Page 14 of Eat. Prey. Love.
“What’s wrong,petite?” Rennie asks as we head to the class number for Shifter History.
“They do juries. Rufus, Cori, and I will be almost half a year behind on large projects that get graded at the end. We could flunk out if we don’t catch up andfast. It’s going to make everything much harder, especially for me.”
Felix shakes his head. “Fucking great. How is that not something that could have been communicated once they reassigned you? You could have been working from Cappie.”
This stinks of Lucille, not going to lie.
“I’m sure they should have and shall we take bets on who might have neglected to inform me?” I give them all a wry grin. “It starts with a ‘L’ and ends with ‘ucille,’ if you askme.”
“Ra save us from the glut of enemies trying to fuck you over, lunchable. It’s impossible to keep track of them all,” the dragon mutters. “We can figure it out with your loud friends after we speak with the badger barrister. All we need is a plan.”
“We need boards!” Chess says gleefully. “I’m on it.”
Smiling softly, I turn to him and kiss him softly. “Yes, we do, my knight. You’re in charge of organizing because you’re so damn good at it.”
He flushes bright red as Fitz gooses him playfully, bobbing his brows. “Look at that… a good boyanda good girl. We’re on a roll, gentleman.”
This time I turn red, so to hide it, I pull the door of the classroom labeled ‘A. Khan’ open to peek inside. “Shit.”
Felix pushes through the group to stalk inside at my muttered curse, and he growls as he sees what it looks like. “I’m going tomurderhim. You can’t stop me.”
“I can,” I say as I join him in the middle of the room. “And I will because it’s not time yet, baby. I’m not sure why this place is set up like some jungle themed pleasure den for a fucking history class, but I’m sure he pulled strings we’ll never be able to snip.”
“It’s like the room where…” he trails off and I feel the walls go up inside of him like a slap to the face. I know my fierce tiger doesn’t mean to hurt anyone, but this is obviously a trauma he’s never faced. The layout of this damn place is geared toward undermining his confidence and distract him.
Unfortunately, it’s working.
“Bro,” Fitz says as he strides over and shakes him. “Bro. Hey, Felix. Come back to reality, you dickhead. Don’t let that old prick win. He can send Asani to mess with your head, but hedoesn’t get to win.”
Moving quickly, I sandwich Felix in between me and his twin, resting my cheek on his strong back. The others close the distance, too, surrounding him in a circle of quiet strength until he stops shaking. When he finally turns to look over his shoulder at me, I can see the pain in his eyes. There’s a haunted expression that I haven’t seen before—this is not about the woman he loved before betraying him.
This is something else entirely and he’s too ashamed to talk about it.
“You don’t have to talk about it,” I murmur. “Not today and not now. We probably should so your cousin can’t use it against us—just like needing to understand Rennie’s past because of the magic people.”
“Fuck,” he groans as his eyes close. “You’re right and I hate it.”
Fitz clears his throat. “If it’s easier, I could?—”
“No.”
Aubrey arches a brow, and Rennie looks similarly grim. “The Raj obviously needs to deal with this himself, Fitzgerald,” my dragon finally rumbles. “And we will allow him the time to figure out what that looks like for him. Right?”
Fitz rolls his head back on his shoulders and lets out a long suffering sigh. “Whywon’t any of you let me have any fun? I would be more thanhappyto peel this asshole like a banana and bring back his hide for the living room. In fact, I’mbeggingyou to let me, Felix.”
The tiger laughs a little, stepping back from his twin. “I promise you can when the time is right. Okay?”
I tilt my head, looking at them both before I speak. “I want that rugandhis balls in a jar, Fitzy.”
My crazy mate claps with glee and Rennie shudders. “Merde, ma petite. C’est vicieux.?1”
“And sexy as hell,” Chess mumbles. I wink at him playfully and the gargoyle frowns at my cheetah. “What? Obviously it’s my thing; I’m mated to Fitz.”
Taking one last look around the grossly decorated room, I shake my head. “I’ll make sure I’m very careful here. I can make adjustments for this class in particular, much like I will for the Rockland sessions.”
“Not to be a downer, but it’s starting to feel like you’re going to have to make concessions ineveryclass, lunchable. That’s also probably on purpose,” Aubrey says with a grimace. “I assume you won’t have many classes with your friends, either. Someone with a lot of pull arranged this shit.”
“Lucille could have,” I say thoughtfully. “But I’d bet she was busy working with Bruiser to arrange Bruno’s splatter jet ride.”