Page 1 of Prey It Ain't So

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It’s beentwo weeks since the Fae rebels attacked the arena atl’Academie. The revelation I had about Abel went over poorly, and once the guys had time to process—read as ‘tear shit up for hours’—we could gather our entire crew in one place. Farley and the badgers returned, then the Captain and his crew joined us. I had to tell as much of the story as I was comfortable with, but I knew they weren’t fooled. Raina, in particular, looked ready to unleash her bow on the world, and Farley wasn’t much better.

Sometimes, you build the family you need, rather than being born into it.

I pushed aside my inner turmoil over the new trauma to watch Chess start a new board to plot out the broad connections between events. He’s very good at this—keeping us all organized and on track—which is surprising because I know it’s somethinghestruggles with himself. That much has always been evident from the minute I saw his studio on the tour of Apex. The cheetah has developed routines and minor fixes to his own neurospicyness—things he can use to function better—all on his own.

As we sit in the living room that Raina and her guys put back together after the rampage, I look over at the quiet shifter with a fond smile. We’re knitting together with the TV on a familiar show that we’ve watched to keep the anxiety levels low. His needles areflying,and that makes me frown in confusion. “Chessie?”

“Yes, Angel?” he murmurs as he continues working without even looking.

I lick my lips, nervous to ask, but I’m too curious to ignore the incongruity. “You told Aubrey you were learning to knit, too.”

“Mmmmhmmm.”

Arching a brow, I pause my clumsy but improving row. “Your hands are running at the speed your legs do in kitty form.”

That makes his face turn bright red, and he ducks his head. When he says nothing, I simply wait for him to gather his thoughts. He finally coughs and mutters, “Idoknow how, but… I wanted to learn along with everyone, especially Fitzy. He would have been so frustrated if most people focused better and picked it up faster than him, as would Felix, so… I sort of fibbed.”

I knew it! I remember knitting in his damn studio, but I thought I’d made that up in my head.

“Chessie… you don’t have to pretend to be less to make anyone feel better. That’s a lesson I learned theextremelyhard way with the Heathers.” I cluck my tongue as I scoot a little closer. “They weren’t struggling with a spectrum issue, but I consistently had to make myself small enough to avoid Heather E’s wrath. It didn’t feel good to discount myself, and it felt even worse to know I did it when they showed their true colors because I think…”

He looks up at me expectantly. “I think I was starting to believe it.”

“Angel…”

“No, no, I don’tnow. But…” I pause, knowing this will irritate him, but I want him to know I empathize with his plight. “After I got stuck with Rockland and she went off the rails? There were moments, both big and small, where I fell back into that pattern because of shit she said. The dismissive and cruel way she spoke about my skills, my relationships, my intelligence, and just about everything I was working to accomplish? It activated something I’d been avoiding from the Heathers, Todd, and Lucille. So, very quietly, my progress and confidence would slip back a few steps after every stupid session.”

“That’s why you seemed so unsure at times and very confident at others,” he marvels as he blinks at me. “Damn, Angel, you should have told at leastoneof us. We would have listened.”

This time, it’s me looking away. “She spent a good deal of time telling me that anything positive in my life wasn’t earned. It was because of other people’s influence and other reductive shit. Her goal was to keep me from ever seeing my true potential, I think. I don’t know how that benefitted her, but I know in my soul that she was keeping her claws on my neck to make herself feel better.”

Chess sighs, putting down his knitting, and gesturing for me to do the same. “Come here, Angel. I think we need to have a hard conversation.”

I blink. “Harder than admittingthat? I don’t know, baby. I may not be well enough for?—”

He puts his finger to my lips, his smile gentle. “Shhh. My turn, okay?”

I nod, swallowing past a lump in my throat as I climb into his arms. “Okay,”

“I’ve lived most of my life in the twins’ shadows. That’s fine with me, as it kept me from getting the terrible shit their father lashed out at them with. However, you’re right… I made sure I stayed small, not because they’d be upset with me shining. No, it was to keep the Raj’s eyes off of me.”

Biting my lower lip, I nod.

“Once we were exiled—and I say that because Fitz and I wouldneverhave let Felix go alone—we came here. They were both so broken up over the situation, that I couldn’t actually say how happy I was that we were out of that hellhole. It felt like I was betraying them not to be angry and upset. Obviously, I was angry about Felix’s pain, and upset that they lost something they’d been planning to completely revamp to help their people. But just for me? I was ecstatic that those assholes couldn’t hurtanyof us anymore.”

I blink, processing that for a moment before I murmur, “That’s a valid emotion, Chessie. I don’t think they would have been mad at all. Fitz, especially, would have understood.”

“Maybe?” He scratches his chin, shrugging. “I’ll never know now, but I spent the years before you arrived staying small, so nothing I did would grab focus from their desperate need to heal from that betrayal. I probably fucked up, and didn’t help them a whit—evidenced by how cracked they were when you roared onto campus like a tornado of fury and spunk.”

That makes me blush and I duck my head. “Well, I’d had three months to work up a frothing fury over my ex-friends, my ex-fiance, and my shithead parents. The decree that I had to go to Apex just to get killed didn’t sit well with me, either, and no amount of kindness the folks at Luc’s showed me could fix that wound.”

“Exactly,” he says as he pulls my chin up to look into my eyes. “So you get how I’m fighting a trauma response born of care for my mate and my brother, right?”

I give him a lop-sided grin. “I do.”

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