Page 35 of Prey It By Ear

I nod, sighing as the humor drains from the room as fast as it appeared. “Okay, Felix. Direct us to whatever you think should go first.”

My control freak tiger looks visibly relieved at my words, and he gestures at the boards Chessie meticulously prepared. “The first thing we’re going to run into is the fucking scheduling and deluge of emails about new ‘regulations’. While we need to know what the prey guru said, what’s going on with the publishing shit, and other concerns, this administrative garbage will bury us all if we don’t handle it. That’s the plan, I’m certain, but I refuse to allow it to work.”

“I didn’t really check my school stuff much while we were in Paris,” Coco admits. Rufus looks similarly sheepish, and I know I was told to leave it alone by my guys. I suppose their friends and dates did the same to help them relax a bit. “What should we be worried about, Felix?”

Chessie waves his hand, waiting for the elder Khan to nod in permission before he speaks. “The biggest problem is schedules. While they barely gave the five of us anything when we arrived last year, they’ve got blocks of classes, Pred Games stuff, tutoring, and office hours this semester that will keep us running—even Aubrey and Zhenga. That will make it hard to help keep my Angel and her friends safe as they navigate the next problem: tightly packed classes criss-crossing campus like a drunk toddler drew on a map.”

I blink in surprise, taking a moment to consider what he’s saying. “Does that apply to Ru-Ru and Coco as well?”

Grimacing, Felix nods as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yes, it does. Since they’re a year ahead of you, it was pretty simple to make the senior class load completely opposite of yours, which also means you will have little in-class support. With the Postmen in Paris, that’s another consideration we need to monitor.”

“You know I can take care of myself, right?” I say grumpily, despite knowing he does. The phrasing irks, which I know wasn’t intentional, and the very gall of those assholes in the Society rearranging shit to isolate me as if I haven’t shown them what I’m capable of when pushed is really pissing me off. I bite my lip as I frown, a thought popping into my mind. “What if that’s the point?”

Fitzy meets my gaze and I know he gets it immediately, but he doesn’t get a word out because the big guy grunts, “They’re hoping a confrontation bad enough when she’s alone will bring her illegal powers out in an arena that is not appropriate for that sort of violence. The pressure to crack will probably be quite intense, and with no one to stand beside her, snack size will have to manage unpredictable magic with fury on her own. Why, I’m not sure.”

Turning his head to look at the board, Rennie murmurs, “While I am ecstatic to be teaching, I find this as suspicious as the Raj. And to answer Flames, perhaps they have targeted other things at ma petite that we are not aware of. It would not be hard to alter things sent to any of us and not to the student body, or use trickery to get agreement to things we aren’t conscious of. Upsetting her to the point of using the Fae energy may be a tactical ploy.”

I wrinkle my nose and cross my arms over my chest as I huff. “Can’t these people just… get a fucking life or something? How sad does their own shit have to be to continually focus on me, while I’m just trying to get through school without dying? I hate this shit.”

Coco smiles, patting me on the shoulder in consolation. “It’s because there’s more than just the normal rich kid bullying going on, Dollykins. These people know you’re a danger to their carefully crafted narrative, and since they can’t control you, it’s making them more and more desperate.”

“I agree with Cori,” Farley chimes in from the screen. “Getting low-tier villain-wannabes like Rockland was the first move that had the stink of fear on it. Someone like that will always turn on their masters if they can because they aren’t motivated by money, so much as low self-esteem and a need for fawning followers to stroke their ego. When they brought in some of the tiger relatives and involved professors, it was even more desperate. Those people have no loyalty either.”

“So how do we prevent this?” Raina asks from her spot with the crew. “That is the most salient question, I believe. What is your plan, King Felix?”

The tiger grins at her, happy that she’s brought the conversation back to his point. “We will need to utilize our prey friends here and those that are not present, as well as Z, and each other. If we look at the schedules carefully, we can cover much of the day’s travel and some classes, as long as we all pitch in. Princess, you will need to be extremely cautious when alone, especially in the ridiculous sessions with that woman.”

Fucking easy to say when we have no idea how egregiously they’re going to bait me, isn’t it?

“We can do more yoga, Baby Girl! Increase the Zen and shit. I’ll even behave most of the time,” Fitz interjects with a cheesy grin. “Promise on broken bones and bloody noses.”

I laugh, bumping his shoulder with mine as I give him a grateful expression. “That’s pretty serious for you, buddy. We can do that, and I’ll adapt my non-school related schedules to make sure I’m less predictable. That will help keep whoever is watching for an opening on their toes, I suppose.”

Felix nods, looking over at the crew again as he says, “If you don’t have your work schedules yet, get them. Chess is working up the escort routines, and if he has what you’re expected to do, he can weave that in. The princess needs to make certain possible bad actors can’t corner her on her own anywhere, so she’ll need to only be alone in this building because we have control of it.”

“You know, every day, I get less privacy and more shitty stalkers. It’s enough to make me move to the Antarctic,” I grumble petulantly. “Fitz is one thing; I like him watching me and agreed to it. Everyone else can fuck right off.”

Grinning like a madman, Fitz leans in and fake whispers, “And even if you moved there, I’d trail your cute little penguin ass all around the ice flows, Baby Girl. You’d get your daily injection of hot sauce no matter how blue my balls turned.”

“For fuck’s sake, Fitz,” Aubrey mutters simultaneously as Felix, and it brings yet another moment of levity to the room. The dragon winks at me, probably to let me know he’d follow along as well, but imagining him bundled in heavy snow gear after the snowball fight is even funnier, so I giggle as I shake my head ruefully.

“I appreciate that, guys, but moving doesn’t seem to actually work the way we’d like. We had to snoop on people on the train on the way back.”

Rufus’ eyes narrow and he tilts his head. “You had watchers, too? Coco, Z, and the badger crew definitely had eyes during our stay there. No one ever approached and Unc said they were all random preds, but we certainly weren’t alone. It made it hard to do our research without letting the bad dudes know what we were up to.”

“I checked out everyone they got a picture of,” Farley replies quickly. “Probably flunkies from the Council or Society, but no one important enough to dive deeper. What about you, Dolly girl? Who had more noses than a hound dog on a damn train?”

I sigh as I shrug. “On the way, we didn’t see anyone. But coming home, we had an Erikson exec and a Shirdal heir with her flunkies from several families. Rennie and Chessie did the recon with them to make sure no one saw me or the twins paying attention to them.”

Farley looks furious as he taps his fingers on the desk in front of him. “Well?”

“Mon ami, have patience,” Renard says with a lazy grin. “My target was Silas Vesper, a director at Erikson. Searching his room yielded a lot of mess, but also lists of what I believe are tithe payments from the suspected Society members. They were accompanied by financials that seemed doctored to pay less, so they must be cheating one another even. However, it explains the pool of secret money they can use to hire people and develop poisons such as the one at Capital Prep, non?”

Frowning, Cori looks at me. “I don’t like someone associated with your old friends being so close, Dolly. There’s very few of that group left, but they’ve tried to eat you, get you expelled, kill you in games, and even bully you into being homeless. Just because Heather E. and B. are quiet now doesn’t mean they won’t show up again.”

My BFF has such a kind heart, and I love her to death for it.

“I know, Coco, but without the guys and the other Heathers, they don’t have the pull they used to. They can come at me through the normal stupid, mean girl shit and maybe with their parents’ resources, but they can’t hurt me as badly as they used to. I don’t care what they think anymore; I mostly pity them, if I’m honest.”