Page 16 of Eat. Prey. Love. (Apex Academy Capers #5)

When my angel called for a pickup at her friend’s dorm, she looked both relieved and worried. She shook her head when I asked if everything was okay and it wasn’t hard to suss out why when her eyes darted around us. She’s worried the common areas around have been bugged. It’s not an unreasonable thought, so I put it on my list to have Fitz do scans on his equipment to find whatever surveillance systems they have—both obvious and hidden.

“Cori is going to be hurting for a bit, but she’ll survive,” she says as we use our badges to get into the library. “That girl hit a deep rooted button about not being good enough or worthy. I’d skin her myself, but I’d rather do a little digging first.”

My lips curve up. This is why she’s perfect for my crazy tiger, but the empathy she feels for her best friend is part of why she’s also perfect for me. “I understand her trauma a little, Angel. For a long time, I was afraid Fitz would be forced to choose and he’d have to let go of me for his duties.”

“As if,” she snorts. I grin, my cheeks flushing as we walk into the chaos of the Captain’s crew working in the main area of the suite. “Fitzy would never , Chessie. His heart is too big and his love too ferocious. Plus, he hates being told what to do.”

“Noooooot truuuuuuuue,” my mate sing-songs as he rushes over to scoop her up, smacking her ass as she drapes over his shoulder. “I love when you order me around, Baby Girl. My dick’s hard just thinking about it.”

“Fitz, your dick gets hard thinking about garlic bread,” Felix retorts from his spot at the counter.

The tiger shrugs, carrying our girl into the kitchen. “I can’t resist the cheesy goodness and tangy flavor, man. Food gets our bunny going, too, you know. Give her a hard time.”

“I’d be delighted,” Felix mutters and I burst out laughing.

Fuck, it’s good to see him so unbuttoned and relaxed again.

“Felix, tell him to put me down,” Dolly grumbles as she wiggles. “We have lists to make.”

I blink, grinning brightly as I hold up a finger. “No boards for a couple days, but I have notebooks. Back in a flash.”

They’re chuckling as I sprint to my room and dig out an unused notebook, labeling it ‘Academie’ in Sharpie. Finding a good pen, I ponder what else I’ll need, but decide I can’t get fancy with all the shit going on in our room right now. I head back to the kitchen, sitting next to the Raj and looking up at them.

“I’m ready. Let’s get organized.”

Aubrey comes out of the door to the library annex with Renard at exactly the right moment, arching his brow as he sees us. “Someone forget to summon us?”

I shake my head as I pull my hair back into a topknot. “Not at all. I just brought our girl back from Cori’s and she wanted to sit down before it gets busy. I was going to text you shortly.”

Renard slinks over and hops on the counter, looking disgruntled that he can’t lounge in the chairs because of the work being done. “Good idea, petite . We should write everything we need to do as we think of it so Chess is able to create our workspace when all his things arrive”

“Now that we’re all here…” Felix drawls in amusement. “We should get started.”

“Fitz.” Dolly thumps his back and he finally lets her down. She hops on the counter, sitting opposite Ren as she swings her feet. “So, when I was letting Cori hash out her pain, I thought about how it was lucky that Rufus’ guys are legit.”

“I picked them out,” Fitz crows, then frowns. “Wait.”

My angel nods, tapping her nose. “That’s exactly the conclusion I came to, baby. You also picked Giselle out of your classes, and she was new to the program but very skilled.”

“A plant,” Aubrey says with a grimace. “We missed it entirely because of all the chaos at the time.”

Covering my face with my palms, I scrub them over my features before picking up my pen again. I feel terrible that the cheery polar bear got hurt because we missed a step. Fitz will be off-the-chain that he was used, and I don’t blame him. “She was so happy after the first date that we didn’t vet her.”

“That’s a mistake we will not make again, eh, mes amis ?” Renard says firmly. “No one new comes into our sphere, or the spheres of our friends, without being vetted down to their colonoscopies.”

Dolly snickers, but sobers quickly. “Agreed. That includes the crew, my friends, Coach Z, Farley and his gang, Luc… anyone who is close enough to us to matter. I don’t want to be responsible for broken hearts anymore.”

“When I find out who sent her or who bribed her parents… or whatever… ” Fitz’s eyes flicker with his tiger and I know he’s imagining doing things that would turn the stomach of most preds. “There won’t be enough of them left to identify.”

Felix gives him a nod. “And you will have your revenge, brother, but for now, we keep a low profile. You know we didn’t find shit about us in our cousin’s love shack and that means they expected us to toss it.”

“Nothing? Damnit,” Dolly pouts, kicking her heels against the counter in frustration. “I thought you said he’s an idiot.”

Fitz laughs, putting his hands on her thighs. “He is, Baby Girl. That means someone is running the show that’s not an idiot and they have a tight grip on his leash.”

I frown as I scribble notes about this. “How are we going to catch Asani if he’s not behaving as we expect him to?”

Felix grins, and this time, it’s full of sharp teeth. “I said we didn’t find anything pertaining to us or our girl. But we didn’t find nothing. He’s still pulling shady shit with our father’s accounts and messing around with preds he shouldn’t. That evidence we snapped pictures of for later, but until we know what his game is here, we can’t use it.”

