Page 122 of By the Orchid and the Owl
“Quinn?” Lander said. “What the hell are you doing here? What is this?”
Except he was still in his panther form, so Quinn couldn’t decipher or understand that snarl lashing out through his canines. She surveyed him uncertainly, confusion passing over what little I could see of her face.
Fergus tilted his head back and gave a lazy laugh to the canopy above us.
“This, Shifter, is simply payback. You weren’t there, so you can go if you’d like. But I’m glad the fat one joined.”
He gestured at Emelle, and rage curdled in my blood. It didn’t melt the coldness there, but bolstered it. Fed it. Like the only rage I’d ever know from now on wouldn’t be hot, but chillingly, achingly cold.
“Yeah,” Fergus continued, oblivious of the way I’d balled my hands into fists. “I’ll enjoy her screams almost as much as that one’s.” He jerked his chin at me.
“Screams?” At that word, Quinn had backed away—just a single step, but enough to make her stumble over the roots and ivy strangling her feet. “You didn’t say anything about screams, Fergus. You just said…”
“Yeah, whatdidthey say?” Lander growled,
Again, Quinn couldn’t understand him, but now her eyes seemed to swell with understanding. She took in his paws, his powerful legs, his snout and whiskers and bristled black coat… and the young woman straddling his torso.
“Lander,” she breathed.
This seemed to trigger something in Emelle—Lander’s name on Quinn’s lips.
“Is this still about the fire ants? By the orchid and the owl!” Emelle lifted her head to glare, not at Quinn, but at Jenia and Fergus and the Object Summoner. As if Quinn stood too far beneath her. “Payback? What a joke. We were simply defending our friend. You hurt us, we hurt you back, all’s fair and even. Let. It. Go.”
I’d never heard such authority in Emelle’s voice before, and a string of pride sprung from my chest even as that coldblooded rage tightened every other muscle in my body, preparing me for a fight that should have been here but wasn’t.
Jagaros. Jagaros… wasn’t even here. The butterflies had lied for Jenia.
And that realization—that insects wouldn’t talk to me except to lure me away, totrickme—made every one of my tightened muscles quiver. I wanted to run and swat at the stupid swarm still fluttering around Jenia’s figure and punch the greasy, smug smile off of Fergus’s face all at the same time.
“I came to the Institute,” Fergus said now, “expecting to… have a good time. My dad is on the Good Council, you see, has been since he graduated, so everyone expected me to follow in his footsteps. You know.” Another greasy smile; God of the Cosmos, why wasn’t Jenia cringing with revulsion at it? “Get pussy. Make friends. Pass my tests. Play some pentaball. That sort of thing.”
Pentaball. Coen would be in the throes of the game right now, focusing so hard on beating Kimber that he’d have no idea I was here, that I’d fallen prey to the stupidest trap imaginable—a trap I still couldn’t quite decipher.
What did theywantfrom us? To bow before them and let them hurt us without any kind of defense or retaliation? Seriously?
Fergus narrowed his gaze onto me.
“Because of what you did, Drey, I amnothaving a good time. I get pussy, alright—” A dark laugh and a nod at Jenia, whostill wasn’t cringing. “—but I’m not making friends or passing tests or playing pentaball, because everyone else finds melaughable.”
His smile had stayed lodged on his face, but now the corners of his mouth wobbled slightly, and his tone oozed fury and hatred cold enough to rival mine.
“You tarnished me,” he said simply. “You and your stupid Gileon Dunn friend tarnished me. So I will destroy you… and your pudgy little friend and kitty cat boy toy if they try to intervene. And then I will go get him.”
“You will not touch either one of them,” Lander hissed, his shackles raising. “You will let us turn around and walk away from here without lifting a single finger, or I will rip all of you into bloody pieces.”
Lander didn’t look at Quinn as he said this, but I could feel it—that he’d be willing, in his panther form, to hurt her ifshetried to hurt Emelle. And that was not quite the boy I’d grown up with, always reasonable, always gentle. It was something more aggressive, more territorial, but…
I needed that right now.Emelleneeded that right now. Especially since Fergus was stalking toward us, ever so slowly, on cat-quiet feet.
Even the foliage seemed to pause their thrums and hums as he passed over them.
“I don’t think youwillrip us all into bloody pieces,” Fergus told Lander. “Because if you make a single move against me,I’llmake the yeast in your body grow so fast, your little kitty form will explode before you can shift back. That, after all, would just be self-defense. The Good Council wouldn’t fault me for that.”
I expected Jenia to react at that. Or for the Summoning boy to react. For either one of them to demonstrate a hint of shock or revulsion at what Fergus was saying.
Neither of them did. The swirl of butterflies still obscured most of Jenia’s face, and the Object Summoner hadn’t even shifted from one foot to the other.
Only Quinn had gone pale, her red hair flaring against her shocked white face. She tugged on a strand of it like she always did when she was stressed.
