Lili St. Crow - Jealousy

They looked at me funny, too. As if I was a mythological creature they couldn’t quite place. I would glance up from my food, away from Kir or away from whoever had asked me a question, and see one of them frankly staring at me. Which made the food kind of turn to a wad of chewable cardboard in my mouth and made me wonder if I had something on my face. It would be just like me to have a bit of egg stuck on my chin while talking to a bunch of bigwigs.

“Then we got here,” I finished lamely. “And after a little bit of confusion, Benjamin and his crew showed up and took me to the room. They say they’re my bodyguards.”

“Calstead and his protégés,” Bruce said. “He’s one of our finest youngbloods. Until you know enough to choose your own Guard, it’s probably best. And the loup-garou , too—Graves?”

“Edgar Hideaki Graves.” Hiro set his fork down with a precise little click. “A finer juvenile delinquent I’m sure we cannot find.”

I half-choked on a mouthful of very cold orange juice. I almost gave myself a nasal with it, too. Whoa, wait a sec. “Edgar?” I all but squeaked.

“So his file says.” Bruce nodded. “He was bitten by the Silver-head?”

“Yeah, Ash bit him.” They hadn’t said anything about Ash. They had to know he was bottled up in the room downstairs. But I wasn’t going to bring it up and maybe have them decide he was better off locked up somewhere I couldn’t get to him.

I felt . . . responsible.

“The loup-garou has a Record.” You could just hear the capital letter in Hiro’s tone. “Normally he would be at a . . . satellite Schola, even with the happy accident of half-imprinting.”

“All the benefits, few of the drawbacks. And less hair.” Marcus leaned back in his chair. I didn’t see how he could lounge in something so hard and uncomfortable, but he managed it. “He’s a fortunate one.”

There it is again. Something crystallized inside my head.

There were no wulfen in this room. Here I was full of breakfast, and Graves was waiting outside, probably hungry. These were the heads of the Order, and there wasn’t a single wulfen in here. It was always djamphir in control and snarky comments about the wulfen. Talking about how lucky Graves was because he didn’t get all furry.

Gran raised me in Appalachia, and Dad and I stayed below the Mason-Dixon most of the time. I know the word for behavior like this, and I’ve seen it all over. It’s never pretty. Maybe I’m lucky, since moving around so much showed me people are the same everywhere. Still, there’s something ugly down South. When you aren’t sure you’re at the top of the food chain, it doesn’t make sense to make everyone below you on that chain suffer—but people do it anyway, and they do it all the time. Because it makes them feel bigger, more secure.

I was just about to say something—I don’t even know what, maybe something like, He’s a person too, you know —when the mahogany doors swung open. A flash of crimson silk, a long fall of curly reddish hair, and high-heeled boots with buttons marching up their front all came to a halt. Just like a cat will see you looking at it and stop dead, one paw in the air.

Did I just imagine it? I was exhausted and running on nerves, but I swear to God I saw a flash of something nasty far back in the other svetocha ’s eyes.

Sometimes you meet a girl and it’s like matter and antimatter. You just hate each other for no damn reason. I already knew I didn’t like her. Besides, she hated Christophe.

Why did I care so much about that?

Anna lifted her pointed chin, and her blue eyes widened just the tiniest bit. She was in a different red silk dress than the one I’d seen last time, something with a full skirt and a bodice that was just short of indecent. A cameo on a thin gold chain rested in the hollow of her slim white throat, and long delicate golden teardrop earrings trembled as she halted. And, God help me, she actually chirped at the roomful of boy djamphir . “Well! Late again, but I see you’ve started without me.”

“You’re safe.” Bruce didn’t sound surprised. “We worried needlessly.”

A taffy-stretching silence ticked by. Kir’s chair scraped against the floor as he stood slowly, and the rest of them followed suit. I stayed where I was.

I stayed because my knees had gone mooshy, and the muffled beat of feathered wings filled my ears like a heartbeat. Cold little prickling fingers skittered over my skin, and I was suddenly very sure something was Not Right. A draft of warm perfume dipped in spice marched down the table toward me.

Why did she smell like that? And Christophe, why did he smell like a warm apple pie?

The scalding flush that poured through me at the thought of Christophe being here met the icy consciousness of danger, and they both fought over me. I began to wish I hadn’t drunk so much coffee. Why is it that the only thing you can think of when you’re terrified is how much you need to pee?

Maybe that’s just me, though.

“I was en vacances ; you know how I lose track of time. Perfectly safe, with my boys watching over me. And it’s Dru!” She sounded oh-so-happy to see me, a candy-coated voice and a wide dimpled smile. “When did you come in? I’m glad they didn’t keep you at that second-rate Schola for very long.”

They? Who was she talking about, they ? The guys in this room, who didn’t seem to have any clue about where I’d been or what I’d been doing?

The standing djamphir were completely motionless, but I could feel the tension running through them. Hiro’s fingertips rested on the tabletop, half an inch away from his silver fork. I had a sudden Technicolor vision of him picking up the fork and launching himself at Anna. Blood spurting, screaming, the fork making a popping sound as it buried itself in one pretty blue eye.

I sucked in a small breath. Hiro’s head moved the slightest fraction, and I was suddenly very sure he was keeping track of me in his peripheral vision.

Maybe it’s me he wants to stick a fork in. My mouth started working again. When in doubt, say something flip. “I got in a couple days ago. It was fun.”

“Fun?” She raised one exquisitely arched eyebrow, the open door yawning behind her. The fire in the study room popped once. She looked like a storybook illustration, and I wished I could sink back into the chair. My face felt greasy and I could still taste bacon.

It was official. I disliked her. She probably felt the same way. But she was older, right? She wouldn’t act like a teenager, would she?

But I couldn’t stop myself.

“Yeah, fun. A real blast.” My right hand rested on my knee under the table. I stopped it from creeping up to touch the reassuring bulge of the switchblade with an effort of will that threatened to make me sweat. “I almost got burned alive. There was a car chase, too. If it wasn’t for Christophe I’d’ve been dead.”

“Christophe? Reynard ?” Her candy-pink-glossed mouth turned down a little. To give her credit, she didn’t look in the least surprised. “Really.”

“Really.” Flat and unapologetic, as if she’d just insulted me.

“I’ll expect your debriefing, then.” A sparkle in those narrowed baby blues. Like a cheerleader taunting a nerd.

Even if she was older, she was cut from the same cloth. There’s only one reason someone like that is even civil to someone like me.

It’s either because they’re setting you up for something, or they want something.

A nasty supposition rose like bad gas in a mine shaft, up from the very bottom of my mind. I stared at her, wishing I could shut out all the tension and awkwardness in the room and just think for a bit.