“I hate this crap,” my angel says with a huff. “I know we have to be careful and smart, but I also just want to kill them like Fitz suggested, too.”

Talk about bringing out the animal in each other… it’s adorable .

“So what do we need to do so we’re protected right off the bat, guys? That’s the main concern for us to handle while D gets settled in her classes,” I say, hoping to change the topic to one less charged with emotion.

Renard tilts his head, thinking for a moment, then holds up a finger. “Doorways and security. Theirs sucks and I’d like Fitzgerald to program our chips.”

I write that down, glad he thought of it. It didn’t even occur to me when I swiped us in the door earlier. “Okay, what else?”

“Deep background on that little shit who hurt Coco-cabana. I can’t focus unless I can plan my vengeance for that.”

Dolly smiles brightly, throwing her arms around his neck and squeezing. “Thank you for loving her as much as I do.”

Fitz actually blushes and it gets a laugh out of us all. “Your people are my people, Baby Girl. Forever.”

His twin clears his throat, looking at the clock. “Keep going. It’s getting late and we have an early morning.”

Remembering my earlier thought, I look at my mate. “Fitzy, we need you to make an app or something. We need to be able to get into all the security systems here, obvious and hidden, to know when it’s safe to talk or do shit. Also, we need to know if people are watching or listening in places we wouldn’t expect. Can you handle that while the background is running?”

He beams, making flirty eyes at me. “Anything for you, Chessie. Plus, I don’t want anyone seeing our girl in places they shouldn’t without losing their eyeballs.”

“Agreed,” the dragon snarls and the bunny in question hops off the counter to walk over and melt against him. “Snack size, that’s cheating.”

He doesn’t let her go, though. I grin to myself and make notes about the proposed app, then look up at Felix. “What else? ”

“We need to find out about the stony man’s feeling as we drove in,” Fitz says. “He said something about treason and we didn’t push him on it.”

The gargoyle’s tail whips out immediately and whips back and forth like an angry cat. “We don’t need to find out what they are—I know what they are, just not why they are here. Or who is allowing them to stay in the area.”

Our girl pulls out of the dragon’s arms, heading over to the agitated emo boy and looks up at him. “Rennie. Don’t pout and be angry with us. It’s clear this triggers you and if we don’t know why, we can’t help.”

His voice is soft as he looks into her eyes. “Finding out the Fae are back is bad enough. But… I wasn’t ready to come to our new home and scent vampires. They were supposed to be wiped out. Totally gone and dusted.”

I’m sorry, what?

No one speaks for a moment and finally, the shock wears off so I can speak. “ Vampires ?”

“No way, rock man. They’re not real, dude.” Fitz crosses him arms over his chest and gives him a skeptical expression.

“Not true,” Aubrey says quietly. “Again, we are far older than you, and we did not recieve the biased education given to shifters after the Treaty.”

“Just fucking awesome,” Dolly mutters as she tip her head back and looks at the ceiling in supplication. “How the hell did I piss off some supposedly extinct or non-existent supernatural this time?”

Renard shakes his head. “I don’t know that they’re here for you, but they are dangerous, unpredictable, and illegal to create or give refuge to. ”

The Raj scratches his chin, looking thoughtful. “Perhaps they were never extinct, much like the Fae were never fully contained in Faerie. Maybe they, too, went underground until the right moment dropped in their laps.”

“Which means they’re likely in cahoots with the winged rebels,” Aubrey grumbles. “The two species make a very formidable team, especially if they’re true allies, not just… convenient ones.”

My angel stomps her foot looking at the ancient shifters with a pissed off expression. “Anything else you two want to share about things that go bump in the night and might pop up out of nowhere?”

They look at one another and shrug. Finally, Aubrey sighs as he shifts uncomfortably. “Since two beings we never expected to see again have appeared, I suppose it puts nearly anything on the table. There could be all manner of supernaturals thought to be gone that were hiding with the sparkly magic users. It’s too numerous to list.”

She lets out a shriek of fury, and I grin as her claws, ears, and tail pop free. “This is such bullshit . How am I supposed to get an education or you know, fuck my goddamn boyfriends, when the entire cast of Supernatural is after me?”

“Baby Girl…” Fitz’s grin doesn’t make her any less pissy, but she lets him grab her and wrap his arms around her. “It doesn’t matter if we’re trapped in a fucked up Scooby-Doo or even some fantasy show the Pouty Poet would love. We’ll help protect you and we’ll definitely fuck the shit out of you regardless.”

“Seconded,” the dragon rumbles as he shrugs. “I’m not afraid of creatures that can be killed with a pointy stick.”

Ren rolls his eyes at his mate, his tail flicking again. “Flames, you know that’s not how you kill them if you want them to stay dead.”

“Don’t be pedantic, Rennie, I?—”

“Gentleman.” Felix rises, giving us all a ‘I’m in charge’ look as as he runs his hand through his hair. “Squabbling and coddling doesn’t fix the underlying issue. This vampire bullshit is another thing on our plate until we know differently, so Princess is right to be frustrated. We have too many things on our theoretical boards and some of it needs to go.”

“Exactly,” Dolly says as she looks up from Fitz’s neck. “Lucille aced out Bruno, which helps, but now he’s been replaced by stupid bloodsuckers. I can’t win for losing.”

I hate to admit it, but she’s right.