Page 70 of Let Us Prey
I’m still limber from my earlier class, and this is way better than tap, which has never been my favorite. I kick off my shoes, giving them both a mischievous look as I wiggle to the beat. Rufus claps, shaking his hips obscenely, and Cori joins us with some impressive booty shaking. The beat is electric, and we take turns singing the lyrics as we dance around the stage like crazies.
Rufus smirks as he pulls off a ridiculous breakdancing move, and I hoot as he flips and turns. To my surprise, Cori waits for him to finish and starts a 2-step hip hop routine that he follows along with easily. I should have known they’d be decent dancers, given that theater folk have to learn damn near every art form to be successful. They finish with a high five as the song changes to ‘Good Girls Go Bad’—a favorite of mine—and gesture at me to take center stage.
I’m definitely not used to doing this in front of anyone beside my reflection in the mirror, but I wait for the bridge before starting a series offouettesacross the stages. Ballet is what I’m most comfortable doing, because Lucille allowed me to take those lessons, along with ballroom. The break hits as I stop at upstage left, and I wink at my friends as they holler and whistle. Their encouragement makes me feel brave. Since they’re the only other shifters here, I raise my hands, do a short run to gain speed, and bust out my cartwheels and handsprings. When I land just shy of the lip of the stage, I turn towards them with a shit-eating grin, only to find them gaping at me like landed trout.
This is awkward.
“What?” I shrug, cringing as I worry my rickety gymnastics looked stupid.
“Dolly, that was amazing! If you can do stuff like that, we can pick something cool as hell, likeNewsies!”Cori gushes, as she claps her hands in excitement.
Rufus is oddly serious, tilting his head at me thoughtfully. “Do it again. Flip that ass back this way, Dollypop.”
Wrinkling my nose, I give him a confused look. “Why?”
“I just wanna see it again. Can you do the splits at the end?”
He crosses his arms over his chest as if he’s challenging me, and I feel my bunny rearing her head, as if to say ‘how dare you?’ That’s interesting. Ever since I’ve been working on mindfully harnessing my animal in Shifter Studies, I’ve noticed she gets her back up when she senses anything that could be interpreted as a threat. Is there such a thing as analphaprey animal?
Hell if I know, but I’m thinking I might be one.
Taking a deep breath, I channel all the energetic fury she’s stirring up and funnel it into the lead-up run. My palms hit the wood as I execute the first cartwheel, each subsequent flip and twist getting more complex. The last move I do before I run out of stage is a back handspring, and as my feet hit the floor, I let the front one slide out until I’m in a full split.
Holy Shit, I did it!
Not bad for a self-taught klutzy bunny, eh? Lucille has always sworn that I was so clumsy as a child that they thought I had a balance problem, but here I am doing my best impression of Simian Biles and everyone is clapping and cheering!
Wait a minute. Everyone?
I squint at my friends in puzzlement when I hear an echo of their applause coming from behind me in the theater. Rufus just does a little shimmy, clearly pleased with himself.
“Lo, that was incredible! What are you wearing?”
My eyes widen as I turn to find Nico standing at the edge of the stage with a box of sewing supplies for the costumes at his feet. Cori’s requested order must have arrived and now he… Oh, dear. I’m never going to live this down. I give him a sheepish smile as I wiggle my fingers in an awkward wave. “Oh, um, hi, Ni…Professor.We were uh… just dancing. You know, to uh… burn off energy.”
Cori snorts and I whip my head around to glare at her, finding her studying her fingernails as if they hold the answers to the universe. The bitchy honey badger keeps grinning like theJoker,clearly enjoying the show. Great. Neither of them are going to lift a finger to get me out of the messtheycreated!
“This exercise requiredthatoutfit?” Nico quirks a brow, his lips curving. My nose twitches as I pick up on pheromones I’ve never noticed before, and I realize the pred trapped inside him must be trying to claw its way to the surface.
Why is that so hot?
I shoot him a bratty look, crossing my arms over my chest in a way I know accentuates my boobs. “I’m wearing the required uniform for dance, which was my last block, and the schedule here doesn’t exactly allow for much time between classes. We were making costumes until we took a dance break, so it’s a good thing I didn't change.”
The struggle in his expression is real as I pop my hip out, and I almost giggle, enjoying the effect I have over him. We stare at each other in tense silence until Rufus finally hops off the stage, strutting to our professor and grabbing the box from him.
“Thanks, teach. This will help us continue to work on costumes, while taking sexy dance breaks,” Rufus bats his lashes and waves his hand. “Now shoo, so we can work on thesurprise.Go on now. Ogle yourgirlfriendafter class.”
My mouth drops open, and Nico pales before he nods and turns on his heel like he’s running from a plague of locusts. As he disappears, I hiss at the badger. “What was the point of that?”
Rufus drops to the stage and starts tearing open the box as he cackles like a madman. Cori sighs and joins him, giving me a ‘sorry, not sorry’ look. As much as I want to be mad at my friends—or possibly kill them slowly—I realize they may have just done me a favor by moving things along.
I guess I’ll let them live.
FORTY
Wicked Games
Renard
