Page 18 of Eat. Prey. Love. (Apex Academy Capers #5)

While being in one of my many homelands is quite pleasant, I’m struggling not to take to the skies to hunt down the bloodsuckers lurking somewhere on the campus. They are not students—the Council would never allow it—that doesn’t change the fact that anyone old enough to remember their kind has to know they are here. When I was a child, they were prevalent as no one restricted their access to the humans and their numbers grew exponentially in some areas of the world. Vampires kept to themselves other than feeding and their businesses—all geared toward the darker aspects of the psyche.

Supes may run sex clubs, gambling halls, and have their own mercenary groups, but it used to be the shadows where the fanged assholes thrived.

I’m not opposed to any of those things on principle; they all have their uses. But vampires see everyone as a potential meal, a recruit, or a target. They have a black and white view of the world and the powers to back up their claims. Since they disappeared with the Fae, information about them has disappeared from curriculum and family teachings. That means every student and staff member here is in danger with no knowledge of how to protect themselves.

“Such short-sighted morons in our leadership,” I sigh as I rifle through the texts in the oldest part of my mate’s library. “Hiding the past as if it will never come back to haunt them.”

“Who are you talking to?”

My frown turns to a smile as the grumpy dragon returns from his lunch break. Jinx is following him and when he gets closer, I scent our girl on him. “Who were you talking to is the better question, mon amour .”

He gives me a rakish grin, running his hand through the shaggy locks he seems to be growing out like everyone else. I’ve never seen my dragon with hair this unkempt in our many years together, but it looks good. “Snack size dropped in for lunch just as I went up to forage for a bite. She gave me a run-down of her professors so far.”

“Mmm,” I reply as I flick through another folder full of documents. “Was it as bad as we feared?”

The heat of his body hits me as he joins me at the table. Aubrey runs warm because of his fire, so we all adapt to the lower temperatures needed to keep every room from being an oven. It’s not a trial since many shifters run hot anyway, but he’s on another level. Turning to face him, I wait for the information patiently as he compiles it in his mind .

“She said most of them ranged from downright rude to standoff-ish. There were two more sessions left on her day, but the last one is with Zhenga. They’ve patched up their differences since the sex ed bullshit, so that should be fine.” The dragon frowns, grabbing my hand to pause my progress. “What’s that map? Something about it looks different than the one we have.”

I roll my eyes at him. “Other than the fact that it’s like a hundred years old?”

“Yes, smart mouth,” he replies as he squeezes my wrist. “Topography… I caught it out of the corner of my eye as you were flipping through. I’m not sure, but pull the damn thing out and let’s look.”

Despite needing glasses when he’s not in dragon form, Aubrey’s eye for detail is immaculate—when he gives a shit.

Pulling the delicate map out of the pile carefully, I spread it out on the table still in the protective covering. If I don’t open it, we won’t have to get out all his archivist shit. I enjoy having a bit of roleplay with the nerdy librarian at times, but having to take a thousand steps to view something is tedious. I’m surprised Dolly can bear it, except that she seems to have infinite patience for all of our hyper-fixations.

“See that?” Aubrey points to a section of the map beyond the main campus. “This isn’t on our maps; they’re designed to only show the main area. But I think this forest, these mountains, the graveyard, and this other lake are all part of the campus. They’d only stop making additions to avoid those places if there was no reason.”

I frown, looking at the map, then tapping my lips to think about it. “We need to check property records to make certain they belong to Academie . If so, I fear you may be correct. All of those locations would be good for hiding things like secret vaults or vampires or whatever the fuck else they have up their sleeves.”

Aubrey groans, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. “You want the Smackbook. ”

“I do, mon amour . I don’t know why you pretend to be so allergic to technology when you love what it can do for you.”

He pushes back from the table, not answering as he huffs off to grab the laptop. I shake my head fondly as I go back to studying the sections of the map that we’ve identified. Much like the ritual space and vaults at Apex, they comprise the borders of the school. At Cappie, the secret shit was right underneath—though that could be because of their location and proximity to the tunnels in the Capital. I wish we’d gotten to explore that part of the city while we were living there, but we simply did not have the time.

Fucking Fae and asshole Council ruined a lovely tour through history; I’ll suggest we go back when this is over.

“ Merde ,’ I whisper to myself. “I cannot allow Dolly to miss the sights and rich beauty of Paris while we’re here. Shadowy enemies be damned, we will visit the city I adore before we leave.”

An idea forms and I grin broadly as the picture weaves in my head. I know exactly how to make sure that doesn’t happen—I’ll ask her on a date. We can go to the city and see the sights together on a starry night, as it should be experienced. None of us were able to take Dolly off campus last year and I think this is the perfect time to remedy that.

“Why are you smiling like a Cheshire Cat?” my mate says as he lumbers back in the room with his poor laptop. “No pranks in my library, Renard Laveaux.”

