Page 46 of Let Us Prey

Right?

Rufus bats his lashes, sighing as he clasps his hands near his cheek. “Methinks the blonde bunny has suitors. However, will she choose?”

That makes me scowl even more. Not only do I not know what to do with their claims of a goddamn harem lining up for me, I also don’t like the insinuation I’d have tochooseone of them. It’s putting the cart before the horse, I know, but it bothers me to hear Rufus say it.

“Oh, shut up, Ru-Ru,” I mutter, pulling out my phone to look up the ranges of the last show I spotted in the book in front of me.

“Touchy, touchy. Guess I won’t suggestSeven Brides for Seven Brothers,” he snarks, picking up his book and flipping the pages. “Clearly, our Dolly would put a hit on six of them. Greedy, greedy.”

Narrowing my eyes, I pointedly ignore him while researching on my phone. I’m not greedy; I just refuse to be pigeonholed into the antiquated idea that monogamy is the only option. I’m a feminist.

Yeah, that’s it.

So Am I

Delores

After my classes are over,I trudge back to the Tower via one of the ‘safe routes’ the ladies in the infirmary marked for me. There are quite a few, depending on where I’m coming from and where I’m headed, which is comforting.

I marked emergency-only routes in bright red on my Apex app—those are underground and only to be used in the most dire situations. The nurses told me if we use them and a pred sees us, it could give away the location of prey housing if someone looks hard enough. I don’t want to get a bunch of people who have been kind to me killed, so I won’t even consider using these tunnels unless I have absolutely no other choice.

The Shird is close to the Tower, but the roundabout path I’m taking doubles the time to get home. I don’t have work study with Aubrey tonight, but I have homework in nearly every class. Most of it is lengthy essays, because I’ve read so far ahead of the curriculum at this point I could probably take a final and pass.

Simply passing isn’t good enough for Lucille, so I have to buckle down and get some work done over the weekend. The twenty-page paper on the ‘Glorious Formation of the Apex Council’ islooming over me like the sword of Damocles and I have no idea how I’m going to pretend to kiss those wrinkly old farts’ asses for that many pages.

When I emerge from the tunnel just inside the walls of the Tower, it occurs to me I don’t have a damned thing to eat. I’ve run through the small order I received from Amazon last week, and I didn’t have time to place another. Sighing, I remember the vending machines in the Shird with a frown of displeasure. Tasteless health bars and bits of freeze-dried meat sounds unappetizing as fuck, but I have neither the supplies nor the space to do much else.

I can’t bother Fitz by asking him to help me, either. He’s done enough to take care of me since I arrived. It feels like I’m a kept woman and this summer I vowed to let no one ‘own’ me ever again.

Delivery it is, I suppose.

Walking out of the stairway, I head to my room, dropping my things before I look up menus. My phone buzzes, distracting me from my mission, and I curse under my breath.Having an entire student body hunting you really puts a goddamn crimp in your fucking life, let me tell you.Things would be so much easier if I could go to the damn cafeteria.

“Go for Dolly,” I mutter when I answer.

“Is that how you answer your phone for your two bestest friends in the entire world?” Rufus tsks.

I can imagine him shaking his badger-striped head as if disappointed, and it brings a small smile to my lips. “Only when I’m trying to dig up dinner. I just left you guys. What could have happened in the past thirty minutes that’s so urgent?”

“Is that her? Dolly, we miss yoooooooou!” Cori squeals in the background, and I immediately realize I’m onspeaker.

If only they understood they’re my only friends, and trusting them is taking me some time. I’m having trouble accepting they only want to talk to me because they like me, not because they want something.

That sounds a bit ‘wah wah, poor little rich girl’, but it’s true.

There are people helping me, but it puts them in danger and doesn’t really protect me. The nurses and the raccoons can’t defend me if a pack of dingoes breaks down this door. My guys’ positions as staff limit them. It’s notforbiddenfor Fitz or any of them to be with me, but I don’t want them to lose their jobs, either. The Council instructed my parents to send me here to either fight or die, and I have no idea what they get out of that. I was a blip on their radar before, besides being the Drew heir apparent, but they’re eager to see my life end at Apex now.

I’m convinced all preds over fifty are assholes who take pleasure in routinely destroying everything good to keep their power.

It’s hard, but I finally decide to trust Rufus and Cori enough to show my underbelly. “You guys might be the only ones who give a shit—save Fitz. Everyone else wants to serve me up as stew,” I grumble. “Besides the dickhead in Shifter History, my other professors tolerate me more than anything.”

“We covered this earlier, hot sauce. You’ve got your hooks in more than the playboy and his softie boyfriend. What about Mr. Big Bad Tiger? ‘She belongs to us’ is a helluva statement, girl. Methinks Professor Felix has more thanprotectingyour fluffy butt in mind.”

Rolling my eyes at the honey badger’s eager matchmaking, I consider his words. I’m sure it is a big deal to ‘claim’ me as under their protection, but he did that for Fitz. I mean, all Felix ever does is smirk and call me Barbie—which Ihate. Lucille’s insistence on my perfect image has always limited my hair color choices, and even though I’m doing my thing now, I’ve been hesitant to step over that last line.

But nothing’s stopping me now, is it?

Sure, someone might tell Lucille, but that’s different. She’s not within arm’s reach and neither are Bruno nor Bruiser. They wouldn’t be able to take their vengeance with a wild pair of scissors. I pause for a moment, turning the idea over in my mind. They never discovered the tattoos I got over the summer, but those are covered unless I’m in the shower. This is a much bigger statement of independence—one I can’t hide under clothing.

---