Page 14 of Eat. Prey. Love. (Apex Academy Capers #5)

I was surprised when the irascible badger said he’d be staying in the country for a bit while his goons worked on their shady tasks. Farley was obviously unhappy about being here, but despite his country rube persona, I smell the tinge of a predator who has the scent of his kill. He doesn’t like Rockland defying his typical tactics; that’s going to work in the Princess’ favor. It means he’ll sink his teeth in and not let go until she’s dead enough to stink up the room.

I can respect that doggedness.

My entire ambush would love to lock her up and toy with her until she’s begging to die, but we can’t do that—yet. So I’ll let the lawyer do his thing while I focus on figuring out what the motherfucking shit my asshole cousin is doing here. Obviously, the Raj sent him, and likely it’s to torture me, but he’d be able to do that without taking on a class with our girl in it. No, this specific play was crafted for a reason beyond sending Fitz and I to the looney bin. It was plotted with multiple pawns placed to cause issues for my entire family.

“Felix?”

I blink, whipping my head around to see Dolly frowning at her hands. “What’s wrong, Princess?”

“I want to go see Coco. I know Rufus said she needs time, but… I don’t want her to be alone.” She rises to her feet, looking up at me with big doe eyes. “Will you walk me over to the Theater Dorm so I can check on her?”

Hell no. We want you here where you’re safe.

But I can’t tell our soft-hearted girl that I won’t help her. It’s ridiculous and I’d kill anyone else who suggested it, but when she asks nicely, I’d do damn near anything without an argument. Walking over, I take her hands, tilting my head. “If it’s important you go see her now, I will. But we have to come back before it’s too dark. We don’t know this place well enough yet to be taking chances.”

She sniffs, but nods. “Okay. Thank you. I just… I can’t get my head straight for anything else until I see that she’s not doing anything stupid. Even if I didn’t think Giselle was the one… Cori cared about her and she’s my friend.”

“Come on, then. Let’s ease your worries so we can all snuggle up and watch a movie tonight.” Her smile gets a little brighter as I tug her into the crook of my arm and lead her toward the door. “We can let you and Fitz pick. It’s endlessly entertaining to watch the dragon throw a hissy fit about your selections. ”

She smacks my arm lightly, her voice soft as she chides me. “Felix Khan, don’t be mean to Aubrey. He’s doing really well with not being such a grouch. You wouldn’t have learned that basket weave stitch if he hadn’t been so patient with you.”

“Would, too.” I wrinkle my nose and make a face at her. “Khans never give up, and we never lose.”

Giggling, she curls into my side. “Noted. But I’m told Drews don’t either, so be prepared for lots of battles, Sir.”

And just like that, I almost turn us around to go back inside for a different inspection.

The dorms are just as fancy as the academic buildings, so I’m mildly impressed as we make our way to the third floor where the juniors are housed. Everything looks clean and well-maintained, but even a cursory glance tells me security isn’t fantastic. It’s not surprising—the pred schools expect students to be able to defend themselves for better or worse. However, our girl has more than just shitty bullies or pranksters after her.

It makes me even more pleased she mated with my twin—we can use that as an excuse for adjusting her housing if need be.

“Princess, this dorm is nicer than Cappie or Apex… but I’m glad you’re staying with us.”

Dolly turns to look up at me with a tiny smirk. “Leave Chessie’s cooking? Never.”

“Ouch, Princess. Right in the heart with that one,” I chuckle as I clutch my chest. “Good to know where your loyalties lie.”

She giggles and squeezes me close, reminding me that less than two years ago, she looked like a lost kitten and I was torturing her for making me feel something. We’ve both come a long way from that point and as much as I hate to admit it, it’s in large part to my crazy ass twin refusing to let any of us write her off.

That’s why no one is surprised she chose him first—nor are they upset in the slightest. He was her first and only ally at Apex.

“You know, Cori is going to be sad. You can support her, but this will hurt for a while.” I look down at her as we approach the door decked out with swag and sparkle that denotes the room she’s sharing with my girl’s fabulous badger buddy.

Dolly sighs and nods as she looks at the door for a moment. “I know, Felix. Todd was a first class fucknozzle and I was still hurt and upset by the betrayal. Giselle made her believe they had a chance and then yanked that away at the last minute—not even in person. Cori already feels isolated by her identity. This is very damaging for her self-esteem.”

Tipping her chin up, I look into her eyes with a soft smile. “I know you can relate to that. It will help your friend, but remember, any feelings that come flooding back are the past. You are adored and accepted for who you are… even if your horrible taste in men extends to my twin.”

“Felix!” She smacks my arm and I see the light in her eyes brighten a bit. “I know it’ll dredge some stuff up, but I do want to be there for her. No one was for me when everything went down at prom and the only thing that kept me going over that summer was my job at Luc’s, revenge, and Fitz’s not-so-secret gifts.”

I roll my eyes, but her admission makes me smile. My idiot brother’s stalking actually made her feel wanted and I could kiss him for it now. Not that I’ll ever tell him that. “Go on. Knock on the door and let her know you’re here.”

