Page 37 of Let Us Prey

Is that intuition, or am I being horridly invasive?

The questions ping around in my mind as I walk back to the front stairs, and by the time I get to them, my bunny answers.

I need to find out what’s on the fifth floor.

A feeling of unease crawls through me as I climb the steps, and I don’t know why. Whether it’s because I’m snooping and I shouldn’t or something bad is hiding here, I don’t know. I haven’t learned to read the whims of my animal yet, despite the efforts of my prey friends this summer. Prey instincts differ greatly from the ones they taught me to expect as a pred, and I just don’t know how to read them yet.

Everything comes across as danger, and that’s not accurate.

Looking at the doorway to the new hallway, I square my shoulders and take a deep breath.

Whatever my rabbit thinks I need to find up here is important, and if I have to put myself in danger to find it, I’ll do it.

Lucille Drew didn’t raise a coward.

Of course, she didn’t really raise me at all. It was more Mattie, but…

Stop it, Dolly.Get your shit together and walk down the corridor until you sense what room you have to enter. You can do this.

My eyes burn as I feel a slight shift from my bunny and the top of my head aches briefly. Blinking, I notice my night vision has worsened, but my hearing is amplified so much that I feel like I can hear dust settling.

Perfect timing, rabbit. Confuse the fuck out of me while I’m worried about running into something scary.

When I reach the middle of the hall, I look at both doors, squinting until the gentle noises of breath call to me on the right side.

This is where I need to go.

I put my hand on the wood, hesitating before I finally give it a soft push and it opens.

The sight that greets me shocks me once more, and I have to cover my mouth.

I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. I’ve hit the mother lode.

Secret

Renard

Being a nocturnal creature,it’s difficult to alter my sleeping schedule to accommodate the diurnal nature of a mixed shifter population academy. When I first arrived, I spent months finding the delicate balance between my nature and the requirements of my position. My concern didn’t lie with being able to socialize or finding compatriots as much as giving the students my best, so I slowly shifted from a completely night time waking period to a swing shift.

It took a long time to rewire my circadian rhythms, but once I did, it became second nature.

Lucking into another shifter with similar inclinations and background as myself was a surprise—especially given how vociferously the dragon fought my attempts to get to know him.

My lips curl as I burrow deeper into my nest, soaking in the warmth and familiarity with a sigh of pleasure. The safety of my huge, hollowed out space filled with soft cushions, blankets, pillows and other comfort items is not something I share with hardly anyone—except the shifter who became the center of my world so slowly I didn’t register it until it wasdone.

We move between our respective nests depending on the day, and our connection is a well-kept secret. Much like the targets of our hunts, we choose not to share private aspects of ourselves, even with our friends. After all, we have been together for centuries and our new friends’ decade at Apex is a blip on our radar.

I have shoes older than their tenure here.

Thoughts of youth lead me back to the enchanting new student who seems to have captured the attention of everyone in our little clutch. Despite her naïveté, Dolly is the first woman to make Fitz act like a fucking normal man, and though he’s clearly nervous as hell, she also intrigues Chess. Felix grumbles about her as if he’s angry, but I can tell it’s a cover for not comprehending his feelings.

And Aubrey…

Flames struggles with accepting affection because of his past. His emotions about the girl confuse and irritate him, making his temperament volatile. But I know from personal experience he needs to deal with it in his own time—even if it’s not the best way to handle the situation. Dragons cannot be forced to confront anything; it’s not in their nature.

My attraction is easier to parse. She’s intelligent, kind, and reminds me of someone I knew long ago. For that reason, I have to keep a suitable distance—the last time I indulged in such feelings led to my exile. Outside of Aubrey and now the tiger ambush, I have much precedent from distrusting people who catch my interest. Until I came to Apex, no one I loved showed me the loyalty these men have, even my species.

A noise so faint it’s almost not there pricks my hearing, and one of my eyes pops open to look through the darkness of my suite. The outline of the shifter I was just thinking about, clad in some ridiculously huge blanket dress, is as clear as day with my enhanced vision. She looks shocked to find herself in my roomand more so to find me curled around the hulking body of the grouchy librarian.

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