Page 73 of Let Us Prey

“Rufus! Be nice,” Cori chides as she tugs a piece of thread with her teeth. “You know she’s shy about that shit. Talking about her Penis Flytrap won’t make that any better.”

I choke, sputtering incoherently as my face flushes bright red. “My-my… what?!”

Howling as he falls backward onto the floor, Rufus clutches his stomach. It’s several minutes before he’s able to sit up again—meanwhile, my face is getting increasingly hotter. “Oh, Dollybear, your face was priceless.”

Cori smirks, trying to hide her mirth by focusing on the sequins she’s applying to the bodice of the costume she’s working on. Rufus stares at her until she throws a hand up. “Fine. She looked like I pissed on her LaPerla, and it was fucking hysterical. Happy now, you bitch?”

His smug smile is affirmative, and he turns back to me. “We are going to have to desensitize you to dirty talk. No way those naughty professors are going to spout poetry when you fuck. Well, maybe the morose gargoyle will. You’ve gotta quit blushing like you’re losing your V-Card all over again.”

“Fitz talks dirty all the time and I do just fine!” I retort indignantly.

Rufus’ smile is even craftier than before. “Do tell, girl. ”

Cori smacks him right in the chest as she snorts. “Stop baiting her, Ru-Ru. She’ll tell us deets when she’s comfortable. Besides, she didn’t look embarrassed when she came in; she looked sad. Maybe we could focus onthatrather than gathering material for your spank bank?”

I give her a relieved look before realizing now I’m expected to spill what’s making me sad. That’s no more comfortable than discussing details of my burgeoning sex life, so I shrug. “I dunno. Just a heavy morning, I suppose. Mid-semester blues, maybe.”

“If you think I’m buying that, my uncle Sal has a swamp he’d like to sell you. It’s in a hot real estate market and that’s just as true as what we just got from you.” Rufus arches his brow and I narrow my eyes at him.

“Okay, okay. I’m feeling a little insecure about the lack of definitionin my relationships. Well, okay, maybe not all of them because some have barely started, but...”

“Aw, the whittle tiger hasn’t asked you to wear his pin yet?” Rufus bats his lashes and chuckles. “Cori, help me out with this, so I don’t sound like an asshole.”

The polar bear looks up, clearly surprised. “Um… well, I think he means dudes suck at defining that shit because they’re raised to pretend they don’t have emotions. Hence, why I’m a vagitarian with a love for the clambake. But your guys are probably caught up in something even more complex—they’re much older, your teachers, and none of them have a reputation for their dating skills. In fact, most of them are known for barely acknowledging women, while the tigers are known for playboy shit.”

I take a moment to ponder that, rolling around the idea in my mind. Their reluctance to start a discussion about what our various relationships mean might be nothing more thantheirlevel of inexperience, despite their age or track records. Aphrodite knows the tiger group is clueless about Rennie and Aubrey—and once I knew it was super obvious. Maybe they’re just as dumb about me.

I’m certainly not eager to put myself out there, either, am I?

“You percolate on that, sweetness. I, however, would prefer to work the gloomies out in other ways.” Rufus holds his hand out and I take it. He pulls me to my feet and then helps Cori up. When we’re all standing, he leans over and digs a bluetooth speaker out of his bag with a triumphant look. “Ah-ha!”

“Are you going to play some sort of relationship audiobook?Preds Are from Mars, Prey Are from Venus?”I give him a perplexed look as he fusses to pair his DiePhone with the speaker.

Cori snorts. “Hell no. Ru-Ru finds dancing meditative. That’s how we solve all our deep-seated traumas. Dance it out.” She thinks for a moment. “Maybe we should write a book aboutit...”

“Far too much work, Coco. Plus, I’m not sharing my family’s therapy methods with the world. Between the mosh pit and drinking moonshine until you puke, I’m keeping those secrets to myself, thanks.” He winks as he fiddles with a playlist and finally, Ke$ha is blasting at full volume. “Now,dance,ladies.”

I’m still limber from my earlier class, and this is significantly better than tap, which has never been my favorite. I kick off my shoes, giving them both a mischievous look as I wiggle to the beat. Rufus claps, shaking his hips obscenely, and Cori joins us with some impressive booty shaking. The beat is electric, and we take turns singing the lyrics as we dance around the stage like crazy.

Rufus smirks as he pulls off a ridiculous breakdancing move, and I hoot as he flips and turns. To my surprise, Cori waits for him to finish and starts a 2-step hip hop routine that he follows along with easily. I should have known they’d be decent dancers, given that theater folk have to learn damn near every art form to be successful. They finish with a high five as the song changes to ‘Good Girls Go Bad’—a favorite of mine—and gesture at me to take center stage.

I’m definitely not used to doing this in front of anyone beside my reflection in the mirror, but I wait for the bridge before starting a series offouettesacross the stages. Ballet is what I’m most comfortable doing, because Lucille allowed me to take those lessons, along with ballroom. The break hits as I stop at upstage left, and I wink at my friends as they holler and whistle. Their encouragement makes me feel brave. Since they’re the only other shifters here, I raise my hands, do a quick run to gain speed, and bust out my cartwheels and handsprings. When I land just shy of the lip of the stage, I turn towards them with a shit-eating grin, only to find them gaping at me like landed trout.

This is awkward.

“What?” I shrug, cringing as I worry my rickety gymnastics looked stupid.

“Dolly, that was amazing! If you can do stuff like that, we can pick something cool as hell, likeNewsies!”Cori gushes, as she claps her hands in excitement.

Rufus is oddly serious, tilting his head at me thoughtfully. “Do it again. Flip that ass back this way, Dollypop.”

Wrinkling my nose, I give him a confused look. “Why?”

“I just wanna see it again. Can you do the splits at the end?”

He crosses his arms over his chest as if he’s challenging me, and I feel my bunny rearing her head, as if to say, ‘how dare you?’. That’s interesting. Since I started working on mindfully harnessing my animal in Shifter Basics, I have noticed she gets her back up when she senses any potential threat. Is there such a thing as analphaprey animal?

Hell if I know, but I’m thinking I might be one.

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