Our girl leans up and presses a kiss on my lips, then pulls away. I watch her curvy ass sway as she approaches the door, looking as delectable in her yoga pants and Aubrey’s tee shirt tied at her waist as she does in couture. The silence hangs for a moment until the door cracks open and there’s a heated whisper exchange through the crack. Dolly holds her ground, putting her hands on her hips as she speaks to the bear hiding in her room.

I’m oddly proud of her when the door finally opens and she turns to blow a kiss at me before she walks inside.

Delores Drew is a force to be reckoned with, even when it comes to the people she loves.

Once I’ve dropped Dolly off, I cut across the campus to the staff housing. As a visiting professor, it’s marked on a special map in our materials that isn’t available to the students. They have the pred staff in a special enclave north of the small mountain range and there’s a weird tunnel thing connecting it campus.

Why do all the other academies have a thing for tunnel entryways? It’s bizarre as fuck.

“It doesn’t matter because we’re not staying here, but I want to see if I can toss that fucker’s room,” I mutter as I slink around the admin building to the stairs leading down to passage.

“Fucking right, we’re going to search it.”

I whirl around, claws out and a snarl on my lips until Fitz’s face registers. “By Apollo’s stinky sneakers, Fitz! I could have maimed you. Scratch that, I should maim you for scaring the stripes off my ass. What are you doing here?”

He grins broadly, looking pleased with himself. “I know you took D to visit her sad friend, so I got Raina to keep an eye on the building. She’ll text all of us through this emergency app I built on the plane if anything seems wrong. Whoever is close can rush over, but that leaves me free to fuck shit up with you.”

Every word of that is new information.

“Fitz…” I give up on words and finally nod. “Fine. I don’t know anything about whatever the hell you’re talking about, but I as sume it’s good. Let’s go find out why our shithead cousin is here.”

“Besides our father being a fucking jizz stain?” I snort and he shrugs as we walk into the lighted, temperature control tunnel to the other side of the rocks. “Probably because he’s working some angle behind Baby Girl’s mom’s spotted back. That fucker has sold out almost every relative and ally he’s ever had since we were born, man.”

I frown. “I don’t like his sudden interest in her.”

“Man, I don’t like anyone’s interest in our girl, but I don’t know that Pop is the imminent threat.”

Squinting at him for a second, I arch a brow. “Are you and Dolly reading spy novels now?”

“Why?”

“Because ‘imminent threat’ is pretty fancy for you, bro.” I grin and wink at him. “And when you pick up new jargon, it’s often from your shared reading time.”

My twin shakes his head, groaning as he waves his hand. “I fucking wish we were reading spy novels. Ren and I are working through the corpse nibbler’s shit with her word by painful word. Never in my life did I think sexy scenes could make my cock retreat into my fucking body but…”

“That bad?”

“Bro, her females are so damn ridiculous. They’re supposed to be tough like our girl, but really? It’s bullshit. They have all this power and let dudes treat them like dogshit. Queen D would plant a big ass thumper in any of our asses if we spent weeks or months calling her a bitch and other shitty names.”

My eyebrows raise as I contemplate that and I find I agree with my brother. Dolly served our shit right back to us from the beginning, even if she was feeling unworthy. And to be honest, none of us would ever call someone we liked ugly names just to push them away. I was a bit of a dick, but I wasn’t abusive and mean. I can’t imagine that being sexy.

“No, no, wait. It gets worse ,” Fitz says as we walk out of the passageway. “Wait… it’s two hundred and thirty steps—remember that. Now, as I was saying, it gets worse.”

The fact that my hyper, ADHD twin could count and retain the number of steps end-to-end while conversing with me is nothing short of a damn miracle. That shit is definitely because of all our girl’s work with him. He never would have been able to do that before. Hell, he could barely sit still or stay sober for a couple hours before.

“Two-thirty. Got it,” I reply. We walk into the small staff village, pausing to find a scent. “What’s worse than that?”

“The dude-on-dude stuff, duh.” He looks at me seriously. “That woman has never seen two dudes or chicks together outside of porn. It’s so incredibly bad. And it’s… it makes me feel gross because it’s not…. meant for bi or gay dudes. It’s like… meant for women, like yaoi.”

Once I pick up Asani’s trail, I jerk my head in that direction and we move towards the section where his cabin must be. “So you feel objectified?”

“Ab-so-fucking-lutely, man.” He shivers and shakes his head. “Not just me… the smoky-eyed granite man agreed. So did Chessie. Her stuff is definitely one-handed spank bank fodder and the bondage stuff is so bad I wish I had someone to report it to.”

Giving him an angry look, I ask, “Is it bothering the Princess? She’s had some unfortunate parental experiences with violence that damaged her. I don’t want this claptrap traumatizing her.”

Fitz waits until we’re standing in front of the small building covered in our cousin’s scent before he answers. “No, she’s okay. Baby Girl reads through it with us and has to stop because she’s laughing so hard. It’s adorable.”

Clapping my hand on my brother’s shoulder, I let out a slow breath as I process that. There are so many things vying to hurt our bunny that I find myself worrying like an old nanny goat sometimes. Knowing we’re not making it worse with this task helps. And now that I know that, I’m ready to get into this cabin and find out what plans our cousin has.

That tangled mess of a counselor isn’t the only villain targeting our girl on this campus.