looks up and down my body deliberately. “You’ve no idea how to work as part of a team. You’re making choices to suit you and your lover. This allegiance is unbalanced.”

I grab his sleeve. “You haven’t exactly been a shining example. When precisely did you include me in any decisions recently?”

The look he gives me as he brushes my hand off…hellfire. He doesn’t like being called out? Tough.

“The rebellion depends on me for decisions. But you keep this up and my father will take matters into his own hands, princess. He won’t like me helping the Maveriks. He won’t like it one bit,” he says, seething as he stalks out of Zephyr’s room.

He can’t even stay to hash it out. Nope. He has to have the last word.

The threat, what he didn’t say, hangs heavily in the room: the Virrey might punish me for this.

Zephyr just shakes his head. He picks up his phone and backs toward the door, holding his other hand up. “I don’t want to hear it, Lorelei. Shut the door behind you when you’re done in my room.” He starts dialing as he walks out.

Naeve’s busy packing textbooks into her bag with short, staccato movements.

“Naeve, it’s my turn to say I’m sorry.” My eyes start pricking.Do not cry, that won’t help anything.

Her head snaps up and she stares at me.

“What? I can apologize!”

Naeve lets out a snort so loud it must have hurt. Her face scrunches up and a big fat tear rolls down her cheek. “Not…not often.”

Chano shifts from foot to foot beside me. “Uh…you girls have some talking to do.” He glances desperately at the exit, before pecking me on the forehead “Thanks, chica, for choosing me, for choosingmi mami, but I’m going to leave you girls to it.”

With that, the oaf turns tail and flees the room like the hounds of hell are after him.

“Can we do this back in our own room?” I ask. It feels weird being surrounded by Zephyr’s things, by his smell, knowing he’s nothing but disappointed in me right now.

I hang back by the door when we get to our dorm room, fiddling with my dagger, picking at the door frame with its tip. Dammit, I don’t know what to do with myself.

Naeve stands over her desk, her back to me.

“We’re talking, right? Getting everything out in the open?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Well, it might seem silly. It’s nothing compared to our other issues.” She hesitates before she turns around, clutching a book. “But it matters to me. Why did you trash my book? Why would you trash any book?”

---