Page 7 of Prey It Ain't So

“Fitz says that about a lot of things,” she counters with a smirk. “However, I don’t think any of my mates need to worry about my opinions on that. You’re all more than above average.”

Snorting, I grab her hand to tug her to the door. “And you haven’t even gone full dragon yet, you know.”

Dolly stops, turning to look at me with a shocked face. “Um… full.. you guys are planning to… uh…”

Oh, fuck. Her damn friends and Zhenga haven’t touched on that situation.

I face her, cupping her cheeks as I look into her blue eyes. “Many shifters do actually do that, yes, snack size. Full shift, half-shift,humanoid… it’s all the same, especially with your mate. I guess your class with Zhenga didn’t get that far, mm?”

“Our time at Apex was fraught with distractions and cut short, so no.” Dolly dips her chin, mumbling. “And I didn’t have that class at Cappie, plus Cori and Rufus got really focused on their dating life, and…”

“Mmmhmm.” I smile fondly, lifting her chin so she’s looking at me again. “Packing isn’t the only thing I—or the others—can teach you. Fitz and Felix have been doing so for a while, yes?”

“Yes.” Her response is breathy as she smiles shyly. “And I trust all my mates to show me new things that I will love. It’s worked out every time so far.”

“But if it doesn’t, you know what to do?”

“Say the word and everything stops,” she says without thinking.

I chuckle softly, kissing her lips lightly before I let go so we can leave her room. “Very good, lunchable. The tigers have done an excellent job.”

And I take advantage of it far less than I should—something I will remedy on our vacation, I believe.

“Mais mes amours?1,I cannot travel that distance without enough entertainment,” Rennie says mournfully as Dolly pulls two more books out of his bag. “This is impossible!”

How amIthe one least angry about not being able to take an entire library with me?

“Rennie,” our mate says cajolingly. “We have my e-reader, plus Aubrey and I packed a few print copies. If he’s trimming the load so we can be less weighted down, you can, too.”

“She’s not wrong.” I add my two cents as I stride past them to re-fold the pile of clothes he’s definitely taking into smaller, manageable squares. “And our brilliant bunny pointed out that if we need more, we can buy them at stores in stations, then donate them to someone rather than carry them once we’re done. We have options, even if giving away books makes my dragon want to rage.”

“Aubrey,mon cher, your dragon hates giving awayanything.”

“Not to me,” our girl sing-songs as she prances over to the closet to hang up discarded clothes. “I get to pick whatever I want.”

“A fact I’m still salty about.” Rennie pouts and I stop my task to walk over and kiss the lip sticking out. “You don’t take me to pick fun hoard gifts.”

“Youdon’t need anything from them.” I smile at him fondly. “Everything you want is bought and delivered by a crew of adoring prey animals. The lunchable barely even admits she needs things, much less goes on shopping sprees.”

Dolly turns around, putting her hands on her hips. “How did this become about me? This is about him insisting on taking half his worldly possessions on our trip. More than I wanted to, even!”

The gargoyle turns red at her words and I let go of him to go back to fixing his outfits. “It is not fair for you to gang up on me, you know. I much prefer it the other way around.”

“When we torture Aubrey?” she chirps cheerily as she eyes his shoes thoughtfully. “That’s fun, too.”

“Somehow, I believe our mate has kept herself out of the ring,” I say as I smirk at Renard. “We should attend to that this summer, eh?”

He doesn’t answer as he heads for the bathroom to retrieve his toiletries. This will be much easier than the clothing part; he shares most of them with me, so what we need is already in my bags. When he comes out with an armful of things, my eyes widen. “Rennie, what the hell?”

“C’est nécessaire?2!”His tone is plaintive and I curse internally. I must have ignored a glut of new shit in our bathroom, which made me think we wouldn’t have to fight him on this shit.

“Help?” I look at Dolly hopefully.

She walks over to our mate, looking at the pile of stuff he just dumped on the bed. Her foot taps as she turns over bottles and various things, then she sighs. “Rennie, I hate to tell you this, but… half of this stuff is a dark-colored duplicate of things I’m bringing with a woodsy scent.”

I frown in confusion. “What?”

“Just like girls have things we say have a ‘pink tax’, men are marketed women’s shit—or really, non-gendered products given an artificial gender by packaging and scents.” Dolly grins and holds up a navy colored bottle with a weird nozzle. “See this? It’s fucking mousse. Your bottle is ‘boy’ colored and smells like ‘eagle spirit’—which isnota thing—and my bottle is pink and purple with a floral scent. You’re being scammed.”

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