“Actually…” I stuff the towel back on its railing and pad over to the bed. When I perch on the edge, dipping it, Percy grudgingly raises his head. “Did you notice anything unusual? Back when you lived with Nathaniel Price? Thoughts he had, or things he did, or…well, anything, really.”
Rolling to an upright position and folding both of his front feet beneath him, Percy is silent for a long moment. Finally, he swivels his head to look at me.As a matter of fact, something did happen.
I sit forward, my heart pounding. “What?”
It was a few months ago. Someone broke into the Price family mansion.
My breath tears, harsh, through my throat as I gawp at him. Someone broke into Nathaniel Price’s house? Is that when they stole the tether?
“A few months ago?” I say. “Can you…be a bit more specific?”
He narrows his eye at me.Does it look like I carry a pocket watch around, Hairless One?
I press my lips into a line; there’s only one person I know who owns a pocket watch, and I absolutely donotwant his help. “What did they steal?”
I cannot be certain, Percy says, his tail flicking.All I know is that Nathaniel was tremendously angry. He spent copious amounts of time imagining the perpetrator being subjected to an array of increasingly creative torture methods.
Shuddering, I turn out the light and climb beneath the bedcovers. Percy growls as though it’s actually his bed and not mine. “There’s room enough for us both,” I gripe at him, but he pointedly leaps off the bed.
Perhaps there is, he says, stretching his back legs behind him, one at a time.But you thrash around in your sleep too much. Also, you snore.
“I do not snore!” But already he’s coiled up tight on my desk chair. Seeing him there brings back memories of Harrisford: Harrisford reclining in it, Percy on his lap, his feet propped up on my bed, reading.
He’d at least had the decency to take his shoes off at the door, a detail that only occurred to me later. It’s taboo in Asian culture to wear shoes inside, so I always slip mine off before I enter my room.Harrisford had done so too—his stupidly expensive loafers had been placed neatly next to my scuffed-up trainers on the doormat.
I scowl at my ceiling. Expensive shoes, expensive shirts, expensive trousers that are tight enough to hug his perfect…
Stop it, Gwen.My face is burning.Stop thinking about his fucking trousers.
I sigh. It’s sickening and irrational, but it would be a lie to deny that I find Harrisford Briggs good-looking—even if he is a total wanker. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? He already won the looks, wealth, and ketones-smelling lotteries; it would be too much for him to also have a half-decent personality.
Oh well. It doesn’t matter. I am a full-grown, mature adult, and I can definitely appreciate a man’s beauty while staunchly hating everything else about him.
I lie awake for almost an hour, stewing over my memories of Harrisford. Eventually, the last of my resolve crumbles, and I allow my fingers to sneak beneath my waistband. And soon enough I fall asleep, the liquid warmth of pleasure settled deep within my belly, the echo of Harrisford’s name still lingering on my lips.
20
Gwendolynne
When I jerk awake, it’s still dark, and the sheets are tangled around my waist. There’s also drool pooling on my pillow. I swipe it away and squint at my buzzing strap. 2:37 a.m.
What the hell? The vibration on my bedside table woke me up at what should not be considered an actual time.
I scrub at my bleary eyes before focusing on the screen. It’s a call-out, which is weird, because I’m not meant to be on duty. We final-year students are allocated eleven at a time, every eight weeks, to be on call. Each time, it’s seven draining days and nights of managing the entire Seamere caseload, whether myth.creat or mag.fam. I dread my on-call weeks, because it means I might have to actually work with large animals (shudder)…but thankfully there are usually enough Mythological Creatures students rostered on that I can manage to avoid it.
Tonight, though, there’s no such luck. Someone is calling me to the unicorn yards, and from the sounds of it, it’s urgent.
I roll out of bed, finger-combing my hair, then pull on my neglected coveralls. Since I’m not officially rostered on, I could just refuse and go back to bed. But the memory of our class rankings after hospital wardsyesterday is branded painfully on my brain: Harrisford, a mere one point ahead of me because he fucking stole my diagnosis.
So I do up all the studs on my coveralls, slide my feet into my waterproof boots, and—leaving Percy snoozing deeply on the cushioned seat of my chair—head out into the muggy night.
The unicorn yards are a maze of reinforced fences, designed so that male unicorns can’t spear each other through the bars. Moonlight spills across the concrete, the trees casting skeletal shadows that stretch across the ground.
It’s in the foaling stable that I find the myth.creat tutor who’d paged me on my strap. He’s a newly graduated vet with dark curly hair and pale skin, and I can never remember his name.
“Ah, good, you’re here,” he says. “Follow me.”
He wanders into one of the stalls, and I pull up short at the door.