“I wouldn’t dare, Flames.” Crossing my finger over my heart, I give him a solemn look. “At least, not in the archive room. I’m not Fitzgerald.”

That distracts him as he hands me the computer while ranting about the tiger’s ass and balls being rubbed all over his clean room at Apex. I knew it would, and as I click through the web to find where we can access property ownership rolls, my mind wanders to a perfect date set-up. It will have to be a long weekend, perhaps, or maybe the spring break time so we aren’t constrained by activities so much.

“Rennie… Rennie…”

Whoops.

“Oui ?” I ask innocently as I tune back into him. “I’m waiting for results.”

“They appear to be ready,” he replies, his brow arching as he studies me. “Though you were a million miles away for a moment.”

Sighing, I click the link to pull up the map surveys of the area. “Fine. I had the brilliant idea to take ma petite on a date to Paris. It’s one of my homes, and I’d love to see her experience it. Plus, none of us got to do a lot of wooing last year, and she deserves more than underground fights and vault thieving.”

He ponders for a moment, then gives me a stern look. “Dolly enjoyed the hell out of her date to the fights with Felix, I believe. She also liked visiting my horde nearby, but I agree that we were limited in our ability to do such things once we were locked down. I think Fitz and Chess were disappointed as well. You should continue your plan, love. Your romantic aspirations will certainly appeal to her soft side.”

“You’re not mad?”

“Of course not. I want to take her on a hunt with us again, as that is our little thing together. I’m sure Chess and Fitz will have plans for her together and separately. Even the grumpy Raj might plot activities with everyone and privately. Our mate is always excited to do anything with any of us—even when it’s Felix’s blasted cardio runs.”

I chuckle softly. She hates to run, but she goes with the surly tiger without much more than a few snarky barbs. “You’re right, Flames. I was being silly by hiding it. Your input was valuable last time, if I remember correctly. ”

Aubrey beams and bumps my shoulder with his. “Now get to work. The map is almost downloaded.”

The WiFi speed in this part of the library is almost untenable since it’s underground, so I tap my fingers on the table as we wait for the last bit to hit our screen. When the map is revealed, I zoom in, checking the property lines and the borders carefully. Aubrey was correct—while the current maps don’t list those areas as part of campus, they definitely belong to the school.

“Ten dollars says the fucking vampires are hiding in the?—”

“Graveyard?” he smirks.

I roll my eyes at him. “No, don’t be ridiculous. That’s a human myth. Why the hell would they stay in the dirt? They’re probably living on the lake edge. They don’t like water, but there’s ample room for structures on the far side, and they could build cool underground caves for their newly turned childer to cross over in.”

The dragon scratches his chin. “They don’t have sun issues once they’ve been turned for over a century, right?”

“Right, but they need places for the younger ones to hunker down until they age out. Depending on how large the horde is, they’ll have normal looking houses where smaller sub-groups live together above ground.”

“I’d think the forest is better for that,” he says as he grabs the mouse and pans the map. “It’s very dense, by the look of the drawings.”

Swallowing hard, I shake my head. “It’s not them I worry about inhabiting the forest, mon ami. ”

“Fucking Fae and their ilk,” he snarls as he pushes back from the table. “That’s who you think will hide there.”

“Indeed. If they truly are larger in number and hiding all over the world, this would be a perfect place to infest to spy on our bunny.” Squinting, I look at the massive amount of trees that stretches for miles. “And since it’s so damn large, we’ll have a shit time trying to pin point where they all are.”

“Goddamn, I hate this. Dolly has enough to do to catch up here without worrying about rebel Fae or hungry vampires.” Aubrey scrubs his hand down his face, looking annoyed and exhausted at the same time.

He’s right, but we don’t have an option.

“If we hunt down the bloodsuckers and they’re benign, we can cross them off.” My eyes close and I imagine Chess’ list. “The ex boyfriend and most of her ex-bullies are done, thanks to the Fae kidnappers. We’ve got Farley helping with the corpse licker. The tigers are laser focused on the crooked staff.” I tick things off my fingers, trying to re-group.

“Her bitch mother took her asshole father off the board permanently.”

I growl softly. “That one was both helpful and irritating at the same time. I think we all wanted a piece of the brutish croc.”

“Agreed. Though, he was nothing in terms of enemies. Her mother is the real problem.” There’s a slight pause as my mate thinks about his words before he says them. “Will we have to deal with your clutch here?”

I shake my head. “No. The last nests were in Bavaria. Notre Dame was rebuilt, but I cannot imagine the clutch returning to Paris even if it’s just as magnificent as it’s predecessor.”

“You’re certain?”

I nod. “I am, Flames. The gargoyles love the mountains and their home there. They would not return here, and definitely not without a word, even if I am exiled.”

At least, I fucking hope they wouldn’t.