Hunted

Neferet’s freaky anti-cloaking lecture, I settled for being happy that Dragon agreed I looked too tired to do more than sit and watch class.
    Actually I wasn’t feeling bad at all, and when I fished my mirror out of my purse to put on the lip gloss I was relieved I hadn’t lost, I didn’t think I looked that bad, either. So Dragon’s allowing me to sit out of class, coupled with the fact that his cat had been one of those that had shown up in my room like a furry clue, had me keeping a close eye on our fencing professor.
    At first glance Dragon appears to be another of my grandma’s conundrums. First of all, he’s short. Second, he’s cute. Really cute. As in the guy you’d pick to be a stay-at-home dad who baked cookies and could even hem his daughter’s skirt in an emergency. In a world where male vampyres were warriors and protectors, a short, cute guy wouldn’t normally get much attention. But his whole persona changed when he picked up his sword, or, as he’d correct me, his foil. Then he turned lethal. His features hardened. He didn’t grow taller, that would just be silly (as well as impossible), but he didn't need to be taller. He was literally so fast that his foil seemed to glide and glow with a power all its own.
    I watched Dragon drill the class in fencing exercises. The fledglings didn’t seem so podlike in fencing class. But that was probably because it dealt with physical activity, not mental stuff. I paid closer attention and noticed that, even though the class was completing the physical motions, there was no easy banter or harmless teasing going on. Everyone was on task, which was weird as hell. I mean, let’s face it. Keeping a gym filled with teenagers who had sharp things in their hands totally on task is nearly impossible.
    I was frowning at a group of guys who would normally have been getting at least a couple of reprimands from Dragon, along with reminders to pay attention and not act like idiots (at the House of Night professors can call kids idiots when they act like idiots because the idiot children can’t run home to their mommies and cry about it; hence there is a lot less idiot behavior at the House of Night than at most public schools), when Dragon stepped between me and my line of vision. I blinked and refocused on him.
    Slowly and distinctly he winked at me before turning back to the class.
    About then his huge Maine Coon padded up to sit beside me and lick one of his monstrous paws.
    “Hey there, Shadowfax.” I scratched his head and felt more hopeful than I had since the Raven Mocker had almost killed me.

    Even though school had turned into a nightmare and danger was all around us, lunch felt like an oasis of familiarity. I loaded up on my personal favorite, spaghetti and brown pop, and joined Damien and the Twins at our booth.
    “Well, what did you guys find out?” I whispered between big bites of pasta with marinara and cheese.
    “You look way better,” Damien said, his voice definitely not a whisper.
    “I feel better,” I said, giving him a WTF look.
    “I’m thinking we really need to go over the new vocab for the lit test next week,” Damien said loudly, opening his ever-ready notebook and taking out a number two pencil.
    The Twins groaned. I frowned at him. Had he gone pod on us?
    “Yeah, just because stuff is changing around here, it doesn’t mean you can let your grades slide,” he said.
    “Damien, you are a pain in the ass,” Shaunee said.
    “Worse. You are a damn pain in the ass with your stupid vocab shit, and I—”
    Damien slid the notebook around so that we could read what he’d written below the list of vocab words.
    R.M. @ all the windows. Their hearing is excellent .
    The Twins and I shared a quick glance, then I sighed and said, “Fine, Damien. Whatever. We’ll study the stupid vocab with you. But I agree with the Twins that you’re a pain.”
    “All right. Let’s start with ‘loquacious.’ ” He pointed his pencil at the word.
    Shaunee shrugged. “Isn’t that something out of Star Trek ?”
    “Sounds right to me,” Erin said.
    Damien gave them a look of disgust I knew he didn’t have to act to put on. “No, simpletons, this is what it means.” He wrote: Dragon is on our side. “So, Erin, why don’t you try the next word, ‘voluptuous’?”
    “Oooh, I know what that one means,” Shaunee said, grabbing Damien’s pencil before he could pass it to Erin. Beside ‘voluptuous’ she quickly wrote: me! Then,