Page 27 of Come Out & Prey

Like that blasted Slaystation…

“Renard, you’re brooding again,” Aubrey remarks, looking up from the laptop he has balanced on his lap.

He’s sitting on one of the two specially constructed armchairs we had made for ourselves. Even in his human form, Aubrey is bulky, and though I am not, I love to be swallowed in a cushy chair when I’m not at my favored perch. Our chairs are situated close to my balcony, so that we can chat even when I’m soaking in the moonlight in my fully shifted form.

“I am not brooding, though I am consistently appalled at your poor choices in music, old friend.”

The dragon belches, letting me know he’s successfully hunted prey for the evening. I have not, as my typical dining choices do not emerge until darkness has fallen and I can fly off campus to find my meal. Dragons and gargoyles are very different predators than the muscle-heads in the other shifter groups, andneither of us prefers to chat with them about where we find our true sustenance.

“The thumping of the beat, the life in the sound... it calms the dragon. You know that.” Aubrey pulls his glasses off and rubs his temples. “I need the inner Zen when I’m dealing with the rabbit holes I’m crawling into for Fitz.”

Scoffing, I leap off of the balcony ledge and walk over to him. “It is a fool’s errand. The Khan ambush has not been known for forgiveness, nor do they admit when they have done wrong. They have been ruling their fortress on Bloodstone with iron claws since long before our hardheaded friend was born. Out of all of us, I know the most about the rule he broke and how severe the elders of a species can be when they discover someone breaking their laws.

“Renard, my dude, you have got to let what happened to you go. We’ve been having this same conversation for centuries. It’s what keeps you brooding up here like a giant bat…”

“Enough!” I roar, my temper slipping unintentionally. “I have shared many things with you, dragon, that I never intend to speak aloud again. The predators have excellent hearing, even when they are entranced by fighting games played at maximum volume.”

Tiny puffs of smoke escape his lips as he clutches his stomach and laughs. “Rennie, man. It’sSuper Smash Brothers, and that’s why I’m playing this song. You should try it sometime. I’m not as good as Chess, but I have to give the feline twins credit—it’s hella fun.”

Growling under my breath, I drop into my chair. “I do not think they made the controllers for beings such as us.”

“That’s why Fitz had special ones made—in bulk,” Aubrey replies, rubbing the back of his neck. “I, uh, I may have a slight issue with not winning that occasionally results in controller damage.”

I arch a brow. “Not winning? Is that what dragons call losing?” His eyes flash golden, and it’s my turn to chuckle. “Always a sore spot, librarian. Pride goeth, the humans say.”

“Oh, we’re listening to those morons now? Please. Like I’m going to take advice from a species that thinks the lot of us are a bedtime story or movie plot. Besides, I don’t like to chat with my food; do you?”

An outraged roar, a yowl, and a murmured sound cuts the answer I planned to give off. Sounds like Chess beat Felix again. The disgraced Raj hates to lose, and he can never seem to beat our mild-mannered cheetah. Fitz just sits there and mashes buttons to rile them both up. Their dynamic completely flabbergasts me, and I will never understand it. It goes against all the principles of what I know about their kind.

“That’s why he always mains Meta Knight,” Aubrey mutters as he studies something on his screen. “Oh, for fuck’s sakes!”

Blinking at his outburst, I sit up in the chair. “What? What did that blinking box of doom tell you now?”

I hate computers, and I hate trying to use ones clearly not made for those of us who have been alive long enough to remember the elegance of written communication. But my scaly companion has adapted to the world much more readily than I, and he adores certain technology—when he’s not destroying devices in a fit of rage.

“Avengers Assemble!” he yells over his shoulder with a glare. He turns back to me, huffing smoke like he’s got a pipe in his mouth. “One of those idiots pissed off Henrietta; I know it. When I figure out who…”

“Five hundred on Fitz,” I reply, slouching in my seat as annoyance fills my veins. As much as I have grown to care for the three of them, they get Aubrey and me in far more trouble than we ever found on our own during the last few centuries.

The felines straggle in, their expressions also filled with varying degrees of irritation, and I don’t know if that’s because of the interruption or one another. They take their chairs in the usual fashion. Felix leans forward with his elbows on his knees as he prepares to listen. Fitz drops into his indolently, flinging his legs over the arm like he’s posing for Playgirl, and Chess sits with his legs pretzeled like a yogi.

The furious dragon slams his Smackbook shut, making Chess wince. I’m sure he’s worried about having to replace it again—the custom keyboards cost a lot of favors from the cheetah’s contacts in the Erickson family. Aubrey ignores him to stalk forward and snarl, “Which. One. Of. You. Pissed. Henny. Off.”

I snort at the nickname he gave the overworked and underpaid headmistress as I reply, “It wasn’t me. I remain here unless I’m teaching or lecturing.”

The three of them look at one another, communicating in some weird tiger way before looking at us with matching shrugs. Fitz looks as though he’s hiding something, but he’ll never admit it unless he wants to rub it in your face. The catalog of what he could have done to piss off a parent, a student, a council member or even one of the prospective students that were here last week is lengthy.

“Why are you having an inquisition?” I venture, hoping to help my friend before he truly loses his cool.

His eyes flash golden again, and he growls, shifting his shoulders to fight a half-shift. “Because they haveassigned usto give a speech and chaperone a dance taking place on the grounds tonight for the incoming freshman from Shifter Secondary!”

“Are you fuckingkidding me?”

Felix’s outburst surprises no one, but I find the rest of their reactions quite interesting.

Of course, I wantnothingto do with a bunch of horny, drunken teenagers dancing to raucous music and trying to paw each other to death in public. The last-minute planning irritated Aubrey. Normally, he’d be happy to give some long-winded speech about ‘crossing the threshold to adulthood’. Fitz is almost licking his chops at the thought, and someone better remind him to check I.D. if he gets picked. Chess looks terrified, and he’s hunched over, looking at his hands as if that will make it harder to see him.

Did something happen the other day during that tour? I only left my tower briefly to deal with the sea lions that dared to threaten the Captain and his crew, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary from my perch.

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