Page 22 of Quiet Burn

Fuck. He’s so goddamn pissed.

“Mr. Draven, would you like to start us off?”

My eyes widen as Jasper calls myfull nameand asks me to guess what the hell he might be starting this lecture with. I have no idea and I was already fighting my kitsune as it is. Damn him; he’s taking whatever happened before class out on me. “Uh...”

“If it’s like where I come from, I’d guess rocks were the first projectiles. He’s not dumb,” Kit says in a sarcastic tone. “Humans aren’t as old as you guys, but I can’t imagine Hell has a shortage of them.”

“Oh, shit,” Oriel breathes. “Now you’ve done it.”

The Prince’s eyes flash with his dragon and I tug my tails tighter. Kit just threw himself in front of the bullet for me without a second thought. Now I feel even worse about being a coward for the past week. Damn the guy is better than all of us—maybe even the best person we’ve ever met—and Jasper is going to raze him to the ground.

“Why are we discussing projectiles in lecture, anyway? It’s different from last week.”

Xerxes has entered the game... that’s unexpected.

Our brother is fuming at the front of the room, but even he realizes that X doesn’t often shout things out in class. A sarcastic aside or comment, maybe, but not something as outwardly aggressive as this. He lets out a long breath, obviously calming himself before he responds. “That may be correct, Xerxes, but the Headmaster has given every professor new lesson plans to discuss as we begin the ramp up to the Games. Despite not owing anyone an explanation of my curriculum, perhaps that will end this ridiculous conversation?”

“Sure as fuck will,” Kit mutters in a barely audible tone. “No wonder the stick up his ass has shifted so high.”

Every one of my caliphate tenses in place as we fight the urge to burst out laughing, even me. Kit is afraid of so much and nothing at all simultaneously. It’s fascinating—he’s perfectly willing to risk his ass to tell people off when they deserve it yet is so haunted by ghosts of his past. I guess none of us should be surprised he turned our entire group upside down. He’s as broken as we are but totally unconcerned about tearing through life with little abandon.

Are humans right about that therapy shit? Now I’m curious as fuck.

“Yeah, that helps, Professor,” Anton says loudly. He’s still futzing with his jacket, but his tone is steady and confident like normal. I’m always impressed by his ability to don a mask so effortlessly, and hopefully, it backs Jas off until after class.

“Fabulous,” Jasper says drily. “Now if everyone will shut the fuck up and pay attention to the screen, I won’t have to send you on laps of the Wastelands as punishment.”

A chorus of grumbles rises from the entire class, and Kit coughs over another barb.

It’s like he really can’t stop himself, and I’m kind of here for it—who knew?

Talk to Me

Kit/Kat

The rest of the class passes by like a turtle plodding along in a race with a rabbit. I do my best to keep my shit together and Jasper does his worst, occasionally mitigated by one of the guys preventing us from locking horns too badly. I got the insinuation that Lucian made him change his lesson plan from his careful retort, but that doesn’t excuse his shitty attitude. That dude needs to quit taking his frustrations out on the most convenient target. He’s a fucking adult, for Satan’s sake.

Slash meets us at the arena, studying the group for a moment before jerking his head to indicate I should follow him to Supernatural Law. It’s a short class—probably because it’s so dreadfully boring that Professor Holmes would struggle to keep us interested for longer than an hour. The man redefines the term ‘beige’ and it doesn’t help that his hybrid shifter species is a sloth.

I know this shit is important for someone like me, but man, I’ve almost pulled a ‘Salem’ twice now.

I follow the shark demon into the room, letting him pick our spot, and then settle in for whatever nonsense the professor has been redirected to teach. The Games is changing everything little by little, and even though I’d only been here a week before they were announced, it’s fucking with my Feng Shui.

If I can make it through this class without snoozing, it’ll be a miracle.

“Wake up, little demon.”

My eyes pop open at a rumble and I take in my surroundings in a mild panic. We’re in the Law classroom and if my fuzzy brain is correct, Holmes is winding up his lecture on—something I definitely slept through entirely. Lifting my head up, I turn bright red when I figure out I’ve been snoozing on Slash’s big shoulder.

Oh, shit, am I drooling?!

A quick swipe of my mouth relieves me when I find no strings of embarrassing moisture there. I blow out a quick sigh, then squint up at the big guy. “Why did you let me sleep like that? Didn’t he notice?”

“Psssh,” Slash scoffs as he shrugs. “Holmes is so blind; he wouldn’t notice if you walked up to him and bopped him on the nose, much less that you were sleeping in the back of the room. Didn’t you see how thick his glasses are?”

My lips curve a bit when the typically monosyllabic shifter blabs an entire string of words at me. I kinda like that he’s less reserved when it’s just us. “Okay, but why didn’t you wake me?”

“You wouldn’t fall asleep at six p.m. if you weren’t exhausted. The time change from up there to Hell can be rough for the new demons. Plus, you were injured two days ago.”

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